It sounds so easy on paper. First, the then-25-year-old Brian Beutler won BYU’s business plan competition in April 2005. Three months later, he netted $2 million in funding for his fledgling business from the Utah Angels. Just more than one year later, he closed a $4 million round of venture financing led by vSpring Capital (with additional participation from the University Venture Fund). Some guys have all the luck.

Not so, protests Beutler, CEO and co-founder of Lindon-based Alianza, a company that provides the first hosted, fully-integrated IP-based platform for delivering unified communications applications via SaaS for broadband service providers with branches in Mexico, Argentina and Singapore. Nailing down the funding for his company was hardly easy. In fact, he says, it was the toughest challenge he faced.

“My co-founder Scott Bell and I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in prep work, strategizing and refining our plan,” he says. “I prepared my guts out so when the opportunities came I could take advantage of them. I’ve never worked harder in my life.”

The Utah Technology Council has recognized Beutler as the “2005 Emerging CXO of the Year,” and his company was named by Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum among the top 25 fastest-growing companies in Utah during 2005, 2006 and 2007. In addition, Venture Magazine named Alianza as one of the top startups to watch in 2008.

Business Connect: Describe your company in lay terms.
Brian Beutler: There are some fundamental changes taking place to the underlying technology that powers the way we communicate. These changes are leading to the emergence of “broadband phone companies,” capable of offering communications services and applications directly over your Internet connection without the need for a traditional phone line or installed hardware. Alianza’s hosted software platform helps broadband service providers to offer value-added communications services that improve the customer’s overall experience.

BC: Are there any drawbacks to an Internet-based calling service like yours?
BB: You bet. The biggest limitation is the quality of your Internet connection. If your broadband connectivity is lousy, then a traditional phone service is a better choice. But if you have a manageable, high quality connection, then our service will rock and roll for you and you’ll never look back.

BC: How did you get started?
BB: Our launch pad was the BYU Business Plan Competition. In 2005, I was a senior at BYU working fulltime and going to school at night. I took an entrepreneurial lecture series class that opened my eyes and changed my life. It was in this class that I first heard about the competition — and the $100,000 in prizes. My eyes got big.

At the time, we were bootstrapping. We were just two guys and a dream. Between second mortgages, maxed out credit cards and trusting family members, we were able to get the company off the ground. Part of our agreement when we accepted money from family was that neither of us would take a dime in salary until we’d raised our first round of institutional funding. Looking back, I realize we were a little bit naïve. We didn’t know how hard it would be.

Competing in the Business Plan Competition was really the catalyst that helped us to launch the company. We ended up competing against 64 teams. As a history major, there were often times when I felt out of place. But at the end of three rounds of judging we ended up winning first place, which led to other business plan competitions, exposure to angel investors and the press, which really helped us build momentum for our first round of financing.

BC: You are 28 years old and CEO of your own company. It doesn’t appear that age has been any sort of barrier for you.
BB: I think being young can be a liability or an asset. The biggest liability is lack of experience, but that can be compensated for by surrounding yourself with smart and experienced people. A lot of times in business you find managers hiring people who think the same way they do. I try to hire people that think differently and bring new ideas to the table. On the other hand, the biggest asset of being young is the drive to work hard. It seems like the older we get, the more crowded life becomes with commitments outside of the office and it becomes more difficult to work the nights and weekends that are often needed to make the difference.
 
BC: Who gets the credit for teaching you to work hard?
BB: Probably my dad. I was working beside him in the garden since I could walk. My dad strung off a tiny little plot of the garden with twine and let me plant whatever I wanted. I learned the law of harvest at a really young age and I guess that lesson has stuck with me to this day.

BC What do you do when you’re not at work?
BB: My favorite thing is just chilling with my family and relaxing. Outside of that I still like gardening, tooling around in the dirt, and I like fly fishing. For me, standing in the water in the middle of a remote river, tempting a cutthroat trout to take a fly is one of the few times when all the stress and worries of life really fade into the background.