Owner-led. One team. No handoffs.
Thinglet Marketing is owned by two people who are still in the work every day, backed by a team that writes, designs, films, builds and supports alongside them. Between the owners: forty years of running businesses, a computer engineering degree, a Navy discharge, a shelf of books, and servers we still administer ourselves. We started in Palm Desert in 2011 and now work with small businesses anywhere in the United States.
The short version.
Founded 2011
Palm Desert, California- Started as Thinglet Software and Marketing
- Office on Country Club Drive
- Working nationwide since the plans went remote
Owner-led
Not a franchise, not an agency roll-up- Two owners, both hands-on, plus the team behind them
- No account handoff after the sale
- No offshore production layer
Three disciplines
Under one roof- Marketing and advertising
- Web development and hosting
- IT, cloud and practical AI
Patrick Albert
Founder and Partner
- Building on the internet since 1999
- Founder, Palm Desert Geeks (2005) and Thinglet (2011)
- Author: The Small Business Owner's AI Playbook, AI for Regular People, The Implementation Files
- U.S. Navy veteran
- Twenty years of hospitality ownership
Patrick Albert
Patrick Albert is an entrepreneur, technology builder, author, and business strategist with more than four decades of turning ideas into working businesses. He began building on the internet in 1999 and has adapted through every generation of change since, from computers and networks to websites, digital marketing, cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence.
He founded Palm Desert Geeks, which has served Coachella Valley businesses since 2005 with managed IT, networks, servers, cybersecurity, backups, and web development. Through Thinglet Marketing he runs the marketing side of that work: websites, social, video, streaming and broadcast television, radio, print, billboards, and paid advertising, coordinated as one strategy instead of a half dozen disconnected vendors. He is also the author of The Small Business Owner's AI Playbook, written for owners who want to use AI without becoming technology experts.
Before all of that he spent twenty years in hospitality, from the floor to ownership, and served in the U.S. Navy. He brings owner-operator discipline and Navy-honed accountability to every client. What that means in practice: budgets that reconcile, timelines that hold, and a process that does not fall apart when you're out for a week.
Edward Arellano
Edward Arellano is a Partner at Thinglet Marketing and Operations Manager at Palm Desert Geeks, where he helps businesses connect technology, marketing, and day-to-day operations into one working system.
He brings a rare mix of hands-on IT expertise and customer-facing leadership. Edward manages technology operations, oversees hardware and software installations, supports Microsoft Azure environments, and coordinates projects that span website development, social media, digital marketing, and cloud migrations. Before moving into operations, he worked as an IT technician supporting on-site diagnostics, repairs, system maintenance, and high-priority service requests.
That technical foundation is paired with a strong communication background. As a Program Advisor at UC Riverside Residential Life, he educated campus partners, published program materials online, and helped increase community attendance by 80 percent. That experience still shapes how he works today: listen first, translate technical options into clear next steps, and deliver work that actually gets used.
Edward holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Riverside, with coursework in operating systems, embedded systems, and computer architecture. He is passionate about using technology and digital platforms to strengthen a business's online presence, improve operations, and create better experiences for customers.
Edward Arellano
Partner, Thinglet Marketing
Operations Manager, Palm Desert Geeks
- B.S. Computer Engineering, UC Riverside
- Technology operations, installations, Azure
- Project lead across web, social, digital and cloud migrations
- Former IT technician and UCR Program Advisor
The two of us don't do it alone.
Behind the owners is a working team: writers and designers who produce the posts and video, technicians who keep the sites and servers up, and the people who answer when you call. We don't put their names on a page because they're busy doing the work, and because the owners are the ones accountable for it. You'll meet them the first week.
Things we believe, stated plainly.
Fix before you spend
A slow site, wrong hours on Google or a form nobody answers will waste any ad budget. We fix the leaks first, then turn up the volume.
One number to call
The owners who sell the plan stay on it: they set the strategy, review the work and read the numbers with you. Nobody gets handed to a junior after signing.
Month to month, on purpose
If the work isn't producing, a long contract only protects us. Every plan can be cancelled any month, and a website we built stays yours.
Say it in plain English
Reports you can read in two minutes. Recommendations you could execute this week. If we can't explain it simply, we don't understand it yet.
We use what we sell
Every tool on our Tools page runs inside our own companies first. If it didn't survive a month of real work, it isn't on the list.
Location doesn't change the work
Our office is in Palm Desert. The site, the posts, the video and the reports ship the same way to a client in Ohio as to one down the street.
Palm Desert office. Nationwide clients.
77564 Country Club Dr, Suite 220, Palm Desert, CA 92211. (760) 285-3188. info@thinglet.com. Or start with the free Growth Score and we'll call you.