Mindshare President Richard Hanks Featured in Wasatch Digital IQ Roundtable

Decision Leaders

We gathered this group of life science and tech executives to discuss two primary issues: the struggle to find qualified talent and the trend toward acquisitions of companies in Utah. Both of these topics are covered in related features in this issue of Digital iQ, and our panelist brought additional unique perspectives to the table. They also discussed the growth of the life science sector and the plan for it to become an increasingly potent sector in the technology industry.

Our panel included: Kent Millington, Access Data; Jeremy Neilson, Fund of Funds; Dave Cutler, Novell; Richard Hanks, Mindshare; Pat Nola, Sorenson Communications; Jack Sunderlage, ContentWatch; Jeff Alexander, Alexander Print Advantage; Michael Paul, LineaGen; Eric Olafson, Tomax; William Moeller, American Biotech Labs and Pratap Khanwilkar, WorldHeart.

A special thank you to Kirton & McConkie for hosting and sponsoring the event, and Richard Nelson for assisting as a facilitator.

Let's start by talking about a few of things that we are particularly excited about in the technology and life sciences industries. What comes to mind with each of your companies?

HANKS: We just completed 57 consecutive months of increasing revenues, without any accounting tricks. No asterisks. We are going to try to get to a hundred.

What kind of pain do you have in hiring qualified employees?

HANKS: One of the benefits of being in Utah is the attractive place we have here. On top of that there is now capital in place. But I don't see companies spending enough effort on keeping who they have got. Truly hanging on to the employess you've got is far more cost-effective than trying to bring a new one in. We have never lost an engineer. We did four software releases in the last 14 months. So, having them working all night long, we have had to be creative to make sure they like working for us. Frankly, we are a small company, but if I think about the amount of money we would have to spend to try to steal your guys, I couldn't do it.

What are the core things that you are doing?

HANKS: I think we have nine engineers now; my partner takes them paint balling. It's silly, but if that's what they like, fine. For Christmas, we had Costco open early, and we gave our employees $500 to buy whatever they wanted. They were able to wander around Costco with nobody else in there. We buy sections in theaters. We have Jazz tickets. It was proven long ago that it costs seven to 10 times more to get a new customer than to hang on to one. The same goes for employees. So I can go pay a head hunter $50,000 to find me the right guy, or I can buy some more paint balls.

A few companies in Utah have recently been sold to out-of-state firms. What can we do to keep those companies in Utah? Or is that something we should be worried about?

HANKS: I think it would be great if the state started building companies instead of flipping companies. I'm amazed at the amount of people who say, "When is your IPO? When are you going to sell?" My partner and I say, "No. We are building a company here."

We have a lot of acorns. Is the prognosis good for these turning into mighty oaks? And what do we need to do for that to happen?

HANKS: I really believe in the concept of growing into might oaks. It is in the boring everyday. It's not the sexy "let's flip the company." I think we define our company as relationships, augmented by technology. It's a company where the relationship comes before the technology. And I believe that's missing a little bit still in this state.

It takes relationships augmented by technology to make this work. It's the operators that make things win. It's not the flash and burn anymore. It used to be. It was a fun two years. If you knew it was going to happen, we could all be rich. Since then, it's basically running good companies, making good decisions, and trying to build businesses. If I had a way to change mindsets in Utah it would be that: Building businesses rather than the quick flip companies.