Start School with Ryan Wedig on May 6

In August 2012, Ryan Wedig and Jarrett Taylor sat down and wrote a business plan. That's it. That's how Vasion started. A business plan and two people who believed enterprise IT didn't have to be so complicated.

By the end of 2014, Ryan was CEO. He built out the team, took the product to market, and grew PrinterLogic into a cloud-native SaaS platform that enterprises across the world rely on. In 2021, the company rebranded to Vasion, reflecting a broader mission to simplify how enterprise IT is designed, implemented, and serviced.

Ryan brought over 20 years of experience in enterprise IT infrastructure to the table before he ever started the company. He did account development at Omniture before it was acquired by Adobe. He worked in systems engineering and account management at Cisco. He consulted independently. He holds engineering certifications from Cisco and VMware, a degree from BYU's Marriott School of Management, and an MBA from George Washington University.

He did the work before he started the company. Then he did the harder work of actually building one.

Ryan runs Vasion from St. George, Utah. Not San Francisco. Not New York. St. George. That matters. He's proof that you can build a serious enterprise software company from wherever you are if you know the problem you're solving and you're willing to grind.

Ryan is sitting down with Start School to talk about what it looks like to go from a business plan to a real company. How he and Jarrett went from writing a plan to building a team and getting to market. What he learned from years in enterprise IT before becoming a founder. How he thinks about simplifying complex problems and turning that into a product. What building a SaaS company actually requires on a daily basis. What it's like building a company outside the traditional tech hubs. And what he'd tell someone who has a business plan right now but hasn't taken the next step.

He'll take your questions. He'll give you real answers. No fluff.

If you're building something, thinking about building something, or trying to figure out what comes next, this is the room you want to be in.

Most startup events are built for the one percent. The venture-backed. The ones chasing a 10x return for someone else's fund. The ones who measure success by how much money they raised instead of how much they built.

StartFEST is for everyone else. The solo founder. The bootstrapper. The person who wants to build a profitable business that supports their family. The company that grows slowly, treats its people well, and is still standing in twenty years. The best businesses rarely make the headlines. Start School is built for founders who know the difference.

More than 400 companies are now part of Start School. No tuition. No equity. No hidden agenda.

It's a free entrepreneurship program from Silicon Slopes, built in partnership with Mountain America Credit Union. Every dollar from StartFEST goes back into it. When you buy a ticket, you are paying for the next founder who shows up wanting to build something real.

Start School takes self-leadership seriously because the founders who last almost always do. It's the track you won't find at any other startup event, and it's the reason Start School exists in the form it does.

On April 21, Ernst & Young LLP announced the finalists for the Entrepreneur Of The Year^® 2026 Mountain West Award. Now in its 41st year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year^® program celebrates the bold leaders who disrupt markets through the world’s most ground-breaking companies, revolutionizing industries and uplifting communities. 

The program honors entrepreneurs whose innovations drive economic growth and help shape the future of business. The Mountain West program celebrates entrepreneurs from Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

An independent panel of judges selected 40 finalists based on their entrepreneurial spirit, purpose, company growth and lasting impact in building long-term value.

Here are the honored Utah entrepreneurs:

• Brian Beutler | Alianza | Pleasant Grove, UT

• Steve Richards | Becklar | Ogden, UT

• Allyse Jackson | Beehive Meals | Layton, UT

• Ryan Anderson | Filevine | Salt Lake City, UT

• Kyle Freebairn | Frazil | Salt Lake City, UT

• Hayden Wadsworth and Jake Wadsworth | HydroJug | Ogden, UT

• Parker Ence | Jump | Draper, UT

• Brett Hopkins | Ken Garff Automotive Group | Salt Lake City, UT

• Arian Lewis | Kiln. | Lehi, UT

• Clark T. Bell, Warren Bell and Mike Bullock | Nano-Yield | Sandy, UT

• Curtis Anderson | Nursa | Murray, UT

• Jeff Reynolds | Sensapure Flavors | Salt Lake City, UT

• Mike Linton | VLCM | Salt Lake City, UT

• Clint Reid | Zonos | St George, UT

Regional award winners will be announced on June 18 during a special celebration. The winners will then be considered by the national independent panel of judges for the Entrepreneur Of The Year^® National Awards, which will be presented in November at the annual Strategic Growth Forum®.

Learn more about the finalists at ey.com/us/eoymountainwest.

Jake Fackrell watched his company’s health insurance premiums climb 30 percent every year. Despite running a successful data company with 60 employees, he found himself trapped in a system that forced him to offer high-deductible plans that provided little real value to his team.

