There is some super crazy stuff coming up in the near future for me, but I like it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Next Wednesday I’m going to Texas for another trade show but this one is bigger than the last- exactly 20 times bigger. At the last trade show we had about 50 potential customers and nabbed 18. At this one there will be about 1000 so the pressure is on. We sink or swim; excel or rack up a whole lot of expenses. My employee Boston and I have been at it hard these last 2 weeks calling potential customers and sending out emails to invite people to our booth and buy stuff from us. He’s only been with the company 2 weeks but we made the decision to bring him to the Houston show because it’s 3 days long and we will really appreciate the extra help. His wife seems to be excited about it, too- she said Boston comes home really happy because he likes his work. To think someone works for me and likes it is a huge compliment, more on that later. I’m excited Boston will get to meet my partner Benjie, too. Benjie (Benjamin and now Ben, but to me he will always Benjie Be) has been the best business partner a person could ask for since day 1; we’ve been working together since 2008 and he never ceases to amaze with his smarts, work ethic, and lack of anything that looks like fear. I’m really glad he and his wife are still involved with Parker Planners and I look forward to each time we get to see each other. He lives in Boise now, but we’ll see how long that last with the growth rate of the company (crossing toes). Kinda crazy to think other people are involved in my crackpot idea of wanting to sell a product to stores across the nation . . . and liking it.

My biggest fear when Parker Planners was super tiny was employing people. I didn’t want other people to have to rely on me for their welfare. I didn’t mind risking everything I had or failing myself, but to have someone else’s livelihood come strait from me or be affected by my decisions was something that I didn’t want to be held accountable for. I’ve since come to understand that everyone is responsible for their own decisions and someone taking a chance by working for/with me is just doing what I do- enjoying calculated risk. It’s not being reckless. It’s asking “what’s the best and what’s the worst that could happen” and if you can handle the worst and you REALLY want the best then why not go for it?

So the pressure is on, big time. If we see the same success from this show (percentage-wise) as the last, Parker Planners will be well on its way to becoming a legitimate concern in the college market. We might see things like bigger companies stepping in to compete or someone sniffing around at acquiring us. Either way it’s way exciting. We are very fortunate to be able to stay with my sister in Houston, that really worked out nice. Also one of the opening sessions of the show is a keynote by the founder of TOMS shoes, the company that gives a pair of shoes away for each they sell. I love inspiring stuff like that. Stories of people beating the odds are cool. It’s because that’s what we all have in us. We can all beat the odds if we have faith and are persistent enough. It’s in our nature and in our blood because of where we come from.

This is a story about a team beating the odds. They rock. Those guys are big role models for me in the entrepreneur world. Mick especially, ever since I found his blog and read every single post in early 2009 he has made me feel like dreams come true and you can kick as much butt as you choose. His 2-sentence bio blows minds: All-state athlete in 2 high school sports, chess club captain, sterling scholar. Princeton drop-out and founder of a VC-backed start-up with rapid growth and consistently making national news. On top of that he’s really personable and was on a hip-hop dance team back at Princeton. But I’m not just a looker.

I want to be this person for other people. I’d like to be someone that liberates people from their fears with my presence like Marianne Williamson’s quote says. Lotsa people think Nelson Mandella created it for his 1994 inaugural speech but I guess it was really from one of her books published in 1992. It is our light, not our darkness that most scares us. This makes lots of sense to me because knowing what we could be frustrates us a lot more than our failed attempts. We sometimes even dislike those that have worked harder than us to achieve their potential because we know we could have had the same thing had we exercised more faith or wasted less time. Tyler Haws is a great example of working on a huge goal and maybe not having all the natural ability in the world.

When I was 19 I set a goal to become a millionaire by the time I was 26. I figured (as a 19 yr old!!! don’t take this as my opinion now) those that don’t get there until they are 30 didn’t use their 20’s right and those that get there before 25 probably stole it. It could still happen. I’m not saying it will but it’s possible my stake in Parker Planners could be that valuable before this June. I’ll be real here and say it’s not very likely but saying that it can’t happen would be to deny magic its magicalness. We could get into 400 more stores at the Houston show, have Office Max, Target, and Staples love us at the NY show, release a sweet iPhone/Android app at Techcrunch Disrupt in May, and poof! PP equity is worth a lot. I’d for sure sell some ownership, hire people, and stuff, but it would fulfill the 19 yr old dream of mine.

Yay dreaming on paper. For the year 2011 I would very honestly be content have this business pay my bills so I can still work on it. I love what I do and will fight like a rabid monkey to keep it going.

