Ethan Parker

I may have mentioned Zinch in this blog before, but if not, they are a big inspiration for me as an entrepreneur. I was in one of the founder’s wards (geographic area of LDS church members) last summer, Brad Hagen. This last March I stumbled upon his younger brother’s blog; Mick Hagen. Since then I think I have read every post he wrote since 2006 and ate it all up.

He dropped out of Princeton to start this company and had no assurance that it would succeed other than faith and talent. There have been naysayers, but it will likely grow into something really big, multi-millions. He’s just someone who lives for the right reasons it seems to me, and he’s fearless. www.mickhagen.com is the blog.

So until recently Mick didn’t know I was blog-stalking him and we had never met. Since he’s opening an office in San Fransisco and moving away on Friday I decided to visit the office and meet him. Today Mick told me the gist of the Zinch story and answered some questions I had written down. Very cool and very intelligent young man (25!) as I expected him to be from reading about his life. We exchanged business cards.

Here is a “tweet” he wrote just a little while ago. Nice to be acknowledged by those you admire. I hope to be the same way when people approach me about business. Especially those with companies not as developed as mine (believe it or not that’s happened to me with my biz Parker Planners once or twice).

Zinch is a very innovative site that allows high school kids to get looked at by their dream college. It’s also a hub for scholarships. The students create a profile much like my space or facebook and colleges pay to be able to view and sort these profiles.

Love,

Ethan