Ethan Willis and Randy Garn run Provo-based Prosper Inc. with one simple objective: the company will not celebrate its success until its clients are celebrating their own.

Prosper offers hands-on mentoring, as well as an extensive line of supporting products and services, in such areas as real estate investing, Web site design and marketing, stock market investing, business marketing and personal finance.

As longtime entrepreneurs and old friends from their days at Ricks College (now Brigham Young University-Idaho), Willis and Garn knew firsthand the need of many young owners for personalized guidance in starting and growing a business. This is the spark that led them to found Prosper, whose motto is, "Your life is your business . . . Making it Prosper is ours."

But the men are young themselves, so they knew they needed experienced entrepreneurs to mentor and teach their clients — as well as a staff skilled in marketing, sales, customer retention and producing the auxiliary products that support Prosper's educational programs.

Willis, Prosper's chief executive officer, and Garn, chief marketing officer, partnered with such charismatic success stories as Mark Victor Hansen and best-selling business author Robert G. Allen to give their student/customers the best, most effective and interesting education possible in the subjects taught by Prosper.

Today, Prosper has served more than 21,000 students, with ambitious plans to at least quadruple that number.