Don’t think so? Try facebook chatting with ‘Ballet Programmer Mega Hottie’ for an hour. That’s a code name I’ll use to protect her identity. ‘Cause that’s what I just did and I swear it took about 14 seconds.

Yup, meet one of the coolest girls ever. I first met her at a new year’s party this last year when someone in my ward brought her as a friend. She easily made it into the ‘most gorgeous girls I’ve ever seen’ club but I didn’t get her number or take her out or anything. I saw her again at a Valentine’s party and we danced in a general vicinity. So just now (like 4 days after that party) a friend’s post included her so I looked up her profile, saw all this cool stuff, and we started chatting online.

Dang. That’s all I have to say about this girl. On her profile it says that she loves this song by Bruno Mars and she’d be putty in the hands of the guy that sang it to her. I’ll take that challenge any day. Hmmmmm.

Good-ness. Gra-cious. Whatsaguytodo? She’s the stuff. We have tentative plans to hang out and talk about web design, etc which I hope happens. Oh man. Smitten. Smitten. Sometimes I forget what this is like.

These gotta be hard to make.

Yup, you heard right. This is a very interesting article about how a lot of people (even non-LDS) read blogs created by mormon housewives. It’s even a guilty pleasure that few can admit.

Read on:

Believe it or not

I think this is really cool. My sister gave a pretty accurate description and commentary on this topic as well, being herself a mormon mom with a blog.

Here’s probably the quintessential mega-hip mega-mom mormon blog. It’s called “rockstar diaries” and it’s by a couple in NY- he went to Columbia and she went to Julliard. They take pictures with (probably) a decent Canon SLR and make stuff look like it could be in a magazine.

Here are a couple pictures from their blog:

This mug will bring you lasting happiness. Probably. I need it.

Good ole Ford. I think school is a great place to meet cool people. The more quality the institution, the cooler the people. It’s too bad you have take the occasional beating from a small-minded professor as a trade-off.

Who’s excited for the new year?! I really am. I love throwing things away. Taking down last year’s goals, reevaluating, and setting new ones breathes all kinds of good into my soul.

This is the year my hobby becomes a profession.

I’ve been working on Parker Planners for a while now. You can look at it so many ways. Our percentage growth has been great since we started but some would scoff (and have! ) at the dollar amounts. I’ve had it on the side all through school at BYU since my mission. I figured I had to finish school because that is a regret a lot of people carry. I have to say that it brought some relief to graduate but not tons and tons. Don’t be a “grass is greener” person. It’s never that green, guys. Progress brings happiness, not handouts or dumb luck (misfortune disguised as fortune).

BYU is a fabulous place and I’m glad I went there. I wish I had known what ivy leagues were before my senior year of high school though. A classmate of mine went to Princeton and used to tell me about the private concerts from nationally acclaimed artists, how his roomate was the prince of Spain, and stuff like that. Even if it takes me another 10 years, I want to be at an ivy league for my MBA. Hey you who wants to be in the Stanford GSB class of 2017, let’s be friends and I’ll SEE YOU THERE!!

I love the “just friends” talk. It stinks to hear the F-bomb from girls but it’s way better than having to wonder if they like you. Hearing “I think we’re better as friends” is way better than”why didn’t you just ask me out again? I was interested!” later when the girl of your dreams is married to a smurf.

I have no problem aiming high over and over. I don’t think it’s fair to me or anyone else to “settle”.

Enjoy, friends, this is a good one!

Today was easily one of the best days of my life. I just got back from a jam session with friends and it was magical. Nothing short of magical. Let me introduce you to the cast:

Emily Brown – Her “Song of an Insomniac” is easily A-list quality. I’m talking late night talk show, sold out stadium good. Say what you will I’m gonna support her on that with anything I can. This is a video from a BYU’s got talent show but I can’t wait until there is a professionally recorded version. When she performed it for us the room was dead silent and it was fabulous.

Emily Golightly – in a band called Bomb-Semble. This girl has soul. If you’ve never heard it (soul) go listen to some Louis Armstrong, Aretha Franklin, or Seal. Serious good vibes coming from this girl.

Hannah Johnson – A good friend that wrote a song about her def TA. Hilarious and very good at piano/vocals.

Joel Adams – Dude had some funny stuff. Also in a band with 4 other people there, the Bombsemble.