Rather than accept the status quo, Fackrell applied his expertise in data aggregation to build something entirely new. The result is Savvos Health, a platform that replaces the broken claims processing system with direct cash payments, and it landed at number 220 on the Inc. 5000 list.

In this episode of The Go-to-Market Podcast, Jake Fackrell shares the playbook for eliminating administrative waste, aligning incentives across stakeholders, and creating a healthcare benefit that actually works for everyone.

In this session, Drew Mann and Chris Renner (former US Federal Trade Commission enforcers) break down how innovative companies and their investors can identify anticompetitive conduct early, convert that harm into substantial financial recoveries, and use litigation and regulatory advocacy to remove the barriers standing between a great company and its market.

Whether you're a founder, operator, or investor, this session will change how you think about the competitive threats your company faces and what you can do about them.

Space is limited! RSVP to hold your spot!

Lunch is generously sponsored by: Dhillon Law Group.

The 2026 Sports Tourism Symposium will take place on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, from 9:00 am - 2:30 pm, hosted by Miller Sports + Entertainment at America First Field (9256 S State St, Sandy, UT 84070). Stick around after the Symposium for a special experience as we host an England vs. Croatia FIFA World Cup watch party to keep the energy going!

America First Field is home to Real Salt Lake (MLS) and Utah Royals FC (NWSL). The venue has become iconic, hosting major events like U.S. national team games, World Cup qualifiers, the 2009 MLS All-Star Game, the 2013 Gold Cup, and even the 2025 Pacific Nations Cup.

The Sports Tourism Symposium brings together municipalities, event organizers, and hospitality partners from across the industry to share ideas, explore trends, and collaborate on strategies that make our communities stronger through sports.

Early Bird Special: Register now and save $5 off your ticket with code EARLY. Don’t wait, this offer is only available until April 30, 2026.

In this episode of the Silicon Slopes Mental Health Momentum Podcast, host Dr. David Morgan sits down with Amelia Larson, a founder, operator, and advocate working at the frontlines of one of life’s most emotionally complex realities: end-of-life care and decision-making.

“A lot of families just avoid this topic as a whole… and then a crisis happens, and they’re forced into decisions they weren’t ready for,” Amelia says.

She has built her career helping families navigate these moments amid real-time crises. Through her work as CEO of A Life for Seniors, she’s seen what happens when decisions are made under pressure, without preparation, and without support.

Amelia’s approach is simple but powerful: Replace confusion with clarity. Replace pressure with preparation, and replace isolation with guidance.

Her work blends healthcare expertise, lived experience, and human-centered design to help families make better decisions without losing dignity along the way.

She’s also building a health tech platform designed to lower the barrier to asking for help, make care options more transparent, and give families access to tools before they’re in crisis.

Utah’s tech ecosystem is evolving fast and AI is at the center of it.

If you lead engineering, product, or business strategy, join us for a Lunch and Learn at the Kiln in Lehi!

Hosted by @CoDev in partnership with @Results Oriented LLC, this session will breakdown how AI is reshaping software delivery, team structures, and the economics behind building modern tech organizations. 

The Kiln | Lehi, UT

April 29 | 12–1 PM MDT

RSVP and more details here: https://luma.com/yots9jtj

Join BioHive at Silicon Slopes on May 14th for the HealthTech Hub Collider, an event where ideas crash together to spark breakthroughs.

Register here: https://www.siliconslopes.com/c/events/healthtech-hub-collider

Utah's technology community has needed this for a while. On September 11, 2026, it arrives.

STACKED Summit is Utah's premier event on AI, cybersecurity, SaaS, and data analytics. The inaugural summit takes place at Salt Lake Community College, and we built it for the people closest to the work: the builders, operators, engineers, and executives who are navigating the most consequential shifts in the industry right now.

Not networking for the sake of it. Not panels that go nowhere. Real sessions, real practitioners, and real conversations about the problems worth solving.

Six tracks. One room. Everything that matters in Utah tech right now: AI, Cybersecurity, Data, Systems, Builders, and SaaS.

Hundreds of founders, engineers, operators, and executives will be there. The first STACKED Summit is the one people will say they didn't want to miss. We'd like to make sure they don't.

Tickets are now available. Sponsorship opportunities are open. We are accepting speaker proposals.

Be part of the first one.

September 11, 2026. Salt Lake Community College.

Partner with Silicon Slopes, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and amplify your impact across Utah's most dynamic tech ecosystem. Here, tax-deductible giving meets tangible ROI, innovation meets influence, and your brand connects with the builders shaping tomorrow.

Shape the Future of Silicon Slopes!