Laboring to grow businesses
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By JEFF DEMOSS
Standard-Examiner staff
jdemoss@standard.net
OGDEN -- If the Alan Hall of today had been around in the 1970s, the younger version of Ogden's entrepreneurial guru might have had a much smoother road to success.
The founder of MarketStar Corp., who built the now multibillion dollar business from the ground up, initially relied on a second mortgage on his home to provide startup funding for the company.
Fast forward to 2008, where Hall has come full-circle as one of the biggest benefactors of aspiring entrepreneurs in Utah.
Along with some of the state's other bright business minds, Hall oversees a successful and growing venture capital firm, Grow Utah Ventures. He is heavily involved in several other firms and partnerships that invest in and train entrepreneurs, and provide early-stage enterprise funding.
Since its inception in 2004, Grow Utah Ventures has helped about 60 companies. Hall's goal is to bring that number to 100.
"We're talking about $500 million a year in economic impact or twice the impact of Weber State University," he said.
In return for financial and professional assistance, Grow Utah Ventures maintains a certain level of ownership in the companies it funds, but Hall said his share is typically limited to about 10 percent.
"We always allow entrepreneurs to own what they've built," he said.
As an entrepreneur himself, Hall's programs for growing new businesses in Utah are a labor of love, and the fruits of that labor are starting to ripen.
Elemental Business, the first tenant at the Grow Utah Ventures eStation in downtown Ogden, was recently acquired by Future Now Group Inc., a New York-based company that saw potential in Elemental's proprietary Internet sales-conversion software.
Founded by three Weber State graduates, Elemental is a perfect example of what Grow Utah and related ventures are all about, Hall said.
"We're good at helping California companies that want to come here, but I think there are some great Utah companies that can become large," he said.
"If we're going to be building the WordPerfects and Novells of the future, we have to start now."
Ryan Wintle, one of the founders and current director of products for Elemental Business, said Grow Utah's early involvement in the company was instrumental in terms of partnering and sales channel opportunities.
Wintle said the company plans to stay and grow in Ogden under its new leadership, something he said is very important to Hall.
"One of the nice things with Alan is that he is very Utah-oriented, and Ogden-oriented in particular," he said.
Hall's efforts to stimulate growth in new, local companies doesn't end with Grow Utah Ventures, the nonprofit arm of his entrepreneur-serving enterprises.
He has a personal investment firm, Island Park Investments, that provides the actual funding. Through Island Park, Hall has committed to invest $100 million over 10 years in Utah's entrepreneurial structure, much of it funneled through Grow Utah Ventures.
To date, he has invested $15 million of his own money. Some of the $100 million is expected to come from local angel investors, a term that refers to individuals who invest in small businesses at a grassroots level.
Today, Hall coordinates with nine different angel groups statewide.
"A few years ago there was just one," he said.
From that growth has sprouted a new venture fund, Mercato Partners, a joint venture between Hall and Greg Warnock, another of Utah's top-tier entrepreneurs.
Hall has also been instrumental in the development of eStations, which provide guidance, office space and other infrastructure for startups.
The first eStation opened at 2501 Grant Ave. in Ogden in 2006. There is now one at Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville, and a new one at the Utah State University Innovation Campus in North Logan.
Another relatively new initiative spearheaded by Hall and other partners, SEED Utah, is a statewide partnership between Grow Utah, higher education institutions, private companies, and state and county agencies that aims to start high-growth, high-wage companies.
A $1 million infusion to kick off the SEED initiative is coming from a variety of public and private sources, including $100,000 each from Davis County and the Ogden Industrial Development Corp., and $250,000 from Weber County.
Craig Bott, chief executive of Grow Utah, said this year's goal is to raise another $200,000.
SEED, short for Stimulating the Expansion of Entrepreneurial Development, offers roughly $1 for every $2 invested by local governments. The initiative focuses on highly focused entrepreneurs in areas with high growth potential, most notably in new technologies.
"We have a really good, detailed plan," Bott said. "It's time to move forward and implement it."
So far, Hall has remained focused on homegrown Utah companies and says he will continue to do so. But the aspirations of a wildly successful entrepreneur should not be underestimated, and he says much larger things are on the horizon.
"The next thing we'll do is Grow America in all 50 states."
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