Adam Chavez

Scroll down to see the complete list.

After thinking this list through, I’ve decided to only include tech & life science startups. There are several awesome entrepreneurs at BYU that have started up other types of companies, but they won’t be featured here. If I’ve missed a BYU tech/life science entrepreneur that should be on this list, let me know about it. Shoot me an email.

Not looking for BYU Startups? Want to see Utah-wide startups instead? Try “Utah Startups to Watch!”

Company:

Founder(s):

Devlin Daley and Brian Whitmer, Current BYU Student(s)

Concept:

University content management. Organizing classes and schedules, grade delivery, university content. Like Blackboard, except brought to the 21st century.

Traction:

Raised $50,000 in an angel round. Traveled the country pre-selling the product to universities. Targeted to launch product within 12 months.

Company:

Founder(s):

Brant and Cody, Current BYU Students

Concept:

Make content management really, really easy. Not easy for technical staff. Easy for everybody.

Traction:

Preliminary contract with California school district. Contract with BYU. System currently runs the McKay School of Education website.

Company:

PDF Zoo & Torrent Editor

Founder(s):

Tyler, Current BYU Student

Concept:

For PDF Zoo, organize digital copies of technical manuals for communications, security, and fire alarm systems. Subscription business model. For TorrentEditor.com, allow tech-savvy to edit torrents quickly and easily. Advertising business model.

Traction:

Torrent Editor 1,000 page views per day.

Company:

Social (Digg-like) Wallpaper

Founder(s):

Kirk Ouimet, Current BYU Student

Concept:

User-generated content. Users submit their favorite desktop wallpaper. The community votes up the ones they like the best. The top picks stay on the top of the page.

Traction:

Between 9,000 and 16,000 unique visitors per month according to Quantcast. Advertising-based business model. Working on a deal to take CPM from $.23 to $4.00

Company:

Picture This

Founder(s):

Darrell Swain, Current BYU Student

Concept:

Digitize the wedding sign-in book and memory-collection experience. A specialized kiosk is brought to the wedding, where guests can digitally sign in. Digital cameras’ memory cards can be deposited into the kiosk from guests who have taken pictures with their cameras.

Traction:

Kiosk has been built. 30+ weddings have been booked. The business model will be to both (a) rent the kiosks to wedding photographers or directly to a couple and (b) sell the kiosks to wedding photographers.

Company:

MintyWhite.com

Founder(s):

Rich, Current BYU Student

Concept:

Help readers make Windows easier to use, more customizable, and better. Articles include how-to’s on improving Windows performance, reviews of 3rd-party software, and contests to give away free software.

Traction:

500,000 monthly page views. Potential advertising revenue of between $50 and $75 per day. Approached by a website broker and offered $45,000 for the site. Founder hates advertising so has not monetized the site. Currently exploring ideas to monetize, but money is not top-priority now. Rich just loves building his site.

Company:

My Nice Tie

Founder(s):

Ben Buie, Current BYU Student

Concept:

My Nice Tie is a simple e-commerce business that is dedicated to bringing people unique ties at affordable prices.

Company:

School Tipline

Founder(s):

Justin Bergener

Concept:

Allow students to anonymously report school violence, drugs, or bullying to the authorities. See below:

Company:

SiteSays

Founder(s):

Matt Smith, Current BYU Student

Nathan Davis, former BYU student (currently at Google)

Concept:

A community where people can give feedback about a site they’ve visited, and that feedback can then be seen by the other users when they visit the site.

Traction:

Several thousand registered users.