There were many more I’d love to mention (and if you want mentioned I’ll throw you in here with a link to your stuff!) but suffice it to say that everyone there (and there were probably 15) was a great musician and we took turns listening to one another’s stuff rounded out by a group jam of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” and Miley Sirus’ “Party in the USA”. Played first as a classical song then rocked out to it’s fullest complete with guitar-body drums by Joel Adams (he’s really a drummer).

Man it really makes me want to find what type or part of music I can be the best in the world at and go for it like a toddler to dangerous yet indescribably interesting objects.

So earlier in the evening, and just before this we ate some delicious Pei Wei, we celebrated a day-early birthday with my dad up in Kaysville! We were out getting dinner and decided to get a cake and candles while out. After dinner Eric and I came in from the garage singing with cake in hand! I love surprises and surprising people so much. For a long time it was my deeply desired dream to have a real birthday surprise party and June 2009 it happened. For parties interested that’s what birthed this blog.

Oh yeah, and snowboarding at Brighton today was nothing short of the perfect ski day. Snow: powdery fresh and full of funk. Cost: $20 for all-day. Beat that! Crowdedness: not. With: brother and snow homie. Overall: win!

Here’s nature’s beauty of which we partook. I dig the fog.

Brighton’s cool history of snowboards wall.

We three snowpeople of Provo are . . .

Thanks and goodnight. This blogging stuff is fun but good golly it takes time. 2:20 am may we meet again when I’m involved in an activity that makes me money . . . legally . . . in purely wholesome ways.

Janie never ceases to amaze me. She’s one of those people that always inspires no matter the time or place. I went and checked my PO box today, there was a credit card offer, a couple checks for Parker Planners, and a letter from Janie Thompson. Of course I opened that one first.

To my surprise it was this!

It’s a thank-you note in the shape of two hands clapping! She said she wanted to give me a standing ovation for still taking out her recycling. What a funny, hip, and classy lady. If you’re not sure who she is, she’s a great friend I met 4 years ago when I first got to BYU, she just turned 87 this year.

Mick Hagen’s blog (used to be mickhagen.com now unwacky.com) inspired me to create a blog of my own. He co-founded Zinch.com which helps high schoolers navigate the mess that is college admissions. Here’s a quote from an old post of his that I really love:

“

“To fail while no one else attempted is in itself a success.”

Thanks, man. Not many people out there are fearless enough to pursue what they love.

I love great minds for their knowledge and warmth. I love small minds for their shining example of how not to be.

We had a great comment come in from our website recently, here it is:

“

“Dear Parker Planners,

I received my planners and they’re even better than I expected. I used to get the old ones, but these ones are far better!

I go to Weber State University. In 2009, I took 17 credit hours at Weber, along with 4 extracurricular classes, and a part time job. These planners kept the planks on my life’s ship from shuddering through the storms that semester. I came through with a 4.0 GPA and was asked to be an activities chair of a large student organization because they saw how organized I was with my planner! Thanks a million.

Respectfully,
Eric”

Cool, huh? At the Utah 25 another person came up to me and thanked me for creating a great product. It’s great to hear that from our users. Also good that you have to work long, hard, and unrewarded before stuff like that gets back around to you. It’s surely not the praise that keeps you going, though, or I would have quit a long time ago.

Ethan

Sesame Street rocks. This is a good one. It’s important to think positive. A great quote I read recently goes something like this: “A poor man is not he without cent, but he without vision”

My first semester of real accounting at BYU I had Doug Prawitt as a professor. He is easily one of the best educators I have ever come in contact with. The class was difficult but it was apparent he wanted us to succeed and did everything he could to help that happen. So many teachers want you to suffer through school just because they did and to them it’s a sort of demented rite of passage that is perpetuated by small minds.

Dr. Prawitt regularly puts a new quote up like this. I dig it. And I dug this one so I wrote “word up”

Enjoy!

Ethan

Hey y’all! I found out through my iPhone correcting me that “yall” is spelled y’all instead of “ya’ll” like I always thought. It makes perfect sense now. I was so blind.

This week has been amazing! Wow, so much fun and adventure. The trip to the trade show was more intense than I thought. The first 5 hours to Boise weren’t too bad, just a little rain and I was running on beef jerky and a pomegranate ‘naked’ juice graciously given by the lenders of the car. I would have been fine driving the VW Jetta all the way to Washington but my parents offered to let me drive one of their cars so I took them up on it.

