Say good-bye to San Francisco, New York and Portland—Salt Lake City tops the list of places where startup dreams come true. Why? Maybe because it's a western oasis of low cost-of-living and stress-free recreation. Maybe it's because 31% of it's 1.1 million residents are college graduates with the highest percentage of foreign language speakers in the US.

Whatever the reason, Utah is open for business. Inspired by early sofware innovators Novell and WordPerfect, tech companies have found the "Silicon Slopes" to be the destination of choice. This insurgence of the tech industry has launched a slew of software and hardware startups all along the Wasatch front. In additon, the Utah Science Technology and Research Economic Development Initiative provides funding to the Univesity of Utah and Utah State University to research new technologies that are then spun off into companies each year.