Owen Lombardi and his girlfriend kept a shared calendar and updated it religiously. Every entry meant typing out what the event was, setting the time, and color-coding it by hand. “Every time I added an event, whether it was for work, a family event or a dinner, it took forever,” Lombardi said. Lombardi, a freshman […]
Category: Startups
Learn about some of the amazing student startup companies at the University of Utah. Students from all departments are inventing new products and starting businesses.
Weyerwolf Productions: Shaping Salt Lake City’s Music Scene
Have you ever thought about who plans concerts, manages bands, and captures the energy of live events? For Amelia Weyerstall, a sophomore at the University of Utah, those roles all come together through her company, Weyerwolf Productions. What began as a passion for concert photography quickly grew into something much larger. Through her experiences in […]
Dani King: Making Luxury Footwear That Fits
After years of searching the back of shoe stores for anything above a size 10, Danielle King knew something had to change. As a 5’11” woman wearing a size 11.5, King often found it discouraging to shop for stylish, high-quality shoes. Now part of the Master of Business Creation (MBC) program at the University of […]
Autona: A Hub for Biomedical Research Automation
Dante Suzuki spent the summer before his senior year of high school in a Georgetown University Medical Center lab, watching zebrafish twitch under a seizure-inducing drug and trying to teach a computer to spot the stages of epilepsy. That summer set the trajectory for the University of Utah computer science student, who is now the […]
Thalio AI: Reinventing Content Creation
As the son of an entrepreneur, Benson Tracy understands the frustrations with ineffective marketing. He is the founder of Thalio, an AI-powered marketing technology service that aims to streamline the content creation process. A senior entrepreneurship student at the University of Utah, Tracy didn’t originally plan to start a company. He entered college on a […]
Mobile Emissions Continues to Expand After Master of Business Creation Program
For most Utah drivers, vehicle emissions testing is what one customer calls his “annual agony” — a required government errand that means burning an hour in a waiting room, coordinating rides, or taking time off work just to keep a car legally registered. Daniel Diehl knows the feeling firsthand as the founder of Mobile Emissions […]
Hydrate28: Supplements Built for Women
Adam Garrison was mixing supplements at home for his girlfriend when he noticed a problem. Nothing on the shelf was built for the way a woman’s body actually works — cycling through four distinct hormonal phases each month, each with its own nutritional demands. So he started building something that was. Garrison, a professional MBA […]
University of Utah Startup Named Semi-Finalist in America’s Startup National Competition
UV Sense, a University of Utah startup focused on skin cancer monitoring, was a semi-finalist in America’s Startup, a national collegiate startup competition created to spotlight early-stage business ideas with the potential to drive America’s future economic, technological, and societal progress. UV Sense produces hardware and software technology that enables users to track their real-time […]
Photo Gallery: Demo Day 2026
Browse photos from Demo Day 2026. At this annual event, the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute welcomed dozens of student entrepreneurs at the University of Utah to celebrate the end of the year by showcasing their products and services. Learn more at lassonde.utah.edu/demo.
Yatta Golf: Affordable Golf Apparel with Personality
In 2018, Kelby Gatrell was approached by his brother-in-law, Abraham Bedard, about starting a golf company. Even though Gatrell had never played a round of golf in his life, he decided to take the risk and launch Yatta Golf. As co-founder and vice president of sales, Gatrell watched the company grow but also noticed critical […]
