Empowering Southern Utah: Scale STG’s Mission to Grow $10 Billion in High-Growth Companies

Brad Plothow, Chief Growth Officer at Intergalactic, sees southern Utah the way most Utahns do—as one of the most unique and beautiful places on earth. He said it's no surprise that it's been discovered and become a place where people of means relocate. That, he said, is a testament to the area's greatness, which comes with the consequence of inverting the economy—the cost of living is rising without a sufficient industrial base to help longtime residents keep up. 

“We won't get enough wage growth by relying exclusively on legacy industries,” said Plothow. Any entrepreneur familiar with St. George surely agrees—Plothow is spot on.

Plothow is joining representatives from southern Utah-based technology companies to co-found Scale STG, a non-profit dedicated to building an ecosystem to found and grow $10 billion in “scalable” companies, providing high-paying jobs and broad-based economic benefits to southern Utah.

Scale STG will focus on developing the various aspects that help scalable companies grow and thrive. For starters, St. George needs to attract more capital—a key ingredient for starting and growing companies. Secondly, and this is critically important, is mentorship. “There’s a lot of great talent in southern Utah, especially a lot of retired executive talent, but St. George doesn’t have a cohesive way to get that talent involved and connected to the entrepreneur ecosystem,” pointed out Peter Fuller, founder of The Workflow Academy based in St. George. 

“I’m grateful to tourism, construction/real estate, Intermountain Healthcare, the school district, and other great local employers. However, I consistently hear from the residents of St. George that these employers alone are not enough to keep up with rising cost of living,” explained Fuller. “We need all local founders to come in and grow a community where we're sharing info, resources, help, mentorship, and to try and grow a new generation of founders to rise and build these companies,” he explained.

Scale STG is a 501(c)(6), not an economic development fund. It is an initiative by six powerhouse St. George-based companies including Intergalactic, Zonos, Vasion, Tech Ridge, TrulaCampus™, and The Workflow Academy. It is the collaborative and concentrated effort of like-minded individuals who decided to do something to fill the gaps in St. George’s entrepreneur ecosystem by putting their time and money into helping grow the next generation of southern Utah founders.

Building a new business ecosystem for Southern Utah 

Joshua Aikens, Community Affairs at Zonos, has been closely involved in St. George’s tech community since the early days. Aikens pointed out how before Silicon Slopes became the renowned tech hub it is today, Josh James of Omniture recognized the challenge of attracting talent and investment to the Salt Lake Valley—an issue a lagging St. George is facing today. 

To address this, James conceived the concept of "Silicon Slopes," linking Utah to the scalable tech ecosystem and innovation of Silicon Valley and creating a brand that eventually helped him sell Omniture to Adobe for $1.8 billion. Around the same time, tech communities were forming in various places like Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, and Boulder, Colorado. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Utah had its early successes with tech companies like WordPerfect and Novell, but there wasn’t a cohesive group driving the tech industry forward, and as a result, those companies’ successes were flashes in the pan. This started to change about 15 years ago in Northern Utah with a new cohort of founders, major infusions of institutional capital, and organization, explained Aikens. 

In St. George, the initiative to build some momentum for scalable companies took root when Jill Ellis from USTAR, the Utah Science and Technology Outreach Coordinator for Southern Utah, saw the need for a tech meetup. 

She approached Aikens determined to start a tech meetup, even if the details weren’t totally sorted out. It all began with simple gatherings—she provided the pizzas, and Aikens invited tech enthusiasts. Quickly, the tech people, including the founders of Vasion, busybusy, and Zonos, became the core attendees, seeking community and connection in a town with few like-minded individuals.

These meetups grew, forming the backbone of a burgeoning tech community in St. George. They met regularly, discussing tech ideas and fostering connections that led to significant developments. Over time, this small initiative led to the creation of long-standing events like Code Camp, which has hosted annual 24-hour coding competitions for 15 years. 

The core group had the Cairn Symposium, and many other initiatives by different groups within the St. George community, including their public partners, such as the Business Resource Center (BRC), the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Utah Tech University, and sometimes the county. 

Originally called Dixie Techs, the group later rebranded as the Silicon Slopes St. George Chapter, aligning themselves with the larger Silicon Slopes movement. They continued to hold monthly lunches, bring in sponsors, and promote tech meetups like Start STG and Startup Grind, which kept the community connected and engaged. 

