UVEF’s Top 25 Under Five Awards have recognized the development of more than 200 individuals and companies, including Utah success stories like ZAGG, Agel Enterprises, Interbank FX, Seastone, Altiris, Omniture, and Xango among many others.
Companies throughout Utah, five years old or younger, are invited to apply electronically. Applicants are judged based on revenue and job creation.
Top 25 Under 5 — 2011
On July 14 the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum held our annual Top 25 Under 5 Awards Ceremony at the UVU UCCU Center in the Presidential Suite on the third floor. John Pestana, co-founder of Omniture presented our keynote address and Cary Snowden presented awards on behalf of UVEF along with event sponsors Adobe, Silicon Slopes and Innoventures. We also heard from our top three recipients, and each of our event sponsors. Thank you to all who attended to make this event a tremendous success!
UVEF wishes to congratulate our recipients this year.
Click on the photograph thumbnail for a larger image.
#1
Our #1 UVEF 2011 ‘Top 25 Under 5′ Award goes to a company based in American Fork who offers online marketing with a fizz. Their methods and marketing campaigns will bring you traffic, customers, and a strong return on investment.
—Congratulations to OrangeSoda.
#2
This company was #7 last year. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, they are committed to providing a quality Apple experience for customers in the intermountain west. They have been recognized by Apple as one of their fastest growing sales channel company in the US and have been named a Top 5 distributor of Apple computers in the US.
—Congratulations to Simply Mac.
#3
Our third fastest growing Utah company is based in Provo and provides a unique natural dietary supplement system that helps customers stabilize, vitalize and optimize their health.
—Congratulations to Qivana.
#4
This company was #12 last year. Based in Ogden, they rent textbooks to students nationwide at a 50-80% discount from buying new or used in the college bookstore. Much like Netflix, books are shipped directly to students and returned in prepaid envelopes. Each semester they ship to more than 5,500 college campuses, saving students millions of dollars.
—Congratulations to Campus Book Rentals.com.
#5
This company was #6 last year. Based in Bluffdale, they are a search marketing firm with the knowledge, skills, and a proven process that consistently delivers results. This company is regularly ranked among the Top 10 SEO firms in the country and owns the domain name that all their competitors envy.
—Congratulations to SEO.com.
#6
Our #6 award winner is based in Lindon and is a Crown and Bridge dental lab specializing in high-end aesthetic dental restorations.
—Congratulations to Experience Dental Studio.
#7
Last year, this company was #23 on our list. They are a film production company in American Fork specializing in high-end commercial projects, documentaries, and feature films. The last big feature film was titled “My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend” starring Alyssa Milano, which was highlighted in the Newport Beach Film Festival.
—Congratulations to Fiftyfilms.
#8
Based in Salt Lake City, our next award winner uses award-winning technology to re-target visitors to bring them back to your website. They are transforming online advertising from interruptive to interactive by developing dynamic content based on consumers previous online browsing and shopping behavior.
—Congratulations to Media Forge.
#9
This company was #21 last year. They offer a revolutionary sports medicine solution for treating and preventing common sports injuries – without sacrificing comfort or freedom of movement. Headquartered in Orem, their product is now sold in over 2,000 retail locations nationwide and in over 40 countries.
—Congratulations to KT Tape.
#10
Based in Salt Lake City, our #10 winner provides a video-powered online learning and communication platform useful to organizations of all sizes. Their platform’s tools for creating, managing, and delivering online video webcasts have helped multinational corporations communicate with far-flung employees as well as local professional organizations to deliver continuing education courses to their members.
—Congratulations to BizVision.
#11
This company was #20 last year. Based in Pleasant Grove, they help entrepreneurs increase cash flow and profitability by providing clear and concise data, which they call their Six Scoreboards Every Business NeedsTM. One client increased its cash flow by over 500 percent in just one year.
—Congratulations to CFOwise.
#12
Our #12 award winner recently sold 36,000 items in 7 minutes on QVC. They are a gourmet bake shop headquartered in American Fork whose founder was promoting their Valentine’s Day gift package, Love at First Bite. With 6 stores in operation and a 7th store coming soon, we hope to see this company move up this list next year!
—Congratulations to Sweet Tooth Fairy.
#13
Based in Eagle Mountain, this company provides HR software to small & mid-sized businesses. Their web-based platform eliminates the old paper application tracking headaches and provides tools to employers that simplify the job posting, application submission, and applicant screening processes.
—Congratulations to iApplicants.
#14
Our next winner is based in Provo and has designed a patented, FDA-approved tongue cleaner to cure bad breath – 90 percent of which is caused by tongue bacteria. Amazingly, they already have over 38 million YouTube Channel views and over 280,000 Facebook fans in 114 countries.
