Utah Business Forward, hosted by Utah Business, brought together hundreds of diverse Utah companies and founders to learn from experts, other founders, and to be inspired by compelling speakers.
Utah Business Forward Conference took place on November 20, 2024 at the Grand America Hotel. As the premiere event presented each year by Utah Business, the event is a big celebration of Utah businesses and the many firm and educational institutions that support Utah's vibrant entrepreneurship culture. It's also a hands-on series of information-rich workshops for entrepreneurs. The event welcomed 500+ attendees from myriad Utah businesses and offered them actionable insights to advance their businesses. In this respect, the conference over-delivered.
Speakers from across Utah's business landscape keynoted in the Grand Ballroom. More so than other annual summits of this type, Utah Business Forward offered a large number of breakout sessions in key subject areas: acquisitions, AI, branding, entrepreneurship, people & culture, and performance.
The event was sponsored by the following companies and institutions: Dentons, Pattern, Symbolarts, Utate State MBA, ALSCO Uniforms, Chick-fil-a, PACS, Colliers, Larson & Company, Adcentives West, Deseret News, Blue Unicorn, David Eccles School of Business, Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, and Security National Financial Corporation.
The event started out with something unusual—a highly entertaining musical presentation!
The Piano Guys cellist, Steven Sharp Nelson, kicked off the day with a humorous, and at times, tender presentation of his startup, The Piano Guys, which mingled remarks about the origin of their popular music group with his own live cello performances that were perfectly synced with videos of the group's signature cello-piano performances set in improbable locations: redrock mesas, lush mountain landscapes, the Bonneville Salt Flats, Sundance Mountain Resort, the Goshen movie set, and even on a flatcar of the Heber Creeper.
By far the majority of the Piano Guys' 85+ viral videos have been filmed in Utah, and many of them in southern Utah, where the company originated. In 2011 The Piano Guys started playing music together in St. George. They started out as a marketing ploy of a local piano store to sell pianos. It pivoted to become something much more dramatic and sustainable, thanks to their unique musical style, unlikely natural settings, and deft social media marketing.
The Piano Guys performs a range of music consisting of pop, classical, modern, and holiday. Nelson talked about his personal experience working in Utah, and humored attendees with multiple songs. He stressed the need for maintaining strong personal relationships and encouraging creativity, especially in music, as a treatment for rising levels of mental illness and identity crises.
"There is nothing more important than our personal relationships, and let us not sacrifice them for success," said Nelson. "I hope that family can be a priority in your businesses, and a part of your core values; let your employees know that and feel that from you as a business leader. Let them see it from your life."
Throughout the conference, participants attended various breakout sessions depending on preferences. One noteworthy choice was the Artificial Intelligence Track where speakers told attendees how they could scale up their businesses using AI and suggested helpful prompts to use when using Large Language Models. Insights allowed viewers to dive into the world of AI and learn how to best utilize it to propel their businesses.
Matt Harrison, an experienced Python and Data Science Trainer at Metasnake (Salt Lake City), told the audience in his session titled, You will be Replaced (By Someone Who Uses AI), “AI can be a great enabler for you, and allow you to be more efficient.” He illustrated his point by using examples like writing a book and coding. He mentioned the strengths of AI in repetitive tasks and limitations in creativity and deep work. He said that using AI has helped him save hours of doing menial tasks and allowed him to work more effectively on his projects. In regards to the weakness of AI, he asserted that AI has a hard time generating good content.
Harrison explained, “It really can’t come up with new things. It can combine things, but to create something out of thin air is a little bit difficult for AI.” He told attendees, “If you’re going outside of the bounds of what it is trained on, it’s going to give you something, what that something is might not be what you want.” He highlighted the importance of human skills like creativity, understanding context, empathy, and willpower in creating high-quality content. Harrison concluded that Artificial Intelligence will not take people’s jobs because of the skills and traits that humans have over AI. However, he invited the audience members to start using it to help with the less important tasks of work and life to save time and energy for other matters.
Another breakout session led by Clémence Roger, the SEO and Senior Marketing Strategist at Master Control focused on the uses of AI in marketing business. She shared with attendees specific use cases and prompts for LLMs to help companies become more effective. She explained that 75% of her time is spent playing with AI. “You can optimize with AI writing assistance, AI image generators or content calendar planning.” Roger points out four key points of how to use AI.
Throughout her presentation, she emphasized that the “quality of the input equals the quality of the output.” She noted that companies can use specific prompts for LLMS to help them maximize their businesses’ potential. She also stated the importance of having a legal council at companies to help protect proprietary data of both the company and their clients.
One of the Entrepreneur Track speakers was Nicole Tanner, Founder of custom drink maker, Swig, which now also sells cookies and other treats. Tanner emphasized the importance of starting simple, coming up with a good brand, finding a location (which can be modest), and building a dedicated team.
