Young entrepreneur not shy about sharing

Published 6:52 pm Tuesday, November 8, 2011

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Between his high school courses and his college courses and his auto parts business, Mike Wilson used to squeeze in a little pole vaulting at track meets.

The man’s whole life seems to be a dash.

At 27, he’s the CEO of a local up-and-coming digital advertising agency and has been picked as one of Kansas City’s youngest mentors, helping graduate students — some of them nearly twice his age — pick up some of the tricks to starting enterprises.

Wilson has the trust of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which finds his local-boy-makes-good tale inspiring for others.

When Wilson graduated from Shawnee Mission South High School eight years ago, he also had his associate’s degree from Johnson County Community College.

Still, he admits, despite his high school 3.9 grade point average, he was no whiz kid.

He scored a 21 average on the ACT college entrance exams and in the 60th percentile on the GMAT, an international standardized math test used to gain admission to business graduate school.

“On paper, I don’t look that good,” Wilson acknowledged.

So when he applied to 10 grad schools, including Harvard, MIT, the University of Chicago, Washington University and the University of Kansas, all but one turned him down.

After an interview at Kansas, “they said I was too young and too green for their master’s program,” he recalled. “They said I needed at least four years of real-world experience.”

That same day, before he even had time to mope over that rejection, UM-Kansas City called, impressed at his running an auto parts business at 16.

That idea had been inspired by the movie “The Fast and the Furious,” big with fellow high school boys who wanted to trick out their rides.

“I had a pretty good tag line,” Wilson said. “It was true, too. ‘Parts priced so cheap, you’d think they were stolen.’ The stars were just aligned for that business.”

He made tens of thousands of dollars.

“I spent it all on fun. I wish now that I’d known something about financial management back then,” he said.

Still, the UM-Kansas City Bloch School of Business was impressed.

“What we were looking for is someone who is a risk taker, someone who shows they are willing to try something new in their life, and Mike Wilson demonstrated that,” said Michael Song, director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UM-Kansas City.

Song, a business professor who taught Wilson at Bloch, called the young man driven and very passionate.

These days, Wilson, who is married and expecting his first child, has a new mantra. “I work because I love it. Making money is my gateway to freedom.”

But he hasn’t forgotten the people who gave him a break when others turned him down. “I have a deep commitment to the Bloch School,” Wilson says.

He didn’t hesitate when asked to help mentor others trying to launch new businesses. In fact, as co-founder of Wavelength Media, Wilson was honored.

“I’m an adviser and a connector for them. I help them navigate the pitfalls and help open doors for them.”