—Congratulations to Orabrush.
#15
Our #15 award winner is a manufacturer and supplier of cables and electronics accessories based in Orem. They provide high-quality cables at a competitive price with a lifetime warranty included.
—Congratulations to Professional Cable.
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#16
Based in Salt Lake City, this next company uses its proprietary social networking platform to collect and route business intelligence and market data across the $500 billion automotive industry, making dealerships and manufacturers more profitable. Approximately 1 in every 4 Car Dealerships in the U.S. is a registered member of their community.
—Congratulations to Driving Sales.
#17
Our next company is based in Orem and provides an open service delivery platform uniquely tailored to fit the IT needs of small business and distributed environments. Their solution is simple, secure and affordable.
—Congratulations to Clear Center.
#18
Our #18 award winning company is based in Provo and is a leader in local mobile search. They are at the forefront of the pay-for-performance advertising industry with a keen focus on local search. They have been around since the very beginning of the local mobile search revolution and were the first company to launch a geo-location search application on a smartphone device.
—Congratulations to Avantar.
#19
Our next company is based in Provo and helps real estate professionals take advantage of the latest tools and technologies in social media, online search, tools integrations, mobile platforms and marketing best practices with a fully-integrated set of marketing management tools.
—Congratulations to Omnia Alliance.
#20
Our #20 award winner is also based in Salt Lake City and is a community-drive, small, independent ski, bindings and apparel company whose sole focus is on the skier. They sponsor some outstanding local skiers such as David Wintzer, Parker Cook, Taylore Lyman, and many more.
—Congratulations to Bluehouse Ski Co.
#21
Our next award winner is based in Salt Lake City and was created to help businesses grow faster. They fill their clients’ sales pipelines with qualified leads and scheduled sales appointments. They also take all the risk since the lead doesn’t show up or doesn’t meet your pre-set criteria, you don’t pay.
—Congratulations to Launch Leads.
#22
Our #22 award winner is based in Lehi and helps small and medium size companies take advantage of a highly skilled global workforce in a simple and cost effective way. They help companies access an offshore team of Developers, Programmers, Designers, Internet Marketing Specialists, Copywriters, Live Chat Agents, and Customer Service Representatives for a flat monthly fee.
—Congratulations to Zylun.
#23
This company was #25 last year and is based in American Fork. They have developed over 60 mobile iphone/ipad applications for clients across the United States. The flagship app, MileBug, helps users track the miles they drive for business use so they can receive the tax deduction or reimbursement. The latest app is “Wave at the Bus” which documents the American Fork native, Dale Price, who dressed up differently every morning to wave at his teen son’s school bus.
—Congratulations to Izatt International.
#24
Our next award winner is based in Provo and offers a hosted HR software solution that drastically reduces the time, expense, and complexity of securely managing HR data for small to medium-sized businesses.
—Congratulations to Bamboo HR.
#25
Our first award winner today is an organic soil manufacturer that was established in 2010 by students attending BYU. Now based in Provo, this company recycles food waste into a nutrient-rich soil conditioner that reduces landfill waste and helps us grow healthier plants. In other words, they feed our plants recycled fruits and veggies instead of chemicals.
—Congratulations to Ecoscraps.
Congratulations to all; see you next year!
Top 25 Under 5 2010
On July 8, 2010 the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum held its annual Top 25 Under 5 awards ceremony, recognizing Utah’s leading entrepreneurial companies on factors including company age, revenue, and number of employees. To qualify, winning companies must be under five years old, and must demonstrate financial growth and employment opportunity.
Our 2010 event was hosted by UVEF Chairman John Pilmer of PilmerPR, and emceed by David Bradford, CEO of Fusion-io. Derek Miller of the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development addressed the capacity crowd and awards were ceremoniously presented to 25 leading entrepreneurial companies from around Utah. UVEF is grateful to our event sponsors this year including Omniture, Silicon Slopes, and Innoventures. Thank you to all who participated!
The Provo Daily Herald posted an article about our Top 25 Under 5 event.
Here is our list of the Top 25 Under 5 for 2010:
25 | Izatt International
Izatt International recently shipped their 50th app across the iPhone, iPad and Android platforms and continues to develop custom apps for clients around the country, including their flagship application called MileBug. They also have been helping others get started by offering iPhone Developer training.
24 | Qualified Address
Qualified Address offers On-Demand Address Management Solutions and helps clients effectively manage their communication with key contacts without costly investments in IT infrastructure. Their solution is flexible and developed so that they can be completely integrated into your existing systems. They recently surpassed the 4 MILLION mark for real-time transactions and continue to grow rapidly.