"How do you take it from an idea in your head to actually doing it?" Tanner posed to the audience. "First, you come up with a good name for the business. We looked through thesauruses for company names that had something to do with drinks. And then someone asked, 'Can I take a swig of your drink?' And it just hit. It felt so good. We went with it. Once you have the name, then you need to find the building."
Tanner described and shared photos of an old, beat up building in downtown St. George, a block from what was then known as Dixie College and now Utah Tech University. "It was the cheapest rent we could find — $500 a month. We started basic — very, very basic. But I had a vision. I envisioned cars wrapping around that tiny, run-down building in that parking lot. If you build it, they will come, right? I knew there were other people like me that just needed their drink fix, but needed to also want to feel special. That's what we were creating with Swig. But it was a super long shot, because everyone sells special drinks — every gas station, movie theaters, all the restaurants. Everywhere. So it had to be different. It had to stand out. And honestly, the concept really had to be big and bold. I wanted people to drive by and go, 'What is that crazy place?'"
Tanner reminded the audience that startups don't need to spend a lot of money on expensive hardware at the beginning. Sometimes sticky notes will do. "We didn't have a point of sale. We didn't have iPads. We didn't have bump screens. We took orders on yellow sticky notes and handed them back to the person at the cash register. She would try to read the handwriting of the person outside taking the order. She would then hand the sticky note to the drink maker — and you hope the drink maker can read the handwriting — and the sticky note would drop to the floor and the next one would appear. The fact that it all worked is miraculous," Tanner remarked.
Founded in April 2010, Swig opened 16 stores over its first seven years of operation. In 2017, Tanner met with Andrew and Shauna Smith of Four Foods Group now known as Savory Restaurant Management. They became partners. Since then Swig has grown rapidly. It is set to open its 100th location by the end of the year.
As conferences do, Utah Business Forward reserved the best for last. The conference wrapped up with Hannah and David Neeleman sharing their journey as a newly married young couple starting a farm. It began as a small pig farm in rural Utah on a rough plot of land with minimal infrastructure. Despite lacking any farming know-how, the Neeleman's experienced lots of ups and downs and grew their farm to what it is today — a thriving and well-known agro-tourism business with a huge and devoted social media following. Thanks to smart social media management (a function of the business that Hannah championed mostly on her own) and a few well-timed viral media pieces, Ballerina Farm now has attracted over ten million Instagram followers and roughly the same number on TikTok. As if out of nowhere, Ballerina Farm has now become a household word, certainly in Utah, but also far beyond the Beehive State's borders.
On stage, the Neeleman's alternated discussing their rapid courtship, the entrepreneurial backgrounds of their parents, and the improbable decision to start a farm, among other topics. They came across as humble and authentic. Neither of them had much previous experience raising animals, including even pets. Along the way, they faced numerous setbacks and challenges, including the devastating Pole Creek wildfire that swept through their modest farm in September 2018. As it turned out, it was the wildfire that attracted many new viewers to their social media channels; instead of destroying their fledgling farm, the wildfire actually boosted their business and set them on a new trajectory.
They also talked about how they came up with their iconic brand. After trying out numerous more traditional and expected western ranch names, based on known conventions, they practically accidentally settled on "Ballerina Farm." At the offhand suggestion of a friend for whom the name was all too obvious; it's a farm, and it relates to Hannah's experience in New York as a ballet student at Juilliard. Hannah and David immediately realized they had their perfect brand.
The story of the early years of Ballerina Farm appealed to the audience, many of whom were startup founders, building their own companies from humble beginnings. In the case of Ballerina Farm, it started out as a 100 acre plot of land on the back of the Wasatch, Birdseye, Utah, with just four pigs. "It was in the middle of nowhere. No house, no power, no fences. Literally, it was rough," recounted Hannah and David. "We lived in a basement apartment about 30 minutes away. I still had my day job. I was also getting an MBA from the University of Utah. After work and after school, we'd all get in the car and go take care of those four pigs that were starting to have babies and all the things."
Ballerina Farm has since moved to Kamas, Utah, and has expanded from selling mountain-raised pork and beef nationwide, to also selling a variety of other products: sourdough starters, honey, protein powder, aprons, enamelware, and more. The Neeleman's said they were surprised at the strong reception to their branded merch. Initially, they threw in a ceramic mug with large orders, almost as an afterthought. Customers came back requesting just the mug. Now branded merchandise is a big part of the total items sold on Ballerina Farms' website.
Ballerina Farms has built for themselves a large and loyal global following with ten million Instagram followers and nearly the same number of TikTok followers.
The Neeleman's inspired the loyal Utah Business Forward attendees who stayed through to the end of the all-days event with their passion for sustainable farming, quality products, and community engagement.
The Utah Business Forward Conference addressed several prominent topics on the minds of many business owners in Utah, and nationwide. Not only did it provide attendees with insights about what specific businesses have been implementing, but also how to better utilize the latest technology. Participants left the conference with a new perception of how to strengthen their companies and with a renewed appreciation for being a part of Utah's thriving business community.