I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was nine years old when I made cinnamon toothpicks and sold them at school for the astonishing price of two for a nickel. I started a lawn mowing service at age ten. I collected baseball cards and coins and eventually exchanged them as the downpayment on my first home purchase via a land contract.
My first major entrepreneurial enterprise should have made me a millionaire before I reached age thirty. Instead, it went down in flames. I learned a lot in The School of Hard Knocks. Cost me almost as much as my college education–but no one ever sent me a sheepskin to hang on my wall. Glad I didn’t give up my day job!
Since then I’ve lost track of all the startups I’ve been involved in. Some were successful. Some were duds. And a couple were home runs–most notably a LASIK company I co-founded which started with one location in 1998 and by the end of 2000 had eighteen centers nationwide. I sold my equity position in 2001, which led to me selling my ownership in four optometry practices, effectively semi-retiring at age 45.
In 2001 became a co-founder of a medical development company that syndicated physician-owned surgery centers, imaging centers, sleep centers and specialty hospitals.
In 2010 I co-founded a Christian publishing company known as Cruciform Press. The word, cruciform, means “the shape of the cross.” Its focus is on publishing gospel-centered, Christ-exalting, easy-to-read, theologically-rich, relevant books that can be read from cover-to-cover in 2-3 hours. Cruciform Press published more than three dozen titles in the years I was involved in the company.
My most recent start-up is Sight4All, Inc which is developing TESA, The Eye Scan App. It measures a person’s glasses prescription using nothing but an iPhone camera. I am a co-founder and served as Vice President of Business Development during the first four years from the inception of the company.