Prior to becoming a Pizza Capers franchisee and owning the Gungahlin store, Chris Wall was working in the information services industry for the Department of Health and Ageing for approximately ten years.

“Whilst the job I held was good I decided there were other experiences in life that I wanted, such as owning and running my own business. The only way to have this experience is to roll up your sleeves and give it a go.

“Franchising was an appealing option as it provided structure, systems, expertise, and support for someone who had little experience in running their own enterprise.” he said.

When researching into the brand, Chris was most impressed to find that the company spent a great deal of time and effort investing into sourcing the best ingredients.

“If you have a good quality product then you will always have customers.”

Chris started out in technical areas at the Department of Health and Ageing and made his way up and ended up managing technical teams and similar areas within the department.

“Coming into the franchise I brought managerial, information systems, and analytical skills that I had acquired from my previous career.

“However I still believe that the biggest things I brought with me were resilience, willingness to learn, and patience. I believe these three things are a necessity; it was never going to be smooth sailing all the way.” he added.

Entering in a new field as Chris had, he said the biggest challenge was the volume of knowledge one needed to acquire to run a business.

“The franchise provides you with the systems and support you need, making sure that there is nothing particularly difficult to learn, but there is still a lot to get your head around.

“Learning their systems and using their experience allowed me to grow into the business and gain confidence.”

Chris believes that the skills and experience he has and will accumulate will be useful in other business types with a possibility of long term opportunities becoming available but he first wants to focus on the here and now.

“There is still room for growth and development for both this business and myself. In the short run the plan is to grow my franchise network beyond my single outlet.”