Company

History of FamilyLearn

- by Neal Harmon, the Founding Families and You -
shared with close customers since August 2007
posted for the public May 1, 2008

Introduction

The time is 11:15pm, August 24, 2007. It is with great hesitance that I share this history, for it is a sacred one to me and to the families who have participated in forming the company of FamilyLearn. Although this is the story of a family project that became a business, I do not share this story as a vehicle to make money. I share it with a great sense of mission. I've fought the prompting to share it with you for years because I am a very private person and did not want to use the hardships of these families to get gain in any way. The realization that this story can give you a reason to entrust your family library to FamilyLearn, perhaps more than anything else we have done, has compelled me to share.

I believe in a freely accessible, safe library where our four children can read the stories of their parents and grandparents. Because of the way I've been uplifted by what I've read about my family, I also believe that these stories should be freely available for the rest of my family and for future generations to love and cherish and share. I believe in building a way for future family and lost family to connect with the stories that form their heritage. Having met so many who feel this same desire, I trust, dear reader, that this is something we share in common. I believe that you and I can preserve a library of our stories for our children and our children's children. I believe at the deepest level, this desire is a selfless one, driven only by a longing to help give hope to those who we know will tread this same difficult (and wonderful) path of life that we trod.

At the same time, as I refuse to share this particular story for gain, I recognize that FamilyLearn needs your business. I know that as much as I'd love for all the FamilyLearn products to be free, putting together a product from scratch requires resources. It requires that many families come together to pull resources to make this possible. It requires servers, programmers, support, and marketing for getting the word out. It requires that these people receive compensation for their work. The library of which I speak will require the united effort of many, many families in order for our combined resources to build something of great value for your family today and for future generations. Every time you choose to give FamilyLearn your business -- your journal, your published history, your preserved photos -- you invest a few more dollars into making this library a better place for all of us.

When it comes to sharing things about my family, I am very cautious to trust those I don't know. I cannot see such a library being built without trust. In this important endeavor, I know that you need to feel trust for those of us who are helping you do this for your family. There are too many companies, too many investors, too many people who burn trust over the coveted dollar. I know that the families who make up FamilyLearn have earned the trust of many, and will earn the trust of many more. Even after carefully omitting details too personal to share publicly, the strength of their dedication and trustworthiness resonates through these words. And because your trust means your support, I can not refrain from sharing the stories of the families who make up FamilyLearn, so you know the story behind your family library.

The Harmon Family

Grandpa
Between frequent trips to Idaho, Washington and Oregon to help his children and grandchildren remodel a kitchen or repair the electrical work or build a house, Grandpa Harmon captured the attention of his grandchildren telling stories that shaped his life. In 1999, his daughter suggested he write them down, and so he started typing. What he thought would be a dozen stories blossomed to over 150 short (a few paragraphs) vignettes of his life. He printed a copy from his computer for each of his children's families.

The stories were short, simple and unassuming, but delightfully filled with gems of wisdom. I felt like I could peek into 80 years of experiences and hop over pitfalls that Grandpa has gone through for me.

Trisha
Three years later, now married and expecting our first child, my wife Trisha and I decided we'd compile stories from our other family members to share with our future son. After collecting and reading the stories, we wanted to share them with the rest of our family and I unsuccessfully looked for a way to put them on-line as books with photos. So I built a little website and, during Thanksgiving 2002, I announced to my family that they could read the stories we'd collected.

My Siblings
Fast forward to 2005. Other families asked to participate, Paul Allen mentored me, our project had become a company and Trisha and I had spent all our savings. My brother, Theron, took a $4k tax hit to cash out his retirement savings and give us our first $10k investment so that I could continue to work on the company full-time. My younger sister, Jenny, sent me her $1,500 with a note, "I really believe in you and FamilyLearn."

My brother, Jeffrey, said, "You have no clue of the potential of what you've started." Then he left our basement office, walked out to his car, turned the key, stopped, grabbed his check book, returned and wrote a check for $2k. My brother Daniel, a poor college student with a young family, who also had some experience in sales, invested $2k and began selling with Jeffrey and me.

My Parents
One day Mom and I were talking and Mom mentioned an idea to sell their house so that they could invest the money into the company. This small farm house property was given to her by her parents and she loves it dearly (it's where we all grew up).

"I so want my grandchildren to be able to play there if we're ever able to move back to Idaho." Mom sold the property and she and Dad decided to invest the funds in FamilyLearn. When my Mother's house was on the line, it changed everything for me. That home was all my parents own for their retirement.

