DVO Enterprises is a family software company located in Alpine, UT. DVO's products are distributed through traditional retail channels and over the Internet.
DVO Enterprises was founded in a spare bedroom by software developer Daniel V. Oaks Jr. in March of 1992. As a student at Brigham Young University with one computer, little capital, and no connections, Dan set out with the goal of creating quality software products to strengthen families.
While studying at BYU and working part-time at IBM, Dan developed The Food Planner, to help families plan their food storage. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, storing a year supply of food is a challenge. The Food Planner made the difficult task of planning and using a food storage easy.
The revenue from regional Food Planner sales was sufficient for a single college student but after marrying Kathy in 1993 and after having their first baby in 1994, Dan found that there wasn't enough 
money to support a family. The regional limitations of the food storage market quickly became very apparent.
At the same time, Dan discovered that many of his customers were using his software to organize recipes, plan menus, and make grocery shopping lists. Dan changed his focus and renamed his software; The name Cook'n came to him in the bathroom one day while wondering at the catchy name Intuit chose for its financial planning software, Quicken.
Notwithstanding new direction and an excellent product, Dan struggled to get distribution in the retail channel. With a young family to support, it was difficult to hang in there: "...even my Mom cornered me one Christmas and told me to go get a job..."
Perseverance paid off a year later. In the fall of 1997, a courageous buyer at Sam's Club took a risk with a 
no-name software developer named DVO. Sam's was really "Cook'n" four months later, after selling 40,000 copies.
After the success at Sam's Club Dan set his sights on a higher goal: to make Cook'n the best recipe software in the world. The effort required a greater investment than he ever expected: "...I thought my ship had come in but before I knew it I was borrowing money from my parents and friends just to survive."
Dan shared a portion of a journal entry that he wrote during during this difficult time: "I feel that I just don't have the faith necessary to realize the blessings that I could if my faith were greater. It takes hope and optimism to have faith and I have neither of those things. I made my decisions to build the business and make investments which have now resulted in huge debt on the basis of hope, optimism, and even faith. I know that if I had true faith, things would have turned out differently. It appears that unless you exercise complete faith, you're better off with no faith because having only a little faith is worse than none at all. At least with no faith or hope, you don't go off irresponsibly and blindly pursuing a perilous course."
"I met with the Bishop the night before last for tithing settlement. While I was there, I asked him about the timing of the supposed opening of the windows of heaven which is promised to those who pay a full tithe and told him how the windows of heaven above us are sealed shut. I also asked him about the parable of the talents in the scriptures. There is an example of someone who hid their talents and an example of two people who doubled their talents by investing them, but there is not a story of someone who invested their talents and lost them! I asked the Bishop what happened to that guy when he got to heaven! He suggested that many times hardships are the result of sins and that I should seek to know what I need to repent for. During my morning of intense prayer, the only thing I could think of that I felt guilty for was putting DVO first, above my highest priorities of being a good husband and father. That's one of the reasons why I resolved to put first things first from now on."
Needless to say, it took a lot of patience, hard work, and faith (and a lot of support from his wife!) but Dan's efforts paid off. Over the last eight years, he formed strategic alliances with partners such as Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, and Taste of Home. He establish a strong presence in the retail channel and on the Internet. His HomeCook'n Newsletter has over 200,000 subscribers, DVO.com receives 10,000 unique visitors each day, and his newest project, the Cook'n Club, has over 1,000 members!
With over one million copies sold, Dan achieved his goal of making the Cook'n Recipe Organizer the #1 best-selling recipe organizer in the world! He paid off all of his debts and some say he is rich. While referring only to his wife and 5 beautiful children, he would definitely agree.
When asked about his amazing journey, Dan gives credit for his success to God. When asked about what the future holds, he was pretty tight-lipped about the next version of Cook'n...code named Baklava...which is supposed to revolutionize the way recipes are exchanged on the Internet. But, if the past is any indication as to what we can expect in the future, I'd say that the Internet world is in for an exciting surprise!
After all this, he still reads all of his own e-mail (somehow), enjoys camping and sledding with his family, and performs many charitable services, the details of which he did not want made public. Check back soon...to learn more about the next chapter of DVO and the fascinating Cook'n saga!
What We Believe
- The family unit is the most basic and fundamental organization in any society and the best environment in which to develop physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually healthy people
- Tremendous forces are being exerted to weaken the family unit
- The new technologies that are emerging can have a profoundly positive or negative impact on the family's well-being
Our Core Values
- Personal and corporate integrity
- Creative excellence and design innovation in all we do
- The prioritization of people over products and profits
Our 20-Year Goal
- To build DVO Enterprises into the most trusted of the top four family software brands
Most major software companies today name shareholder value or profitability as their top priority. At DVO, our priorities are: people first, products second, and profits third. Profiting is like breathing. As humans, we must breathe to live, but we do not live to breathe. As a company, DVO must profit to exist, but we will not exist merely to profit. Achieving our goal of building a top four family software brand takes a tremendous amount of capital, but we will never sacrifice the needs of families or our employees simply to increase our wealth.
The world is full of software companies that are out to make a buck. The world desperately needs a software company that is out to make a difference.