#23 | Fiftyfilms
Fiftyfilms is a film production company specializing in high-end commercial projects, documentaries, and feature films. They recently completed their first feature film titled “My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend” starring Alyssa Milano, which was recently featured in the Newport Beach Film Festival.
#22 | Xcelus
Xcelus develops innovative and unique online video platforms allowing companies to integrate the power and persuasion of video into their sales, marketing, and communication strategies. The company’s first account was Hitachi Data Systems and has been growing fast ever since.
#21 | KT Tape
KT Tape offers a revolutionary sports medicine solution for treating and preventing common sports injuries – without sacrificing comfort or freedom of movement. Their product is now sold in over 2,000 retail locations nationwide and in over 40 countries.
#20 | CFOwise
CFOwise has over two centuries of experience and executives in 3 states and clients around the world. They are the premier CFO Services Firm for start-up, emerging, and medium-sized businesses and earned UVEF’s “Top 25 Under 5” recognition in two prior years.
#19 | Appigo
Appigo brings high-quality applications to the iPhone platform. They focus on the details so that using their applications is both enjoyable and simple. Their “To Do” app for iPad took the coveted #1 spot in the app store when it was released and many of their apps remain in the Top 10 best-sellers list.
#18 | Snapp Conner PR
Snapp Conner PR is a 4-time award winner of UVEF’s “Top 25 Under 5” recognition and is often considered one of Utah’s most progressive PR agency and is widely acclaimed as the leading PR resource in the Intermountain West. They have a strong specialty in technology companies plus they often lead health, wellness, sports and lifestyle campaigns.
#17 | Illumra
Illumra is the largest North American supplier of self-powered, battery-free, wireless lighting control and energy management systems, and a member of the EnOcean Alliance. Their products all operate without the use of batteries as their transmitters get energy from the motion of a switch, light on a solar cell, or from temperature changes. Products are sold via dealers and OEM partners throughout the world.
#16 | Franchise Foundry
Franchise Foundry has a proven model of compliance, marketing, systems and sales to take ideas to market through a franchise model within one year. Incredibly, in their very first year, they were able to successfully sell 58 franchises.
#15 | Zoobies
Zoobies makes award-winning plush animals that turn into pillows and blankets. Their distribution has grown extensively and their product is now sold in over 60 countries.
#14 | Parallel HR Solutions
Parallel HR Solutions helps their clients identify, attract and hire top-level talent for their technical and financial staffing needs. They were the only staffing firm recognized last year by the Mountain West Capital Network as one of the Emerging Elite companies in all of Utah.
#13 | Kynetx
Kynetx is a private company provides patent-pending, easy-to-use development tools to create context-sensitive, cross-platform applications that can stretch across ANY web-enabled device and, at the same time, understands the “context” of a user.
They have a community of over 600 developers who have created over 1,000 apps – all available in their own App Marketplace. They also recently closed a $2M strategic investment with Axciom Corp.
#12 | Campus Book Rentals
Campus Book Rentals.com rents textbooks to college students nationwide much like Netflix rents DVD’s. They are the only rental company that works directly inside university bookstores via touchscreen rental kiosks and the bookstore’s own textbook inventory. This creates “instant delivery” to students, and helps bookstores recapture lost market share. The company booked over $1,000,000 in sales in the first 12 days of 2010, setting a new company record and closed an equity round of funding in March with Cherokee and Walker, a private equity firm located in Salt Lake City.
#11 | Jive Communications
Jive Communications provides hosted PBX service that allows small businesses to take advantages of all the features available in sophisticated telephone systems for a fraction of the price. They are a profitable company who is rated highest among all small business VoIP providers in the country.
#10 | Pounders Hawaiian Island Grill
Pounders Hawaiian Island Grill is a company that started last year in Logan and has already opened 4 restaurants stores, with each new location funded by profits of existing restaurants. The food is actually what one would eat in Hawaii and has a fiercely loyal fan following on Social Media platforms including 4,000 followers on Facebook and the first restaurant ever to have Foursquare day meet up.
#9 | Entice Labs
Entice Labs is a tech company whose product makes recruiting through online advertising easy. Their clients are able to target top talent with unprecedented precision, while drastically reducing the cost of recruiting of the “passive candidate”.
The company has received national attention from industry leaders who have called their unique product a “game changer” and some of their top clients include Google, IBM, GE, Dell, Cisco, Omniture, and Adidas.
