For Jeremy Hanks, being an entrepreneur comes naturally. Even though he’s the founder of a successful dot-com company, that doesn’t keep him from thinking about other possible business ventures. “Right now I have ten different ideas of companies I’d like to start that I think would do well,” he says.
Hanks, who earned his BS in business management in December 2002, started Geartrade, an online swap for outdoor gear, in 2000. As the web site was growing, he realized his company’s strength was the online trading technology, so the company’s focus shifted and eventually merged with another company, creating e3vertical.
“I grew up on a farm, and I was always trying to find an easier, more innovative, and better way. That encouraged me to want to work for myself,” Hanks says. “I would get frustrated with people who didn’t do things the way I thought was better; I always thought there was a more efficient way.”
Though Hanks learned about work ethic on a farm, it was his time at the Marriott School that led him to the resources he needed to start the company. “For people in business it’s important to network. Using school resources—peers, faculty, centers, and institutions—students can learn how to do some great things,” Hanks says.
Hanks’ time at BYU led him to people who are now his business partners: Ryan Nichols and Dave Gray. Nate Jensen, e3vertical’s vice president of development, was a hometown friend from Burley, Idaho. Jensen, a business management graduate, says he enjoys being in control of a company. “Instead of working for another company that other people were causing to fail, I wanted to be in a position where if it failed it was my fault.”
Jensen sees e3vertical’s survival among the dot-com bust as a testament of what the company is doing. “We weathered that storm and we’re continuing to make progress,” he says. “We’re not dot-com millionaires, but we’re surviving. Many people can’t say that.”