“These events, aimed at bringing people together to talk, came and went, but they kept the community connected,” said Aikens. 

As all this was percolating, Tech Ridge was built as a business and economic development initiative on the Bluff Street mesa which previously housed the St. George Airport. There was some coalescence of the Vasion, Zonos, busybusy, and other companies' visions, even though Intergalactic wasn’t physically here yet but was spiritually present, explained Aikens. 

This clustering of scalable companies mirrored what happened in Silicon Slopes with early founders like Aaron Skonnard (Pluralsight), Josh James (Omniture, Domo), Dave Elkington (InsideSales), Ryan Smith (Qualtrics), and others. They were the ones who backed Silicon Slopes chief Clint Betts, pooled resources, created the organization, and started promoting and building the ecosystem. “That’s how it got started,” said Aikens. 

While working on the chapter, Fuller and Aikens realized they needed to refine their direction. They consulted with key figures like Rick Atkin of Trula and Plothow, who suggested a brand study to define their mission, vision, and values. Through this process, they settled on the Scale STG brand to capture the mission of supporting the founding and nurturing of scalable companies.  

The founders of Scale STG were waiting for the right time, and about a year ago, they felt they had reached critical mass with enough interest and funding to establish Scale STG as its own independent organization. 

Fuller and Aikens approached their partners—the founder groups—and asked if they were all in. They agreed and contributed money to start the 501(c)(6). Scale STG evolved from there. 

“Scale STG will be a big part of helping startups validate, fund, and grow,” said Rick Atkin, CEO and founder of Trula. “When that happens, those companies can then access customers and investors anywhere in the globe--which brings those dollars back to our community. This will create new, diverse jobs, which helps our broader region weather economic downtowns—especially important now because of how volatile these downturns are becoming. And more importantly, it will create the types of jobs where our kids can afford to stay here.” 

Brad Buhanan is the Director of Community Engagement at Tech Ridge. At Tech Ridge, Buhanan’s focus has been on cultivating the tech ecosystem. “Joining and helping create this Scale STG initiative was a natural extension of my commitment to fostering tech collaboration,” said Buhanan. 

“Our goal is to synchronize efforts, strategically network the tech community, and amplify its voice. Over the past few years, Tech Ridge has emerged as a focal point for the region’s tech sector. As we continue to transform the former airport into a tech hub, we aim to support and integrate tech companies across southern Utah, providing both a physical and strategic foundation for the broader tech community,” he said. 

“We're trying to stay true to the ethos that this is founder-driven, founder-created,” said Fuller. “We're also trying to work with all of our local partners because we bring numbers, and we bring good things to them—the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity for instance, Deal Flow for institutional investments, all those things. They work together really, really well.” 

What “Scale” Means to Scale STG 

Scale STG exists to support any scalable, high-growth companies that can bring customers and capital from outside of St. George. That is the differentiation between Scale STG and, say, the Chamber of Commerce, which supports business generally, and local economic development entities, which focus on a broader range of industries including legacy ones. 

Aikens said they use the word “scale” because scale differentiates from companies that face scaling constraints, like lifestyle businesses or companies whose customers are constrained by geography.  Lifestyle businesses are great businesses, but Scale STG is trying to promote and help scale companies to reach that $10-billion goal. 

“There's no competition between Scale STG and the Chamber of Commerce—there’s just what we are laser-focused on,” said Fuller. “You can't create $10 billion of economic value(and 15,000+ high-wage jobs) if your only customers are here in town. The math just doesn’t add up. You have to build a company like Vasion, Zonos, and others…you have to build something that gets customers from elsewhere.” 

Scale STG addresses key pillars: providing education on starting scalable companies, securing funding, and connecting entrepreneurs with the necessary talent. Through its initiatives, Scale STG supports university and talent development, capital attraction, and mentorship to guide emerging entrepreneurs.

“The much quicker route is to have an organized deal flow,” said Aikens. “It’s not that we don’t have capital here, we just don’t have a really well-organized deal flow. We barely got our new Red Rock Angels started a year or so ago, so, Jon Cole and the Red Rock Angels are squarely inside our tent.” 