#8 | FamilyLink.com
Family Link.com is a company that helps people find and connect with their living relatives and discover their family history. Through their Facebook app, millions of people have already built their own family trees and this company’s website has more than 6 million monthly users.
#7 | Simply Mac
Simply Mac is a premier reseller of Apple products and services and operates as an Apple Specialist with retail stores across the Western United States. Their trained, certified technicians help small and medium-sized businesses gain access to innovative consumer technology products and services.
In 2008, this company was recognized by Apple as their 3rd fastest growing sales channel company in the US and was recently named a Top 5 distributor of Apple computers in the US.
#6 | SEO.com
SEO.com is a search marketing company offering search engine optimization, PPC management, social media marketing, conversion rate optimization and web development. They provide their clients the highest possible ROI by dominating the search engines for their keywords. This company is regularly ranked among the Top 10 SEO firms in the country and owns the domain name that all their competitors wish they could have.
#5 | Funding Universe
Funding Universe is a company that matches qualified entrepreneurs with investors, banks and other funding sources, which is changing the way small and medium size businesses across the U.S. obtain financing. In fact, the nation’s largest SBA lender gets more borrowers from this company than from any other source in the world.
#4 | High West Distillery and Saloon
High West Distillery and Saloon is definitely a unique company on our Top 25 Under 5. They are Utah’s first legal distillery open to the public since the 1870s and their property is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Located at an elevation of exactly 7000 feet in Park City, they offer a truly unique experience as the world’s only ski-in distillery and gastro-saloon. Since they opened in 2008, their flagship products have won numerous industry awards and have received national recognition.
#3 | Local Results.com
Local Results.com is a company that helps local “brick and mortar” businesses optimize their web presence to land them on the first page of Google, Yahoo and Bing map sections. In just 2 short years, they are already helping over 3,000 clients benefit from an increase in local, well-qualified customer leads.
#2 | Imagine Learning
Imagine Learning is a company founded with one goal in mind: to teach English to the children of the world. Today, more than 180,000 students on 5 continents around the world are benefiting from their award-winning programs.
Their scientifically-based research, effective teaching practices, and captivating art and music are combined with the latest in computer technology to create the most engaging and effective English language and literacy program available in the market today.
1 | Agel Enterprises
Agel Enterprises just celebrated its fifth anniversary and is active in 60 countries worldwide. Their innovative product line actually created a brand-new product category: Gel Nutrition.
The company has been repeatedly recognized for its high quality products and innovative business practices and strives to empower individuals throughout the world to achieve new levels of health, financial success and personal freedom.
Congratulations to all our 2010 award recipients!
Top 25 Under 5 2009
On July 9, 2009 the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum held its annual Top 25 Under 5 awards ceremony, recognizing Utah’s leading entrepreneurial companies on factors including company age, revenue, and number of employees. To qualify, winning companies must be under five years old, and must demonstrate financial growth and employment opportunity.
Hosted by UVEF chairman Roger Andrus and emcee’d by Rick White of Fusion-io, our event featured a keynote address by Utah Leutenant Governor Gary R. Herbert with comments and insights from Alan Ashton, founder of WordPerfect, and event sponsors Steve Grizzel of Innoventures and Rona Rahlf of the Provo Daily Herald. 25 award plaques were presented to the winners. The exciting event was punctuated with Rick White’s energetic humor, drawings for gifts, and an extravagant buffet lunch will well-appointed table settings.
Here is a YouTube video of the event, with winners and links listed below in reverse order:
Here are the winners of the UVEF Top 25 Under Five 2009:
25 | CFOwise
CFOwise provides executive-level expertise on a flexible budget by offering businesses of any size a part-time, outsourced Chief Financial Officer (CFO). CFOwise is based in Pleasant Grove.
24 | Isis Dei
Named after the Egyptian goddess of protection, Isis Dei offers creative, practical accessories for all types of electronic devices. Isis Dei is based in Provo.
23 | The Ready Project
The Ready Project simplifies the preparedness process. Their line of gourmet food storage meals are delicious and easy to prepare and are sold through several different distribution channels – Online, Local Retail and Direct Sales. The Ready Project is based in Pleasant Grove.
22 | Big Brainz
Big Brainz develops the most powerful, effective educational video games ever created by combining the most compelling technology from “real” video games with the cuttingedge methods of interactive instruction. Big Brainz is based in Provo.
21 | Rocketship, Inc.
Rocketship is a multi-disciplinary industrial design and product development firm, providing creative product development solutions across a wide range of categories. Rocketship is based in Provo.
20 | Spoon Me
Spoon Me is a fun, fresh, exciting and truly “green” frozen yogurt and smoothie franchise with stores in Utah and Arizona that focuses on creating remarkable experiences for our customers and a life changing business for our franchise owners. Spoon Me is based in Provo.
