Why Utah Puts the ‘Wiz’ in Wiz Kid
- Matt Dorey, 25, envisioned Curve Dental as a teenager.
Utah ranks high on list after list of economic indicators, including best places to start and grow a business. The state is the envy of others with an unemployment rate almost three percent lower than the national average. Why? To start with, according to Forbes, Utah is a “hotbed for entrepreneurs.” I would add that the state is also a hotbed for “whiz kid” entrepreneurs. Perhaps this is due in part to Utah public schools teaching entrepreneurism starting in the 4th grade.
We have heard a lot about two college students, Josh James and John Pestana, who started a little technology company that grew into the largest tech acquisition in state history – Omniture. But, they are just the start. Many know that Paul Allen dropped out of school to run his startup, Infobases. Later, he started MyFamily.com, which grew into the present mega-family history service, Ancestry.com. Novell, WordPerfect, the list goes on of legacy companies led by Utah’s whiz kids.
Today, a new crop of young people are farming for fame and fortune in new entrepreneurial startups. Utah Student 25 recently recognized 25 new startups that created more than 100 jobs and $3.9 million in revenue in 2009.
Matt Dorey began the research and development phase for Utah-based Curve Dental five years ago as a teenager with a vision for a simpler web application designed to bring the dental industry into the computing “cloud.” After securing $9 million in funding, Curve Dental released Curve Hero earlier this year. Still too young to rent his own car at 24, this young executive was recently named among the top five “People to Watch” among industry pundits.
Read more of John Pilmer’s post on Utah Business Blog.
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August 13th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Um… that should be “Wiz” kids, as in “wizard”. “Whiz” is associated with urination.
:)
I think the culture of Utah encourages entrepreneurs. The predominant religion (I am not a member) does teach self sufficiency and cooperation – two items that, while not necessary for entrepreneurship, are considered very important.
December 29th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
[...] Utah wiz-kid Matt Dorey has made a lot of headlines recently. Since PilmerPR began working with his start-up company, Curve Dental, earlier this year, he and the company have been featured in Utah Valley Business Q’s Top 40 Under 40, DiscoveringStartups.com’s Best-Of awards, The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah CEO, Forbes.com, CBS MarketWatch’s BNET.com, as well as numerous dental trade publications. And to wrap up the year, Dorey was featured in The New York Times. [...]