# Jim Williams

> Jim Williams is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of MustHaveMenus, a Bend, Oregon-based platform serving 10,000+ restaurants, hotels, and food service businesses with cloud-based menu design, digital signage, and menu management tools. Before MustHaveMenus, he sold email-marketing startup MarketHome to ClickAction for $15 million in 1999, co-founded church-tech platform Sharefaith (acquired by Ministry Brands in 2018), and made an early angel investment in HotelTonight (acquired by Airbnb in 2019). An English major who started his first business at age 11, Williams embodies the accidental founder: perpetually optimistic, deeply curious about design, and committed to building software that solves genuinely unglamorous problems.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at MustHaveMenus
- **Organizations:** MustHaveMenus, Sharefaith, MarketHome, Lia Griffith Media, General Communities, Elastic Media
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Bachelor of Arts in English, University of California, Berkeley
- **Known for:** Sold MarketHome to ClickAction for $15 million in 1999 after bootstrapping on personal credit cards, Co-founded Sharefaith, which grew to serve 20,000+ churches with 40,000+ worship resources at ~$3M annual revenue before acquisition by Ministry Brands, Early angel investor in HotelTonight, acquired by Airbnb in 2019

## Career timeline

- **1986-1991** — Studied at UC Berkeley, switching majors seven times before graduating with a BA in English
- **Early 1990s** — Joined a wellness software company as an early co-founder, received minimal equity on exit
- **1995** — Founded Elastic Media, a banner advertising startup funded with ~$50K from angel investors; the company failed
- **1997** — Founded MarketHome, one of the first web-based email marketing platforms for catalog retailers; secured L.L. Bean as anchor client
- **1999** — Sold MarketHome to ClickAction (later Yesmail/InfoGroup) for $15 million
- **2002** — Co-founded and chaired Sharefaith, an online giving and worship media platform for churches
- **2005** — Founded General Communities, a social networking venture
- **2007** — Founded MustHaveMenus, a cloud-based menu design and management platform for restaurants
- **2010** — Made angel investment in HotelTonight, a pioneering mobile hotel booking app
- **2013** — Became partner at Lia Griffith Media, a DIY design and lifestyle brand
- **2014** — MustHaveMenus raised $500K Seed round (part of total $1.33M raised)
- **2018** — Sharefaith acquired by Ministry Brands
- **2019** — HotelTonight acquired by Airbnb
- **2024+** — MustHaveMenus serving 10,000+ restaurants, hotels, and food service businesses with digital signage and menu management

## Achievements

- Sold MarketHome to ClickAction for $15 million in 1999 after bootstrapping on personal credit cards
- Co-founded Sharefaith, which grew to serve 20,000+ churches with 40,000+ worship resources at ~$3M annual revenue before acquisition by Ministry Brands
- Early angel investor in HotelTonight, acquired by Airbnb in 2019
- Built MustHaveMenus to 10,000+ active restaurant and food service clients
- MustHaveMenus clients include major restaurant groups, reducing menu update time by 70% in documented case studies
- Grew MustHaveMenus to 300,000+ monthly SEO-driven visitors and a 200,000-name email list
- Partner at Lia Griffith Media, a prominent DIY lifestyle brand

## Latest updates

- **2024-01** — MustHaveMenus serving 10,000+ restaurants, hotels, and senior living facilities with digital signage and menu management tools
- **2019-03** — HotelTonight (early angel investment) acquired by Airbnb
- **2018-01** — Sharefaith (co-founded 2002) acquired by Ministry Brands

## Links

- Website: https://musthavemenus.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimwilliams123
- Twitter/X: http://twitter.com/musthavemenus
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/post2jim/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jim-williams
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-30