Carl Willis

Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur

Confessions of a

Hi my name is Carl and I am a .   What can I say?  I love starting businesses.   I love taking businesses and putting my own spin on them.   I love taking businesses that need to go to the next level and formulating a game plan.  It should also come as no surprise that my ministry work looks very similar.  I love to start churches.  I love helping churches get healthy and growing again.  I love to fix broken churches.   Are you seeing the pattern?

How I Became a

For me the entrepreneurial itch began in high school.   I worked in a Karmelkorn Shoppe in Wichita, Kansas.   The store was owned by the Briscoe family.   The whole family was involved in the operation of two franchise locations in the city of Wichita.   I loved watching these guys pour their heart and soul into their business.   Not only did I begin learning the basics of operating a small business, but this family was top notch in the care and concern they showed for their employees (even though most of us were flighty teenagers).

The itch became a bad case of the “gotta have its” during my senior year in high school.   I was an active participant in the DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) program.   That year I wrote two business plans for a Karmelkorn styled popcorn shop called “Ole King Corn” and an Americana themed restaurant called the “All American Cafe.”  I ended winning the state DECA competition for my business category.  I would later go on to compete in the national competition in Salt Lake City, Utah with these same two business plans.   It was during this period that the serial was born.

A Serial Entrepreneur Loves the Challenge

Serial entrepreneurs thrive on the challenge of starting new things.   They love taking an idea in their mind and turning it into something real.   At the root of is the drive to solve problems and make a profit solving those problems.   A serial entrepreneur looks for the opportunities presented by every challenge they encounter.

The other driving force is the thrill of taking new risks.  It is the adventure into the unknown that compels the serial entrepreneur to go places where few men dare to tread.   I find that I am always looking for “what else” is out there.   When I see a ship or an airplane I want to climb on board, just to see where it goes.  Over the past 20 years my entrepreneurial exploits have led me into diverse fields of expertise and experience, including such things as police equipment, personnel recruiting, computer repair, accident reconstruction, mechanical lubrication, financial advising, network marketing and e-commerce to name a few.

Harnessing the Serial Entrepreneur

One of the greatest challenges for the serial entrepreneur is sitting still.   It is very easy for a guy like me to want to move onto the next thing.  In reality this is a healthy business model.   A savvy entrepreneur will get turn the business over to a competent manager, once the business is up and running.   The danger is doing this prematurely.   To keep the appropriate level of focus and energy on a business, the entrepreneur needs to make a commitment to that business for a defined period of time or until a measurable level of performance is reached.    Without this commitment, there will be a long line of orphan businesses that never had a chance to develop.

I love working with other serial entrepreneurs.  If this describes you, I would love to talk further.