Olaf Growald
Walter Monk
In addition to a mastery of George Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on TV, one other prerequisite to this thing called entrepreneurship is a sense of humor.
Walter Monk, 69, could tour America with a full standup routine.
His hearty laughter is intermixed with a discussion about his 40-plus-year journey through startups.
His current enterprise, Pollmakers, is a hit. So much so that he was a Fort Worth Inc. Entrepreneurs in Excellence Award winner in 2021. Pollmakers is a political polling service that also works in political and nonprofit fundraising campaigns. It employs 30. The concept came through a discussion with a political consultant during a children’s soccer game.
His first dip into the entrepreneurial waters was as a barely 20-something. He had quit his pursuit of a wildlife fisheries management degree (“I hated going to classes”) at South Dakota State. One go at a gas station turned into three stations in the upper Midwest.
“I thought I was God’s gift to entrepreneurs,” he recalls. “But I didn’t want to do it anymore. I wanted to go someplace where it is warm, and people are tolerant of each other and like each other. So, we [he and his wife] sold all our stuff and moved to Hawaii to catch lobsters. Had a pile of money.”
FW Inc.: What happened in Hawaii?
Walter Monk: Long story short, I was over there about a year, never caught one lobster. Came back with my tail between my legs and my last $10,000.
FW Inc.: What did you do when you came back stateside?
WM: I put that $10,000 in a little bar in Brookings, South Dakota. It was touch and go. We were sleeping on the floor in the place because we couldn’t afford rent. I eventually got it up to a point that it was making pretty good money but couldn’t figure out how to make it any more money. So, I sold it.
FW Inc.: You eventually got back into the bar business?
WM: I had bought a beef jerky plant in Minnesota. I did that for about six months, and we were blowing and going pretty good. And then the price of our meat doubled, and there were quality control problems that were absolutely really hard to figure out because I didn’t know jack about it. During that time, I had learned more about the bar business because we were selling beef jerky to hundreds of bars. The guy I sold the bar to quit making payments, so I repossessed the bar and I thought, “Heck, I could go back and do this better.” I sold the beef jerky plant and took over the bar.
I got to selling more beer than anyone in South Dakota. We started expanding into other states, and I had the No. 1-selling bar in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota. Then things went south. I got in over my head. Had more people than I could manage, right? Well, I went bankrupt, totally lost everything. Got divorced. Started over.
FW Inc.: What is your advice to a young entrepreneur?
WM: It’s no big deal what people call “failing.” I call it experimenting. Four out of five businesses fail. If you try five, one will probably work.