7 minute read
Distinguished Alumni: Art and Heather Enke
by Jacob L. Thomas
The key to success in business, according to Art and Heather Enke, revolves around an old industry maxim: business is about identifying and then solving problems. But that’s not the only thing—networking and innovation are also crucial. “You have to build products to meet customer needs,” Art notes, “not the other way around.”
The Enkes would know. Art and Heather are the founders and owners of Corjl, an international software business based in Phoenix, Arizona with over 20 employees and customers as far away as the Netherlands and South Africa. Both are Badgers (class of 1998), and both believe that their experiences at Snow College gave them the start they needed for a long career of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Art originally came to Snow College on a band scholarship, majoring in psychology. He played trumpet and fondly recalls sitting in the bleachers in the mid1990s, cheering on Badger athletes, especially the men’s basketball team. Originally from Orangeville, Utah—just over the mountains from Ephraim in Emery County— Art’s passion for business was kindled by a roommate. “He was interested in business,” Art recalls, “and got me thinking about it, too.”
Among his first steps toward this career was his creation of a Snow College student club based on Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which Art had been introduced to in a psychology class. The “7 Habits Club,” which eventually secured school funding, gave students the opportunity to come together and discuss how to apply the principles of the book to their future careers. “I still use those principles,” Art said. Not only that, but creating the club and hosting meetings gave him “the opportunity to test a platform,” which he has used again and again in his professional life.
Among the attendees of the 7 Habits Club was Heather Dunn, who came to Snow College from Colorado Springs, Colorado. She had an aunt who lived in Orem. During one visit to Utah, her aunt suggested that Heather look into Snow College, as she had some friends whose kids had gone there and had a great experience. The 17-year-old, who had graduated high school early, agreed to check out the Ephraim campus and was pleased with what she saw. “It was a lot smaller” than what she was used to in Colorado Springs, but the campus attracted her and she decided to attend.
They had their first conversation right by the iconic bell tower. They shared not only an interest in success habits, but also music. Where Art played the trumpet for the band, Heather played piano and sang in the choir. They even sang together in the choir for the Ephraim Institute of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a group that was then called the Latter-Day Singers, or “LD’S.” Their love further blossomed while taking a bowling class, and swimming and playing racquetball in the Activities Center.
Art and Heather loved their classes at Snow College, and some of the things they learned have stuck with them. Heather especially enjoyed her astronomy class, and she often refers to what she learned in microbiology with their kids—germ awareness, particularly. Art agrees. “We talk about things all the time we learned at Snow,” he says. “It’s very common that we talk about knowledge that we collected.”
Perhaps most importantly, Snow College's friendly environment helped Art learn how to network. “Everyone at Snow is approachable,” he says, and coming off his LDS mission in the Philippines, expanded his ability to talk to everyone. “My direct skill set from Snow was that I got used to talking to people.” That ability would pay off for the Enkes in the future.
The couple left Ephraim and Snow College and moved to Heather’s home state of Colorado, where Art transferred some of his Snow credits to attend a community college, and when finished there enrolled in a Business Administration program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. It was at CSU that he took advantage of the basic knowledge and networking skills he’d developed at Snow and began making connections in the business world. “Part of my education involved real-world research with local entrepreneurs,” he says, including some work with a well-known hat company. This hands-on experience was crucial, and gave him the ability to connect funders and entrepreneurs to jumpstart new businesses.
Art and Heather’s journey into entrepreneurship was marked by trial and error. Heather recalls, “We tried many different business ideas over the years, including selling teeth whitening products. And though they didn’t all succeed, each attempt taught us something valuable.” Art adds, “One of our biggest lessons was recognizing a real problem that needed solving and building a product for customers, not just for ourselves.”
That lesson paid off with their most important breakthrough in 2015 through Heather’s use of Etsy, a popular website for people to sell their own artistic creations. She noticed that it was difficult for customers to personalize party invitations and label designs. After purchase, they would download a file, which would then have to be transferred to a different format to be workable. The process was unfriendly and cumbersome, and Heather would have to spend hours trying to adjust everything for customization. “Surely there was someone out there who had made a product that would fix this,” she thought. “It turns out there wasn’t.”
This is where Art stepped in with his networking skills. After contacting a developer, the couple created Corjl (a play on the word “cordial,” meaning friendliness and courtesy), which launched in May 2018. The program is integrated as an app on Etsy. Sellers can upload their graphics, fonts, and designs onto Corjl, which are then listed on Etsy, and customers can easily make customizations. Since then, thousands of sellers and their online shops around the world have signed up to utilize the business, increasing productivity for the sellers and satisfaction for some 7 million customers.
Corjl software has empowered many entrepreneurs, particularly women, to generate income and manage their businesses more effectively. “Women are busy,” Heather says, “and wear a lot of hats. The internet in general has given women the opportunity to be creative.” Corjl has enabled women and all creators to help turn their ideas into reality.
But as any entrepreneur will tell you, even if you have created something new, there will soon be competitors. Heather notes, “You can never say, ‘We created a solution to the problem, so we’ve solved it and we’re good.’ No. There are always moving pieces.” The Enkes’ spirit of innovation has led them to further projects under the Corjl banner to help stay ahead of the “game,” as Heather calls it. Various companies have reached out for partnerships, including those with billions of dollars of revenue operating outside the online marketplace for handmade goods. Business is always a gamble, Art says, but effort and innovation are crucial for success.
The Enkes have one daughter and three sons. Their daughter attended Snow College, and returning to Ephraim to bring her to campus was a nostalgic experience for both. Many things are still the same—they made sure to grab a bite to eat at the Malt Shop—but the college campus has also grown in significant ways, adding the Graham Science Center and the Huntsman Library, to name just two. “It was like coming full circle,” Art says. “Ephraim still has the historic buildings, but there are a lot of new ones, too.”
As Snow College students, Art and Heather never pictured creating a software business together in later life. “I would have said that we’d be musicians together!” Art notes. “The theme of our marriage is to innovate. In business and in life, innovate.” Innovation is exactly what they have done, but always in the background in Snow College—the foundation for both their personal and professional lives.
