Ep. 95 | I'd Rather Have Sons Than Employees — A Pastor-Carpenter on Small Jobs and Family Business with Billy Otten

Billy Otten never planned to be a carpenter or a business owner. He became a Christian at 17, went into ministry, and was ordained in the PCA in 2019, right before COVID hit. In 2020 a rift opened between Billy and the church he served over how COVID was handled: "we were very disappointed with the way that our church handled COVID." In 2021 he and his wife pitched the idea of planting a church, and within two weeks he was let go.

Billy and his wife decided to stay in Cincinnati rather than take a job somewhere else. To pay the bills while the presbytery moved slowly, he took a carpentry apprenticeship at $21 an hour, in his mid-30s, with four kids at home and no construction background. Five years later the business he started is a significant part of his family's income, he is pastoring the church plant, and his Instagram, Howling Wolf Carpentry, has about 53,000 followers.

Nathan and Billy talk about what he's learned the expensive way: a $160,000 kitchen remodel that made him exactly $0, and why he now sticks to small jobs of two to three weeks. They get into paying kids their age per hour on the job site, why Billy would "rather have sons than employees," why there's no such thing as passive income, and why the Reformed world needs more bivocational pastors and more believers who own small businesses.

In this episode:

• A rift with his church over COVID, and being let go in 2021 two weeks after pitching a church plant
• Why he stayed in Cincinnati instead of taking a job elsewhere, and the carpentry apprenticeship that paid the bills
• Starting a business "with enough stupidity to think, hey, I'll just start a business"
• The $160,000 kitchen: six months of work, $0 made, and the end of playing general contractor
• Small jobs, smaller upside, smaller downside, and quoting a job in 20 minutes
• A family business: his sons on the job site, paid their age per hour
• Why Billy's model is solo craftsman and family, not scale
• Nathan's own lesson: pairing down from multiple Airbnbs and a working homestead to one business
• "There's no such thing as passive income": labor and wealth are linked
• The case for bivocational pastors, and why small business ownership is how believers change a culture

Find Billy:

• Instagram: @howlingwolf.carpentry
• 60-minute business consultation (for young men in their first or second year of business)
• Ecclesiastes sermon: "All is Vanity!"

Books mentioned: (Amazon affiliate links)

• Basic Economics — Thomas Sowell
• Shop Class as Soulcraft — Matthew B. Crawford
• Essentialism — Greg McKeown
• Deep Work — Cal Newport

Also mentioned:

• Rory Groves — Episode 24 and Episode 89
• Michael Foster — Episode 76