Parker Cox@carkerpox
Quick reintroduction:
-I am Parker, I grew up in Santa Cruz, I spent 9 years in San Diego, now 6 years in Boise with my wife and 4 boys (19, 11, 10, 8)
-Thought I was going to be a pro soccer player, blew out my knee 2 days before I signed my D1 offer and 3 days before I was supposed to fly to England to trial for a premier league team.
-My parents were pretty crazy about education and finishing so I could get on with my life as fast as possible. So I graduated HS at 16.
-Blew out my knee that same summer and decided to make up for lost time. Spent most of college wasting my time and escaping from the pain of my dreams being over (though I didn't really realize that until much later, at the time I thought I was having fun and being cool).
-Studied abroad my Junior Year, I turned 20 in Rome. Amazing experience in so many ways. Had a blast.
-Came home, graduated 9 months later. Moved to San Diego. Few months later, met a girl. Few months after that she was pregnant. Luckily, 13 years later she was and still is the one for me.
-First job was cold calling, turns out I was pretty good at sales. Set some company records, had a fun time. Also turns out, that was the only "real" job I was ever to have. I am not good with authority, I lasted 6 months.
-Right around the time I was fired, I learned that I was going to be a dad (and a stepdad). Had to get my shit together quickly. I started waiting tables at night and launching a P&C insurance business.
-22, had my first biological son. He was extremely sickly. So my wife had to stay home with him, I suddenly had to provide for a family of 4 in San Diego at 22. And, on Christmas Day, our 3 month old went septic, and our entire lives changed. Spent 6 days in the hospital. Had a doctor tell me "if you guys leave the hospital, he won't come back alive." I worked more--13 days in a row from 4pm to 2am, one day off, repeat at the restaurant. Baby never slept. Up by 7 to get my older son to school. Work the insurance business as hard as I could. First year, made $13,000. Yeah was rough. Still surprised I didn't quit.
-23 started to learn "how" to build a business. Was a painful thing--not to have someone show me "what" to do, but I am extremely thankful for the 18 months it took me to learn "how". Been able to carry that resilience and self-belief into all the new things I have tried since.
-2nd year in insurance business I made $38,000. Still a lot of time waiting tables and serving drinks, but could slowly start to see it working.
-24 had son number 3. Also, broke $70,000 in Insurance income. Could finally start working more in insurance than food service. Also had the hardest convo of my life so far--boy number 2 was diagnosed with autism. Extremely painful as a parent. The last 10 years have been always oriented around helping him get the most out of life--so many investigative treatments, but he went from non-verbal to high functioning and I am so deeply grateful for all the lessons and experiences I have had because of him. Empathy changes when you have someone who has special needs relying on you. Insurance business was doing good--compounding income, I broke $100k for the first time.
-26 had son number 4. I told you my parents wanted me to grow up fast--jokes on them. I had 4 kids by 26. Crazy the twists life throws at you. 2 weeks before my wife found out she was pregnant, I had decided to leave the insurance biz and start a PM co with my now business partner. I told my wife "until that baby is in Kindergarten, I need to prioritize this business." Was shockingly true, just before number 4 finished Kindergarten, for the first time in 7 years, I stopped weekly travel. Had traveled on over 700 flights in 6 years, missed approximately 1.5 total years of my kids lives when you stacked up all the days I was gone.
-26-32 Built the PM business into one of the fastest organically growing PM co's in the country. Worked 80+ hours a week for 6 years, no vacations. Traveled between 40-70% time. Peaked at 5 offices between CA and ID. Weekly commute from Idaho back to California for 3 years, during COVID. Was absolutely brutal. Developed pretty severe panic attacks and coped with alcohol in a non-healthy way.
-32 took the PM co passive. Ultimately optimized it for profit and let our operator take over. Launched Pavago at the same time. Funny, the day we decided to step back I said to my business partner--maybe we should both take a vacation. I shit you not, that night we registered the domain and filed the paperwork for Pavago and LFD (our Linkedin Marketing Co) on Legal Zoom.
-33 sold PM Co to the operator--poor timing. PM co's are ultimately Real Estate Assets--would have gotten (and were offered) a lot more in 2021. All good. We were burnt out and we saw the opportunity to go all in on Pavago.
-34. Here now. All in on Pavago, spent the last 18 months building out a vision we have had for this space since we first launched almost 3 years ago. Excited to share it soon--our 7 month 2026 sprint is almost over and we're on the verge of launch.
-I coach two soccer teams, am a director for a local club, work out some, spend time annoying my wife and mostly try to be a good dad, build good companies and contribute to helping other kids on the soccer field when I can.
-I'm here on X to meet other cool folks in business. I started posting/engaging on X in 2023. It has genuinely changed my life. So many amazing friends and connections have been made. Deeply appreciate this community and do everything I can to support it
-Feel free to dm me if you want to connect
