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Entrepreneur Ty Jenkins of Ten Sleep talked about finding a home in Wyoming and offered some tips to business owners during his keynote address at the Worland-Ten Sleep Chamber of Commerce awards banquet April 26.

Jenkins said he and his wife, Debbie, built a company in 1991, but prior to that he began work for a credit union and then some consultants doing some auditing. He said he realized there had to be a better process to streamline things.

"I sat down, I started typing a little bit of code. I thought I can write this system," Jenkins said.

He went to Valley National Bank in Phoenix, Arizona, and pitched the bank officials about a software program to streamline the processes. As he left the office he came up with a name for his company on the fly, DocuTech.

"And then I'd like to tell you from there, it was just easy. But then you get the normal curves of business, right," Jenkins said.

He said they went through rebranding, re-writing platforms and having some up and down times. When the banking crisis hit, he said they went from 300 clients to about 15 in 90 days.

"We grabbed our bootstraps, we sat down, we went to work again. And we started building again." He said, adding that they went into the financial crisis with about 20 competitors and came out of it with three.

"So whenever it gets tough, right, whenever it gets hard, and you don't think that there's a possibility ... if you reach down, you dig harder, and you just go faster, and you just don't give up, the other side is amazing," Jenkins said.

He sold the business in 2020, noting that 50% of every mortgage loan in America is done on their platform.

While he sold that business, he is involved in others, calling himself a serial entrepreneur.

"I love working, I really do," he said.

WHY TEN SLEEP

Jenkins also talked about moving to Ten Sleep. He said when he was asked to speak at the chamber banquet he was told to answer the question, why Ten Sleep?

He said he had connections to Worland, Wyoming, having gone to horse sales with his father while growing up on a ranch in Idaho.

Jenkins said at horse sales pen five meant those horses were broke to ride so following a horse sale he would go and see if the horses were really broke to ride. "I can tell you ... in Worland, Wyoming, the concrete is hard."

He always loved the area and fast forward about 30 years and when it was time to sale his business he wanted a ranch in Wyoming. After looking at ranches in the Wind River Range he did not find any that felt right.

Jenkins said they had been looking for a ranch for two years and they happened to go to Rome Hill Ranch, which was not for sale at the time, but it felt like home. Six months after meeting with the owner, and the sale was agreed upon. The sale was completed in 2017 and it is now the Lazy T Ranch.

Jenkins and his wife Debbie call Ten Sleep and Wyoming home although he is originally from Idaho Falls, Idaho.

"Seven years ago we came up to Wyoming and we've never looked back," he said.

He said while Ten Sleep is a beautiful place, the one thing that makes it different and special is the people.

During his time in Ten Sleep he has not had to sign one contract. "It's amazing. People don't believe that you could still work in a community where you don't have to sign a contract, that your word is your bond, you can shake your hand and a deal's a deal. And that's one of the biggest things that I just absolutely love. And that's something that we all you all should be proud of, because it's not everywhere.

"So that's why we love Wyoming. That's why we came to Wyoming is because it's really the people, it's the landscape. It feels like home, it feels kind of like where I grew up. it's kind of back to your roots and you never really can leave your roots."