David Neeleman has founded five airlines. Not one. Five. Across four countries. And he's not done.

He co-founded Morris Air in Salt Lake City and sold it to Southwest. He built the industry's first electronic ticketing system and turned it into Open Skies, which he sold to Hewlett Packard. He consulted for WestJet in Canada. He founded JetBlue in New York and grew it into the first airline to earn $100 million annually within five years, winning Conde Nast Traveler's Best U.S. Airline for seven consecutive years.

He launched Azul in Brazil, which now serves over 100 destinations with more than 140 aircraft. And now he's back in the U.S. with Breeze Airways, reinventing low-cost travel with nonstop service between cities the big carriers ignore.

David is sitting down with Start School to talk about what he's learned building companies in one of the hardest, most capital-intensive, most regulated industries in the world. How he spots opportunities where others see saturated markets. What it takes to launch something from nothing when the stakes are enormous. How he thinks about competition, pricing, and serving customers everyone else overlooks. What starting over looks like when you've already built a giant. And what keeps him building when he doesn't have to.

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.

What does it take to bootstrap a SaaS company from a broke college student's dorm-room idea to a successful acquisition with barely $50K in real outside capital?

In this special Silicon Slopes Podcast, guest host Adam Stoker, President and CEO of Brand Revolt, sits down with Evan Teshima, investor and Co-Founder of foreUP golf software, to find out.

Evan co-founded foreUP as a BYU senior after a pivotal entrepreneurship class taught by John Richards sparked a realization: golf courses were running their entire operations on archaic, CD-based software that belonged in a museum. So he and his co-founders built a cloud-based point-of-sale system from scratch and spent the next decade turning it into the industry's go-to platform, powering over 2,300 courses across the country before being acquired by Clubessential Holdings. But the path there was anything but linear.

In this candid conversation, Evan walks through seven major pivots, a near-death convertible note crisis, years of rock-bottom salaries, and the legendary chess match against investor John Richards that nearly made or broke the company. He also shares the counterintuitive philosophy that kept foreUP alive in those early years: stop chasing elephants and go for the rabbits.

In this episode of Go-To-Market with Amy Osmond Cook, Amy sits down with Mike Sitter, Vice President of Revenue Operations at AssetWatch, to discuss what separates tactical sales support from true Revenue Operations leadership.

With two decades in revenue operations and deep SaaS operating experience, Mike believes RevOps exists to make revenue predictable, repeatable, and efficient. And when it works, it's nearly invisible.

That may sound simple, but it isn't. Because behind every high-performing revenue engine is a system of strategic choices around planning, capacity, forecasting, alignment, and operating discipline that most organizations don't get right.

Mike breaks down why elite RevOps leaders start "outside in"—not with dashboards or territories, but with investor priorities, board expectations, and what's actually happening in the field with customers.

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.

In this episode of the Silicon Slopes Mental Health Momentum Podcast, host Dr. David Morgan sits down with entrepreneur and mental health innovator Michael Batt. 

Michael didn’t start in mental health. Instead, he built a career scaling multi-billion-dollar real estate ventures and leading operations across industries from ranching to retail to radio. But like so many leaders, his turning point wasn’t professional—it was deeply personal.

After witnessing the impact of mental health challenges across his employees, family, and his own life, Michael made a bold decision: step away from traditional success and build something that actually helps people navigate their mental health journey.

That decision led to Healthy Mind Map, a research-backed platform designed from lived experience. Michael challenges the traditional model and introduces a new approach: What if individuals had the same clarity about their mental health as they do about their finances or fitness?

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re truly making progress or just going through the motions, this episode will change how you think about mental health.

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

Silicon Slopes Dinner Club gathers Utah's founders, builders, and creators for authentic conversations over dinner.

These aren't networking events — they're real connections. The kind where ideas spark, partnerships form, and you leave with genuine relationships, not just business cards. No pitches. No agendas. Just founders breaking bread, sharing wisdom, and embodying what makes our community special: we give more than we take, and we rise together.

Because the best connections happen when you put down your phone and lean in.

The next dinner is Wednesday, May 20!

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!