19 | Jive Communications, Inc.
Jive provides full-featured, affordable IP telephone systems to clients nationwide. Their virtual platform offers a wide range of features for businesses of any size. Jive is based in Orem.
18 | Castlewave, LLC
CastleWave was initially started in March 2007 as a test-case to prove out entrepreneurial principles that were written in a book authored by 2 of the managing partners. They followed the book, chapter by chapter, as they developed CastleWave, a Search Engine Optimization business, and were soon landing large customers and starting to see some growth.
17 | SEO.COM
SEO.com provides search engine marketing and optimization consulting services. They help companies of any size show up at the top of Google and get more leads and sales for their businesses. SEO.com is based in the Provo Technology Center at Novell
16 | IntelliSchematic
IntelliSchematic is an industrial training company focused on training programs for industries utilizing motion control and power transmission equipment for production and operation. IntelliSchematic is based in Alpline.
15 | Snapp Conner PR
Snapp Conner PR is a specialized agency that provides all aspects of strategic and tactical PR execution for companies in the technology space. Snapp Conner PR is based in South Jordan.
14 | Infuse Medical
Infuse Medical is a medical education agency that develops comprehensive training programs for medical device manufacturers. Infuse Medical is based in Lehi.
13 | Rockwell, Inc.
RockWell, Inc. is a manufacturer of one-piece decorative window wells for the residential construction industry. RockWell is based in Utah County.
Pfadt Race Engineering is focused on the design and manufacture of high-end performance suspension products for 1997 and newer Corvettes and the 2010 Camaro. Pfadt Race Engineering is based in Salt Lake City.
11 | iTOK
iTOK offers Help Desk tools and services to optimize your home computer for better performance and to protect it from virus attacks and spyware. iTOK is based in Lindon.
10 | FamilyLink.com
Family Link helps families connect online primarily through it’s ‘We’re Related’ Facebook and iPhone application. Family Link is based in Provo.
9 | ZenPrint
ZenPrint is a leading developer of web-to-print applications helping businesses and social networks promote and monetize their brand. ZenPrint is based in Salt Lake City.
8 | InsideSales.com
InsideSales.com is the first provider of on-demand Lead Management software to integrate a powerful suite of marketing tools that include dialers, voice messaging and nearly two dozen other productivity-enhancing ‘power tools’. InsideSales.com is based in the Provo Technology Center at Novell.
7 | LaneLinks, Inc.
LaneLinks is a team of dedicated transportation professionals that utilizes proprietary tracking tools to create and manage customized partnerships between private fleets and shippers. LaneLinks is based in Provo.
6 | Navigator Business Solutions, Inc.
Navigator Business One Solutions is a leading SAP Gold Partner that offers SAP products and services to small and mid-size companies to help manage their growth. Navigator Business One Solutions is based in Pleasant Grove.
5 | Aribex, Inc.
Aribex is the worldwide leader in innovative handheld x-ray products. Aribex develops X-ray products for the dental, veterinary, forensic, security, and industrial verification markets. Aribex is based in Orem.
4 | Allegiance, Inc.
Allegiance offers a suite of web and phone-based Enterprise Feedback Management solutions to provide companies and organizations with a way to collect, manage and act upon customer and employee feedback to improve their business performance. Allegiance is based in South Jordan.
3 | OrangeSoda
OrangeSoda’s specialty is in helping small and medium-sized businesses who don’t have massive advertising budgets show up when potential local customers search for companies or services like theirs online. OrangeSoda is based in American Fork.
Imagine Learning was founded with one goal in mind: to teach English to the children of the world. Today Imagine Learning English is being used by tens of thousands of students globally. Imagine Learning is based in Provo.
1 | ZAGG, Inc.
ZAGG designs, manufactures, and distributes protective clear coverings and accessories for consumer electronic and hand-held devices, worldwide. ZAGG is based in Salt Lake City.
Congratulations to all on a job well done! The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Utah, helping to reduce the impact of our ailing economy and establishing Utah as one of the best places to start a business in the United States.
My special thanks and appreciation to the UVEF board of directors for their collective effort to make this year’s event the most well-prepared and recognized event to date.
Read other stories about the award ceremony here:
Provo Daily Herald: 20 Utah County entrepreneurs honored by the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum
PilmerPR: Top 25 Under Five | Entrepreneurs Honored By UVEF
Featured on Local FoxNews:
For more information about the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum, or the annual Top 25 Under 5 Awards, contact any member of the UVEF Board of Directors.
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