Business — it runs in the family.
And thank goodness. Family businesses account for some of the most powerful economic engines in the world (you’ve heard of Wal-Mart, yes?) and not to mention our very own Utah County (here’s looking at you, Clyde Companies).
But the clearly powerful business model doesn’t always create a clear black and white entity. With the potential for blurred boundaries and family feuds (sans surveys), there’s a whole lotta grey going on.
Even still, talk to any family business, and the pros pummel the cons. So if you’re thinking of starting a family company — or if your current family business needs a reminder or a reboot — here are 26 areas to discuss at the dining (or conference room) table.
May we present … the ABCs of running a family business.

For three years running we’ve featured the groundbreaking growth of local companies.
And for three years we’ve been swept off our feet.
The UV50 — which features the county’s 25 Fastest-Growing Companies (measured by percentage growth over a three-year period), 15 Top Revenue Companies and 10 Startups to Watch — has enjoyed another year of record-ranking success.
Meet all 50 winners, and go inside six companies that share how they did it — in their own words.

Who needs Webster’s? BusinessQ has its own definition of cool — and it’s off the hizzie. (Yes, we just said “hizzie.” We never claimed to be cool ourselves.) But these 10 entrepreneurs? They’re more than cool. They’re the best and the brightest. The hip and the happenin’. The bold and the brave. And they’re 10 local “idea nerds” you need to add to your must-meet list. Oh, and we mean “nerd” in the coolest possible way.

Our five winning bloggers are men and women of their word.

Not only do they post clever content and marvelous musings, they wield virtual power at their fingertips — and use it for good.

Plus, these keyboard kings and queens include the “first family” of Utah Valley’s blogosphere — Phil Windley, Paul Allen and Kelly King Anderson.

“I started blogging because of you,” Allen said to Windley at our August photo shoot.

“And I started blogging because of you,” Anderson said to Allen.

To which Windley concluded: “So that makes you my blogging granddaughter!”

Talk about a blog roll.

It should have been a sure thing.
After all, Scale Eight, a Silicon Valley-based provider of scaleable storage software technologies, certainly had the resume. During its four-year run, the company raised more than $60 million in venture capital; had more than 200 employees; had offices in San Francisco, New York, Virginia, Tokyo and London; had contracts with multibillion-dollar companies like Microsoft, Viacom, and Fujitsu; and had Red Herring magazine name it one of the “50 privately-held companies most likely to change the world.”
But 10 years later, Scale Eight is a shoulda, coulda, woulda.

It’s back — in all of its growing green glory. The UV50 — which features the county’s 25 Fastest-Growing Companies (measured by percentage growth over a three-year period), 15 Top Revenue Companies and 10 Startups to Watch — has enjoyed another year of record-ranking success.

Meet all 50 winners, and go inside seven companies that share how they did it — in their own words.

Don’t call Jessica Devenish “the boss.” She doesn’t like it. (With the exception of this article title, of course.) But really, the CEO of Checknet, a collections agency in Provo, is big on team — small on titles. Perhaps it’s because she has so many of them. Devenish is a wife, mom, CEO, sister, daughter, cowgirl, friend, chauffeur, mentor, hunter, networker and motivator. Truly, she changes hats with the best of them. It’s a wonder she never has hat hair.