Scale STG is made up of a Board of Governors—the founders of the St. George-based companies including Isaac Barlow, the original founder of busybusy and visionary behind Tech Ridge, Brian McCann at Event Horizon (Intergalactic’s parent company), Clint Reid at Zonos, and Rick Atkin at Trula—they are the “founding board,” but they don’t do operational stuff; they come and teach and attend events. 

Scale STG wants everybody from Cedar City to Mesquite to feel like they can attend their events, make connections and be a part of this ecosystem. Scale STG is hyper-focused. They’re no longer just teaching kids how to code. 

Coding is awesome, and it fits under Scale STG’s umbrella, but what they’re really interested in is: Are these kids also going to start a company? Can Scale STG teach them how to start a company? To that end, Scale STG has a couple of educational programs with local university students, all focused on helping people found companies that can attract capital and customers from a national or global pool. 

Jennifer Janke is the Chief Marketing Officer at Vasion, one of the six companies behind Scale STG. She said Vasion is dedicated to enhancing the economic diversity of southern Utah, which is why Vasion has chosen to keep its headquarters in St. George. 

“By partnering with Scale STG, we’re not only working to drive job growth and development but also contributing to the broader improvement of our community. Our goal is to create high-paying jobs and expand opportunities across the region. This partnership is vital for addressing the talent gap and supporting local economic progress,” said Janke. 

Aikens explained how lots of successful founders realize how lucky they are to get where they are and they realize how many people it took to help them get to where they are. “They're willing to pitch in and give back. Then, the secret last ingredient is that we all live here. Our children are all growing up here. Nobody can afford to buy a house right now without an insanely good job, which we don't have enough of. So I think we have a lot of alignment towards reaching our goal,” said Aikens. 

Scale STG’s mission is its message: “The most interesting thing we have to communicate is identifying the problem: brain drain and the lack of good jobs to keep up with the rising cost of living,” said Fuller. 

“Our mission is to create or relocate $10 billion worth of high-growth, scalable companies by 2035. Honestly, it is the purpose of the entire organization. Everything we do is less about being a centralized governing body to make this happen, and more about using a megaphone to shout that this mission must be accomplished.” 

Fuller pointed out how for every single high-growth innovation job you create—think a customer success rep at Zonos—you create between three and five incremental jobs in the community that pay well—firefighters, hair stylists, bookshop owners, etc. There's such a positive ecosystem effect for everyone else when high-salaried positions are brought to St. George. 

Aikens said Scale STG isn’t about growth at all costs—rather, he said the group wants to level the economic playing field and ensure southern Utah can remain the community we all want to live in. 

Companies or individuals can join Scale STG for free or support the mission with an optional $1,200 annual membership fee. This fee is more for those who have already found success and want to give back, but it’s not required to participate. Over time, the organization will be supported by sustaining sponsors from the companies that help it grow in the region. 

In the future, Scale STG might organize larger events, such as a conference to give sponsors more visibility and discuss how to reach the $10-billion goal. For now, they’re sticking to monthly lunches, with other potential events happening in collaboration with local groups. The approach is decentralized, allowing for flexibility and collaboration.

Plothow said there are so many organizations already established to boost the economy of southern Utah, and they all play vital roles, but something’s missing. “One glaring hole is an organization singularly dedicated to the hard work of creating an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, and educated professionals. These groups must collide to create companies that attract outside capital, grow beyond the economic constraints of the local community, and provide lucrative career opportunities for people with technology, business, and people skills,” said Plothow. 

“Scale STG will collaborate with public and private groups to ensure the right conditions are in place to grow thriving new industries and put southern Utah's economy on a more sustainable path. We want a future where boom and bust cycles aren't so painful and young and seasoned professionals alike can find attractive professional opportunities without having to work remotely or take on insane commutes,” he said. 

“Sometimes, it feels like the southern Utah economy is a game of Hungry Hungry Hippo, where everyone's competing for a finite number of dollars that bounce around the game board,” said Plothow. “We need to change that and grow more businesses that attract dollars into southern Utah and grow the overall pie.” 

“We need to develop not just new industries but fertile soil where entrepreneurs of all kinds can access the talent and capital they need to create real wealth for themselves, their employees, and the broader community. 

Plothow looks forward to the day when every kid who grows up in southern Utah can find a rewarding and lucrative career and stay long-term if they so choose.