Utah Tech Spotlight Events

Review: IT home runs, Utah First Friday, and Speed Pitching

Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Dec 13

I was pleased to have the chance to attend several events here in the valley last week, and I wanted to take a few minutes and give you my review of them. My hope (especially with recurring events) is that this might be helpful for you in determining what local activities migh be worthwhile for you and your company.

IT Homeruns: There was an event on th Novell campus last week, that highlighted IT, and IT companies here in the valley. It appeared that the purposes for this event were two fold: 1 to educate people, and 2 to act as a recruiting tool. Now, I did not attend the entire event, but here is what It hought of what I did attend:

I caught a brief speech about Entice. Apparently this is a local company… but what they do or intend to do is completely shrouded in mystery… but they say will be huge. The presentation was entirely a recruitment tool. They touched on the fact that they give all employees free gym memberships, steak and salmon dinners, everyone gets a dual quad core computer with dual 24 inch monitors, and so on and so forth. I have to say… I might be jaded, but I was right in the heart of the bubble. I worked with Critical Path as the company bought everything that stood still long enough, fed everyone all of the time, had a massage therapist come into the office, and even had someone come and adjust the feng shui of the office once per week. This presentation seemed all too familiar to me. I will say again, however, that I have no idea what Entice does. If anyone from Entice reads this, and wants to blow my mind with what they do, then I look eagerly toward the chance to eat crow on this blog. Until then, I really don’t work at another company with an official “chill room.”

The rest of the event was great however (at least what I was there for.) I saw a great long-tail presentation by Phil Windley, and some really good Q&A with VC’s. Kudos to all who pull that together!

Speed Pitching: The IT Home runs event ended and rolled right into the speed pitching event by Funding Universe. The event was a bit smaller this time, with 6 presenters rather than 10, but I am guess that is because of the time constraints. You all know I love these events… but that aside, the real question is do they work? Well, I can say that several people I have personally heard present have gotten funding and follow-up meetings with investors from these events. Not only that, but I ahve heard incredible advice given out to these presenters. If I were looking for funding I would definitely present at one of these. The feedback is incredible, even if you don’t get funded from the specific event.

Utah First Friday: Okay, so I have not attended the Utah First Friday events for a while… It’s not because I think they are poorly done, it just comes down to who you are hoping to network with, or what you are looking to learn. UFF tends to get a good crowd (there were probably a couple of hundred people there.) But the crowd seems mainly made up of individuals, or very small businesses (a lot of SOHO) rather than small, mid, or large companies. If that fits what you are looking for, then these events are very well done. Otherwise, I would recommend the UTC or Corporate Alliance.

Final note: before I wrap up, I want to mention that Jason Alba, of Jibber Jobber (one heck of a bright person BTW) is making an effort to make everyone aware that Andy Sernovitz is coming to SLC on December 17th. Jason raves about Andy’s presentation, and Jason is one of those folks that if he tells me something is a don’t miss, I really believe him. Find out more about it here.