QA Roundtable: UTAH-BASED ENTREPRENEURS.

• Author: Nwokoma, Nchopia

This month, Utah Business partnered with Holland & Hart to host a roundtable event featuring Utah-based entrepreneurs to discuss operating a business in Utah. Moderated by Cyndi Tetro. Founder of the Women Tech Council, here are some highlights from the event.

Q What qualities do you think make a successful entrepreneur?

Karmel Larson | Founder & CEO I Momni

The two that come to mind most quickly are being a problem solver and a visionary. All the problems go right to the top and I've found that the others on the team, other than the founder, are often quick to say, this will cause this negative outcome or this will cause something to crash or fall. And it's the entrepreneur, the founder who is saying, no, that won't happen. I won't let that happen. Here's the solution.

Kylie Chenn | Founder & CEO | Acanela Expedition

Being self-motivated. You wake up every day, you don't have someone saying, this is the list of projects we need to get done. If you've designed that for that day, there's no one, there's no boss telling you, "Hey, you have got to do this." So you've got to be able to have, and find, that drive to figure out that this is what we're going to do today.

Sean Wilson | Founder & CEO | Chip

Most successful entrepreneurs have kind of two contradictory qualities. One is that they're a visionary, they want to go change the world. The other is that they have the ability to focus on a single problem for a long time until it's solved.

Sara Jones | CEO | InclusionPro

I think it's kind of a practical skill of being able to manage resources very effectively. Some of us come from big business and happy funders and we've got teams to do all the work. All of a sudden you're the one that has to do all the work. That is a big shift for a lot of people and I think that actually causes a lot of failures, because you've got to be willing to do work with very, very little resources.

Moudi Sbeity | Founder & Owner | Laziz Kitchen

In the food industry, there's a lot more that happens in the day-to-day, at least on the floor or in the kitchen. I've learned, over the past three years, to find this inner calmness or peace among the swarm that's happening around me. That kind of attitude sets the tone for everybody else you're working with.

Ryan Caldwell | Founder & CEO | MX

Clear vision but at the same time, you need to be flexible.

Kylie Chenn | Founder & CEO | Acanela Expedition

I think it's also a mix of passionate care. Either for the industry you're in or for the people that you're growing with. There are a lot of moments, at least for me, that you want to quit. You want to sell it, you want to do something else. But that passion and that care for the people around you and what you're building, that keeps you going.

Q How you have handled adversity and continue to adapt?

Glen Mella | CEO | Axcend

It helps to have a thinking partner, either in a cofounder...