TECH ENTREPRENEURS Roundtable.

• Position: Discussion

Every month, Utah Business Magazine partners with Holland & Hart and Big-D Construction to host roundtable events featuring industry insiders. This month we invited the top technology entrepreneurs to discuss funding, resources, and the growing tech environment. Moderated by Sara Jones, founder of the Women's Tech Council, here are a few highlights from the event:

What are we seeing in terms of growing our tech companies?

Eric Montague | CEO & COO | Executech & Beddy's

We are having such a hard time hiring. There is just a huge lack of people to fill the jobs.

Randy Rasmussen | Cofounder & CEO | BioFire Diagnostics

We're seeing it across the board. Even on the manufacturing floor, just with our touch labor, we're finding it a real challenge to fill the jobs that we have.

Rob Rueckert | Managing Partner | Sorensen Capital & Sorensen Ventures

We've done a great job at building a thriving tech environment here in Utah, but we have a limited population. If we want to be ten times the size we are today, we need to have people attracted to come here.

Rachel Hofstetter | Chief Marketing Officer | Chatbooks

One of the things we've really done at Chatbooks is try to create a strong cultural identity. One of those stakes that we put in the ground really firmly is that we want to be a great place for women of all levels to work. The family culture we already have makes Utah a great place for women to work because a lot of people go home at 5PM. They want to go home to their families at the end of the day, but that's not the cultural norm, and it doesn't feel like they can. Whereas here, that is the cultural norm.

Kat Kennedy | Chief Product Officer | Degreed

The bulk of this discussion is that people are asking, will Utah be a good place to work? That is where we should focus our marketing, not just on IPOs. When people look at Utah, they're not asking: will the company be successful? It's: will that culture be a place in which I can thrive?

Erin Volenti | CEO | Tinker Ventures

I run a networking group called SLC Tech Startups. Many of the engineers that are networking in our group have been taking virtual positions with Silicon Valley and New York-based companies, primarily for two reasons: they want higher salaries, and they opt for working remote. They like the lifestyle of being able to work from anywhere, live from a van if they want to, whatever. We're seeing a lot of people in our networking group that are here, want to be in Utah, but they don't want to be paid less than the market will bear since they can work anywhere.

Lauren Treasure | VP of Product | Chatbooks

We really need to be more creative and flexible with the backgrounds that we're looking for. If everyone comes from the same background, with the same type of career experience, it's hard for us to do that. Looking at someone's background and considering how that might be helpful in your company and the types of jobs that they can grow into is really important for the product managers.

William Borghetti | CEO | APIO

We're all stealing from each other. And if you really think about what's happening, it's this giant poachathon, and it's a beauty contest, right? We're not really growing the base; we're just stealing from each other. That has other consequences; that's not necessarily a good thing.

Marva Sadler | CEO | Veracity Solutions

We've been a virtual company for a long time. Eighty percent of our people are not in our main office, and that's deliberate, but it also means that your management structure has to be really intentional about how you manage those people. In a lot of ways, it's a whole lot easier to manage people that you can reach out to, physically touch, and keep them connected and part of the tribe. A lot more of our energy has to go into how do we keep people engaged and culturally attracted.

Eric Montague | CEO & COO | Executech & Beddy's

Some of our brightest stars are our youngest employees. We started a program a couple of years ago where we we bring in kids and train them in what we want the year after they graduate high school, go through multiple different transitions, and then we hire the top three. That's been helping us get people before they get out in the workforce.

The willingness to train has not caught on like wildfire in tech. Is it a business model issue?

Randy Rasmussen | Cofounder & CEO | BioFire...