I thought I was building a membership. I was building a legacy.
Plandipity Doers exists because building a business alone is harder than it needs to be. What started as a way to make business easier became something much more personal.
I wasn't trying to build her dream
After my mom died, I looked for ways to keep her memory alive, without ever quite figuring out what carrying her legacy forward looked like for me.
She was one of the most creative people I have ever known, and she once dreamed of a permanent place where artists could belong, sell their work year round, and support one another. She never got to build it, and for years, neither did I.
Years into my own entrepreneurial journey, I finally saw what had been sitting right in front of me the whole time. I was not building her dream. I was carrying a piece of it forward, reimagined for a different audience and a different set of tools. The heart is very much the same.
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About Samantha
Samantha Markey is a photographer, social media marketing strategist, speaker, author, and business growth coach who helps small business owners turn overwhelming marketing into practical systems they can actually use and repeat.
She speaks for chambers of commerce, conferences, and networking groups across Colorado and has been featured in INKUBATOR, VoyageDenver, She Rises Studios, and Becoming An Unstoppable Woman Magazine. She's also the creator of the Plandipity Doer Planner and continues to develop practical planning resources designed to help small business owners turn ideas into action.
Outside of business, Samantha is a self-proclaimed two-time award-winning human maker, married to her high school sweetheart, a lifelong Harry Potter fan, and a Colorado transplant who grew up in upstate New York near the Canadian border. She has also participated in two Guinness World Record events, which is probably a story for another day.
How a dream became a business
From a photography business to a business growth community, in four moves.
Samantha Markey Photography
2009
After Samantha's mom died, she realized how few photographs she had of her, because her mom hated being photographed. Her husband handed her a camera and encouraged her to finally pursue something she had been talking about for a while: learning photography and creating beautiful, affordable family portraits so other families would not someday have the same regret. She spent the next couple of years learning, building the brand, and eventually launched Samantha Markey Photography.
More Than Serendipity Visual Marketing
2020
Samantha narrowed her focus to brand photography, headshots, social media marketing, teaching, and strategy. At first, social media education was also a way to grow the brand photography side of the business. But the more she taught small business owners how to show up and market themselves, the more that work began taking on a life of its own.
The idea for a collective
2021
The world had shut down, and suddenly small business owners who had spent years avoiding social media could not avoid it anymore. Samantha's training and speaking work took off as entrepreneurs tried to figure out how to show up online. Shut Up and Show Me, the book she had been writing as a lead magnet for her brand photography business, went from a great idea to what she jokingly calls a digital paperweight as her attention shifted to something bigger: the Plandipity Doers Collective. It started as a social media marketing support community for entrepreneurs who hated social media, because at the time, that was the need Samantha saw everywhere. But as the community evolved, something became increasingly clear: small business owners did not just need help with social media. They needed support building the business around it.
The clarity
2026
It took five years of building, listening, experimenting, and paying attention to what members were actually getting from the community for Samantha to realize that Plandipity Doers was never really just about social media. Business owners needed accountability to do the things they knew they needed to do, practical tools when they got stuck, access to expertise without hiring a consultant every time they had a question, and community. When she hired a business coach to help solve what she thought was primarily a sales problem, another missing piece became clear: she did not just want to help business owners do their marketing. She wanted to help them be seen. Plan, Create, Do, Repeat had described the system. Connect, Do, Be Seen described what Samantha wanted the community to actually do for the people in it.
What we believe and what we promise
We believe marketing is a practice, not a performance. Here is what we stand for and what you can expect when you join us.
What we believe
Success should be more than a happy accident.
Business is better in community.
Marketing should be simplified, not complicated.
Progress matters more than perfection.
Ideas do not grow businesses. Action does.
Visibility creates opportunity.
Entrepreneurs deserve someone who believes in them.
What that looks like in practice
We build relationships before transactions.
We make space to work, not just more information to consume.
We celebrate progress and help each other keep going.
We share the stage and create real chances to be seen.
We choose collaboration over competition.
You do not have to grow your business alone.
My mom imagined a place where people could belong, share resources, support one another, and have a better chance of making a living doing something they loved. I didn't set out to build her dream, but somewhere along the way, I realized I was carrying a piece of it forward. Come see what it feels like to have people in your corner.