For the founders of bloom daily planners, a planner is more than dates and deadlines. It’s a daily nudge toward who you want to become.
“Think of bloom as your productivity coach, accountability partner, and cheerleader all rolled into one,” said cofounder Michelle Askin, who launched the brand with fellow University of Delaware alum Kaylyn DiNardo. The two met while interning on a college-planner project and bonded over a shared love of stationery and order.
“We were those Lisa Frank-loving girls excited about a trip to Staples,” Askin said. What began as a “cute cover” experiment quickly evolved once they realized how personal a planner could be.
“A planner is a unique vehicle to speak to someone every single day,” she said. “We really differentiate ourselves by baking the love in.”
Today, every bloom planner includes pages for vision boards, goal setting, habit tracking, and reflection. That ethos guides how products are made. Bloom co-creates with customers through focus groups and a 7,000-member Facebook community.
“It’s a simple formula: get your audience together, really listen, and create what they want,” said Askin. As customers’ needs have evolved, so has the catalog, expanding from wedding and pregnancy planners to teacher tools and a chronic-illness planner inspired by Askin’s family experience.
“There are so many people dealing with chronic illness, either personally or as caregivers,” said Askin. “We’re exploring categories that don’t yet have tools like ours—how we can create the product someone’s been looking for that doesn’t exist yet.”
Bloom’s growth on Amazon began early. The company opened its Amazon storefront in 2010 and adopted Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to pick, pack, and ship orders. That growth has fueled bloom’s mission to give back. Its “profits that serve” model funds thousands of donated products each year for schools, nonprofits, and women’s shelters. The company’s flagship initiative, Empowerment Planners, provides free, co-designed planners for women who are incarcerated or transitioning out of prison. The planners include resume prompts, budgeting pages, habit trackers, and reflection questions—features shaped through focus groups with the women themselves.
“Women in jail are the fastest growing correctional population in the country,” noted Askin. “Incarcerated women are often at the end of a long, difficult road. When given a second chance, recidivism rates can drop more than 70%.”
Every purchase helps print and distribute thousands of Empowerment Planners annually through a nonprofit partner. That commitment to community impact earned bloom daily planners an Amazon Force for Good Award, presented each year to three selling partners.
“The idea behind Amazon Force for Good—that your business can and should be a force for positive change, that it should exist for more than just profits—is something that really resonates with us,” said Askin.
That sense of purpose, she added, anchors the company’s culture. “Our employees want to be part of something bigger than themselves,” Askin said. “People come lit up with their best ideas. Our community is happy to buy from us because they can see the impact.”