Celebrating the Spirit of Utah
Utah Business July 2006 || Heather Stewart and Jacob Moon
The official meaning of entrepreneurship includes something about taking commercial risk to gain profit. But to many of the finalists in the 2006 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year program it is something more. Some call it a disease. Others say it is an addiction. Will West, recipient of this year’s Master Entrepreneur award says entrepreneurship is fundamentally a genetic disorder. Beyond that, he can only compare the pains and joys of being an entrepreneur to giving birth. “You are going through the process and thinking, ‘Never in my life will I do this again.’ And then you go ahead and do it again.”
Despite the pains associated with creating and growing companies, each of the 2006 finalists has created success within his or her field. For some it may take a trip to Southeast Asia to harvest the mangosteen fruit. And for others success is building wireless computer equipment in the basement. Common among them, though, is the recognition that true entrepreneurs are only as good as the people surrounding them
“You really have to make sure everyone wins,” says TruVision CEO Lindsay Atwood. “If you don’t, you’re really not an entrepreneur. You’re just a greedy individual who is serving yourself. It takes a team to make a lot of money, and it takes a team to be successful.” In this annual feature, Utah Business profiles the 25 finalists in Ernst & Young’s 20th Anniversary Entrepreneur of the Year™ Program.
Chelsea Rippy, Shade Clothing
Emerging
Chelsea Rippy admits that when she decided to start Shade Clothing she had a very acute focus. So acute, she says, that she simply hoped she could make modest undershirts for women and run the company while her kids were napping. That vision has since changed. Rippy recognizes that while her product line still has a specific market—women—the possibilities to grow the company are endless. “The clothes are designed to make you comfortable and confident, and what woman wouldn’t want that?” Rippy says. Apparently, women do want that as the early success of this fledgling company has been carried across the nation by word of mouth. Through three distinct distribution channels—retail, direct sales and the Internet—Rippy says her vision is now global.