Trisha and Her Family
By this time the company had grown, and so had payroll. Trisha's brothers Ty and Thomas returned from their summer sales and decided to invest the $30k they had saved over the summer. The beginning of 2007 was a precarious time because we had run out of family funding. My family had given pretty much everything they had and we still weren't consistently cash-flow positive. I sold our car to get us by one payroll. Then Trisha decided to sell our home and the proceeds kept us moving.

Bright Future
Now, after moving out of our offices to save money, and with some help from Grandpa Harmon and Aunt Lillian to get through the tightest times, and with many employees going without paychecks except when absolutely necessary, we've launched the brand new MemoryPress, Pyxlin' and the library of public and private stories.

We're thrilled that our traffic and on-line sales have more than quadrupled since our launch, that we've had multiple customers return for second, third and fourth books on the new system, that I've been asked to host the 2008 Association of Personal Historians conference in Salt Lake City, that Jeffrey received a full-ride scholarship to the Marriot School for our business plan, and that you're reading this account.

Thank you!
This week I’ve spent selling Pyxlin’ at BYU education week with Jeffrey and his room-mate and I’m now in the back room of our rental, in my corner office, exhausted, yet completely at peace. We are making it . . . . we are really making it. With the support of all FamilyLearn and especially of you, we're both starting to realize our dream of preserving our stories in a way they'll be enjoyed by our family and our posterity.

The Jason Johnson Family

In 2003, as we began turning our family project into a business, my best friend from college, Bryan Johnson, introduced me to his older brother, Jason Johnson, a seasoned entrepreneur and skillful accountant who had just completed a family history project with his own family. I asked Jason to join an advisory board that would help me grow FamilyLearn as a company. In his own words, "against my better business judgment, I feel like I should do it because I think there is more than meets my business eye here." I was elated to have some help. Jason began studying a way to make a real business out of what we had built. We rewrote the business plan to get our start in the funeral home industry. With the support of his sweet wife and children, in spite of the fact they had suffered financial difficulties the previous year because of some major business setbacks, Jason started helping FamilyLearn full-time on a leap of faith in May 2004.

I quit my job in June 2004 and joined Jason. This time we worked toward building a product that fit a specific market. While Jason traveled up and down the Wasatch front meeting with funeral home owners, I created a system that could be used to remember someone with photos and memories. We named it the "Unforgettable Biography" (cheesy name I know). After a summer of training funeral homes and building relationships, we came to the sad realization that although many families were interested in the product, funeral directors felt like it was too much work and too difficult to explain. We had about 20 funeral homes on board and we created two on-line memorials.

As the summer came to a close, the funeral home experience proved very disappointing, but Jason refused to give up and he refused to let me think that my lack of business experience would condemn the fate of FamilyLearn. "You are learning so quickly Neal." However, Jason's debts from previous endeavors and the fact that he had no income forced him to start full-time elsewhere. He had five children to feed and we were out of rope. The funeral home summer was anything but a failure as the foundation of trust Jason had built with all the funeral home owners helped the company grow two years later.

Jason spent evenings and nights figuring out how to take what we'd built into another market. We decided to attend the Association of Personal Historians conference in November of 2004. We explained the Unforgettable Biography to dozens of personal historians who were a bit leary that we were only after a quick buck. After three days not selling anything, I decided that if nothing positive surfaced at this conference, it was time to throw in the towel. Then, late that day, Ron O'Reilly, from New Jersey, purchased the first Unforgettable Biography and we'll be forever grateful. After Ron took the lead, the final day, we sold dozens of accounts. Finally, when I listened to Jeanie Archer speak on small personal history projects, the idea came to turn our Unforgettable Biography into a physical book, which became iMemoryBook (now MemoryPress), and to our amazement, it started to sell.

The Long Family

At the same time I spoke with Paul Allen about FamilyLearn, Amy Long, a Family History Instructor at Brigham Young University, invited us to give a presentation on FamilyLearn to her classes. As she had written the book "From Shoeboxes to Books: Writing Great Personal Histories," and had a website, www.PersonalHistoryHelp.com.

After our experiences with personal historians, I spoke with Amy about helping the company develop the program around personal history and building relationships with the personal historians. Her first words were, "I know I hate selling and I won't do it." She agreed to try using the product for her own family first, and then if it made sense, she'd help us train the personal historians. Amy became our biggest iMemoryBook fan and loved using the product for her own projects. She suffered many, many bugs in those first days of the product, but she could envision where the product was headed.

Amy has completed more histories, for more people, than anyone else who has used FamilyLearn. Her projects were the major source for our first example books. Her clients became some of our greatest testimonials on the website. And she's never been compensated with a paycheck (of course she receives ownership in the company). The day I knew Amy was absolutely committed to the mission of FamilyLearn was the day she first volunteered to sell. "Neal, I don't find it hard to sell something that I love." And her husband Lance has helped her.

