I use to work at Speaking Roses as the Vice President of eCommerce and Technology. It was one of the best and worst employment situations of my life.

Years ago, the Company did a reverse merger in an effort to raise millions, which means they are now publicly traded. So you (and everyone else) can see how bad they are doing by clicking here. How this Company continues to operate at a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars per month with little to show in sales is beyond me. I never understood it when I was there and I still don’t get it.  The Company has now blown through $10 million with virtually nothing to show for it. Its a very hard thing to watch.

I just read that the board hired a new CEO. Looks like this guy jumped the Associated Foods ship for Speaking Roses. Best of luck Alan Farrell.

By the way, the management team page is completely out of date. John Winterholler, Brad Whittwer, Ted Lloyd, Mike Glauser and Bobbie Downey have all been out of the company for some time. Looks like someone needs to update the Web site.

Check out Judd Bagley’s article in this month’s issue of Utah Business (registration required). The article is titled “Best of Business” and covers a lot of developments in the state. I wish he would have mentioned Rossignol’s recent headquarters move out of Colorado to Park City.

Judd also has a feature in this month’s issue of Connect Magazine (no registration required) along with Janet who writes about VoIP. Both articles are great. 

I won’t mention who else has an article in Connect this month - I’ve already shamelessly plugged it enough!

Mike Arrington at Techcrunch has been following developments at Podango.

Have you?

Podango is one of Utah’s high potential start ups. Check it out!

I recently went way back into my files to find a business plan Jeremy Hanks and I wrote in 2003 (the plan got us to the finals in the UEC in 2003) for a company that would manufacture mass customized outdoor clothing and equipment. After digging up the plan I read over it again (I am using it as an example business plan in my Westminster entrepreneur class) and realized how wonderful this idea really is. In my class lecture on Monday night I talked in great detail about the plan and fell in love with it all over again.

Mass customization is giving the customer the ability to build their own product within a set of manufactures predetermined options. For example, when you order a Dell computer you are buying a mass customized product. 

Don’t confuse mass customization with customization. Mass customization applies rules and parameters to customization to make it cost effective. Mass customization is scalable where full customization is not. Giving the customer a product experience that they define inside of parameters that a manufacture defines is the future of product development.

When researching the plan, we came across a great little company in Eugene, Oregon that is mass customizing outdoor clothing. The company is beyondfleece. We actually traveled to Beyondfleece in an effort to feel out the owner and to see if he would be interested in selling the company. Our plan was to win the UEC in 2003 and use that as a catalyst to raise money to buy BeyondFleece. We’d then apply all we know about Internet marketing and manufacturing and take the business to the next level.

Well, we didn’t win the UEC and we didn’t raise the money needed to buy the company. I honestly think if I could raise the money I’d like to go back and give this another try. Anyone have a couple million I could borrow?

The first Internet start up I was involved in as one of the co-founders was GearTrade.com. I loved GearTrade. Working in that start up in 2000 is some of my fondest work memories I have. 

GearTrade is an ASP provider of used and close out outdoors equipment. GearTrade gets in the middle of the transaction by managing the financial exchange between the buyer and the seller. Its a great model.

In 2001, we merged GearTrade with Weboutdoors and then sold it the next year to Wildcat Technologies out of Seattle. Wildcat (we called them “Wildkitty”) then sold GearTrade to Park City-based Backcountry.com who still runs it today. Backcountry uses GearTrade as an outlet for their returned and overstocked goods. Its a great fit.

If you go to GearTrade.com you will see that Backcountry is working on a new design for the site. It looks great. I’m glad to see that John and Jim are still committed to GearTrade’s success.

I really miss the outdoors industry.  Maybe someday I’ll open a gear shop and sit around all day doing nothing. Sounds kind of nice.

You can catch my Connect Magazine article online by clicking here.

I hope you enjoy. Please let me know your thoughts.

The September issue of Connect Magazine, with the cover story on why now is the best time in the last 100 years to start a business in Utah, hits news stands today. The cover story was written by yours truly. I hope you enjoy.

Besides my complaining about Utah businesses and industries in a recent blog post, I still think that now is the best time to start a business in Utah. Frankly, we could use more good start ups - ones with billion dollar potential.  We still have a lot of work to do. Slowly but surely, we’ll get there.

Also, check out this article in the Dessert News, which examines the question of whether entrepreneurs are born or made. Its an interesting question.

I personally think entrepreneurs are both born and made. What do you think?

I had lunch yesterday with Pete Abilla AKA Shmula. Pete is a great guy. He came to Utah to work for MyFamily. It was nice to get an update on the condition at MyFamily. It looks like the new CEO is turning it around. Pete is definitely part of the team that is helping to make MyFamily a success.

Be sure to follow Pete’s blog at Shmula. I really enjoy his posts. Check out his latest post on Digg and Game Theory. Its fascinating. He got dugg on the post and had thousands of visitors to his site on Saturday alone.

Best of luck, Pete. Next time lunch is one me!

The Utah business community could use some heroes. When I think of heroes in this state I think of guys like Ray Norda, John Huntsman Sr. and Alan Hall. These are good picks. What makes these guys heroes?

Let me just talk about Alan Hall. Alan is a real entrepreneur. At one point in this life he lost it all. Then he came back from nothing to take MarketStar to the stars. He then has a big exit. What does he do next? Does he go off to an island and retire? No, he reinvests his wealth back into the community and is now the most prolific angel investor in the state. I met Alan last month and I was so impressed with him. On top of all that he has accomplished he is one heck of a nice guy. We could use about 20 more Alan Halls in Utah. By the way, check out this great podcast on Alan Hall.

Guy Kawasaki had a great blog post about beating Silicon Valley.  In that post he talks about needing to celebrate your local heroes. Here’s the quote:

“Celebrate Your Heroes. Every region needs its heroes. These folks take role modeling to an extreme; they have names like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Ted Turner…Kids need heroes, so that they can say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be like Steve Jobs.’ in may places, a person is pulled back down because of jealousy. Sure, there’s jealousy in Silicon Valley, but our way of dealing with it is to outdo the person, not pull them back down”

Guy couldn’t be more right. Unfortunately, I see a lot of “pulling back down” around here. I think when we put our pride aside and build up real heroes we begin to see change.

What are your thoughts? Who is your Utah business hero? What do we need to do kill the tendency of “pulling people back down”? Is this even a problem? I’m I out to lunch? Is this post “too controversial”. Let me know what you think.

I always liked getting up in the morning and heading to an office - a place I could call my own with no home and family distractions. I just took a new job and the company is “virtual” meaning we don’t have an office - yet. Its a good move for now, we are saving money and in a start up that’s obviously important.

Over the last week, I have had some challenges in making the work from home adjustment. My biggest challenge is about two feet tall, blond, likes tractors, and weighs about 28 pounds. Its my two year old son. He loves having me home.  I usually leave my bag at the door when I come home. I really try not to work while my kids are awake so I can spend time with them and do the dad thing, which I really enjoy. But now my son thinks that all day long is “dad time” and he’s having some difficulty knowing I’m in the other room and he really can’t play with me during the day. We’re both adjusting.

Any advice on making the “work from home” thing work is greatly appreciated.