Pete Williams: The G Force

At four years old Pete Williams had his own office; by 24 he had ‘sold’ the MCG. A true entrepreneur, Pete shares his secrets for success.

“I can’t really pin-point a time when I realised I was entrepreneurial. It seems to be the way I’ve always been,” recalls Pete Williams, the man who sold theMCG, or to be more exact MCG memorabilia. “My earliest recollection is at the age of four or so, I drew arrows all the way down our hallway in crayon so mum could find my office. My first ‘real’ business was designing websites, while I was in high school – I pulled a few ‘quality’ clients and then got bored with the whole trading time for money thing. I got to the age where parties and girls seemed to be a better waste of time.”

Where the wild ideas grow

Once he had got that out of his system, he came across an idea that he thought would attract Melbourne’s mad sport fans. While reading Mark Victor Hanson and Robert Allen’s The One Minute Millionaire, on holiday in Florida, he came across the story of Paul Hartunian, who in the early 1980s bought the timber that made up the Brooklyn Bridge walkway. Hartunian had attached small parts of the timber to A5 certificates, which outlined the history of the bridge and began to sell them for US$19.95 or so. “Something about the idea really resonated with me and I began to think how I could do something similar here in Australia and make some money to pay off the debt accumulated whilst away,” says Pete.

Read the full article in the current issue of Wealth Creator with Lachlan Murdoch on the front cover. Out Now!