I ended up driving the 2006 325i which was very very nice all things considered. First of all, you can cruise at 100mph and it feels like you’re doing 55. We didn’t go that fast the whole time but ya know, it’s nice to have it if you need it. Second, it has some pretty nifty traction control that came in handy when Benjie and I got caught in a snow storm in Washington. We couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of the car. Intense it was. Sort of just crept up on us and I’m glad we made it out of there!

I picked up Benjie from work in downtown Boise, he works at Clearwater Analytics. It’s way cool, their office space is a floor of a taller building and they wear jeans and t-shirts to work. I’m so glad for that, I thought Benjie was getting all corporate-ed out and living under the tyranny of a no-fun boring-party poo-boss environment. Quite the contrary and that’s good for my homie.

For those new to Parker Planners, Benjie and I partnered in the summer of 2008 after Parker Planners was around for about a year. It was way fun to catch up and we had about 8 hours to do so on the way to Tacoma. Another super lucky (side story: see image below, yes, that is SUPER LUCKY ELEPHANT rice. I first saw it on my mission. Oh man that was good for many laughs) break was that our former employee Jackie Lau lives right in Tacoma now! She has a fancy marketing job with Kraft foods with company car and all that. She let us stay at her place which was super cool. We got there around midnight and left the next morning just after 6am. Quick visit indeed.

So we got the Hotel Murano (if you reverse the name like that it’s at least 14x more fancy than ‘Murano Hotel’) around 7am and it was mega artsy-fartsy. Loved it. Tacoma is a pretty cool city, lots of hills like San Fran and right by water like various other cool cities. Benjie and I set up our booth quickly and ate the free (ehh, kinda, we did pay hundreds of $ to be there) pastries and juice. People were busy body bees as they set up their stuff. It was fun to see. At 10am when the show was supposed to start we were primed and ready to talk about planners. The minutes felt like hours as an extremely slow trickle of potential buyers walked briskly, directly to the booths they needed to hit. Right past us. We then watched as a few more came and lovingly embraced employees at other booths. ? What? These people obviously have been doing this for years and already know each other. Can we be 20 years older and magically know all the college bookstore buyers, too? Huh? Who does this stuff anyway?

So after about 30 mins (2.2 eternities of stress and anguish) I thought we were doomed to be welcomed to a wonderful trade show and kick in the rear by a harsh reality that selling is harder still than I ever thought. Sigh.

THEN. Then a lady came up to us, she was younger, maybe late 20’s with some interesting piercings and tatoos. She was hip, funny, and seemed to like us a little. We talked to her for less than five minutes then she gave us a promising “I’ll take your info packet back to my boss and see what he thinks”. Oh good. Progress. Then after a few more comments from us she said “ok, I’ll do it, what do I need to fill out”.

True that. If only girls thought this way . . .

This is in reference to start-up businesses. I’ve seen this guy speak many times and worked Omniture’s annual convention twice. I have lots of respect for him.

My grandpa Parker passed away in 1997. He fought in WWII in a submarine as a 17 yr old. He rebuilt lots of cars with my dad and owned one of 1500 Rambler Rebels (a very light and powerful car from the late 1950’s). I always liked coming down to Hurricane to visit he and grandma. They were always so kind and loving. Grandma would stuff you full of food and grandpa would direct you to the candy dish or read to you any time. 

I’ve visited this place many many times but never met the neigbors until two days ago. Al next door has been cutting my grandma’s grass since 1997 when grandpa passed away. I had no idea someone was taking such care to help one of my family members. I was blessed with the opportunity to mow Al’s lawn Monday he is recovering from heart surgery. He said that my grandma is a very neat person. He’s right. The biggest surprise however was meeting Al’s wife. When I met her she said “you’re Ray’s grandson, it’s the eyebrows, I can tell”. Then she said we had beautiful eyes. I thought that was funny, but hey when you got, you got it . Sonya’s career was in nursing and she was the first on the scene when grandpa fell off the ladder. She tried to revive him but said he was gone before he got into the ambulence. 

What a neat experience to get to know my own family better through close friends of theirs. I could/would/should really be back in Provo right now being responsible but I’d give up lots of money to hear more 1st hand accounts about my grandfather. When we meet people like that it’s not by chance. We need to hold onto and record those events. 

Not much. I probably follow this advice/thought to a flaw and there are those who think I’m crazy. Let’s take my life right now for example: Betting a lot of cash (as in student loans yes!) that I can sell a product to Walmart and/or college bookstores nationwide and/or get a large organization to do their printing through me. I don’t regret a minute of it. Live like you’re dying, folks.

Sometimes when people like something, they call it “sick” to describe how much it uplifts them. That’s how I’d describe this video.