The Ellis Family

In 2005, Amy and I attended the Association of Personal Historians again with our new product, iMemoryBook, and it was a smashing success. We had so much business during that conference that I needed helping taking care of everyone in December. Joe Ellis, a friend of mine, was at my house one night and I mentioned to him my predicament. He volunteered to help take care of things after the conference at a rate, much less than he was worth, but it was what we could afford.

After Christmas, we couldn't let him go. There was too much to do and he took care of all of the loose ends I couldn't get to. As 2005 progressed, his hours became longer and longer until he was working for FamilyLearn full-time. Joe took care of shipping, support, errands, just about everything. And he loved it. "It feels like I'm working for a company, and purpose, that is good. I mean good. Most companies don't give me that chance." Eventually, his garage became our shipping center and he and his wife Liz moved three kids into one room so that their other room could be a quiet support office.

When Joe's responsibilities became too heavy, he mentioned to me, "Neal, so that we don't have to hire another full-time or part-time support person, Liz could help me with support calls whenever I'm out of the office." Not wanting to go through the hiring process and trusting Liz, I said, "Sure...let's do it."

Before we turned around, Liz's hours crept up too and she ended up working full-time or more, taking great care of customers, doing the bookkeeping and other errands. She and Joe take turns caring for their children while the other takes care of shipping, calls and anything else. Every customer I know loves Liz. I get unsolicited emails commending Liz. They have reason to.

Another thing no one knows is that when times have become tight, Liz and Joe volunteer to forgo their pay, without asking for anything in return. They've seen the most difficult times, paid company bills themselves, and worked many all-nighters. They are so fiercely loyal to this company and its mission that they inspire me and everyone else around them.

The Crane Family

Ben Crane bought an iMemoryBook and started using it as his personal journal. As a customer, he suggested we develop a journaling version of the product and I consented. Then he and Jeffrey Harmon started conducting surveys, researching the best name, working on marketing materials, and rounding up a nice group of students to BETA test the service. It became Pyxlin', the smart way to journal. The BETA journal service became a favorite of everyone in the company, and, now that the product is officially live, is becoming a favorite of many others.

As with the families of other employees who've become involved with FamilyLearn, Ben's family became heavily invested in helping the company succeed. They caught the vision of where the company was going and when we were seeking Angel Investment funding, they mortgaged their home to help FamilyLearn survive to our current position without outside investors. Even Ben's younger brothers contributed. Their faith in FamilyLearn helped to carry the company through a major growth stage during 2006.

Ben designed the new MemoryPress interface, helped with market research, sold Pyxlin' and more. Like others, he spent much, even most of his time working without a paycheck.

The Duane Johnson Family

Duane came to FamilyLearn as an award winning BYU student who'd been a software engineer as a young teenager. He'd been working on a similar project himself and loved the mission of FamilyLearn and the challenge of the typesetting project.

He authored and launched the YooTools.net open source project and is the brilliance behind the javascript interface to the MemoryPress typesetting system.

Duane and his wife Kelty began to really sacrifice for the company in recent months as he's turned down multiple, better paying job offers to stay with FamilyLearn. He's postponed school, taken late checks, gone without pay and smiled the entire time.

After Paul launched MemoryPress, Duane was the Saint who took care of the initial bumps while Paul was on vacation.

He's the author of the line in our mission statement that says, "we absolutely value each other and always enjoy a good laugh."

The Jones Family

Paul Jones took a serious pay-cut leaving Novell to come to FamilyLearn to "work on something that makes a difference in people's lives." He lead the technical development of the MemoryPress typesetting system, designed the typesetting servers and the scalable system on Amazon's Elastic Computing in the Cloud, and coordinated development in Venezuela.

Paul kept everything lite and fun in the office no matter how stressful it became. Liz says that she's sure "Paul hates me," because of the countless times he patiently helped Liz and customers with the BETA technical difficulties.

Paul and Candace have a large family and love to have fun together and enjoy life. He says he's so glad that he spent over a year revamping the system just so that he could make books on it.

He worked double time leading up to the launch of MemoryPress and then did an all nighter the day of the launch, right before leaving on a family vacation.

The "Your" Family

No history of FamilyLearn would be complete without your stories. This section is filled with your stories - those of you who have sacrificed time and effort to publish a volume for your family. You are the founders of FamilyLearn for your families.

New to FamilyLearn?
If you haven't started your family library, it's as easy as typing your first journal entry or starting a memory book, a personal history or a gift for your parents.