Young Entrepreneur

Business alum Wes Otto is the owner of several businesses before even reaching his 30s.

Passionate about business. Involved in his community. Dedicated to giving back. Wes Otto, a College of Business alum and Mankato entrepreneur, embodies all of these qualities.

The word “passion” is especially apt. He loves his work and his community, and it shows in numerous ways. At the University, he’s been a speaker for the Marketing and Entrepreneur Club, he’s worked with students in the Integrated Business Experience (IBE) class, and he’s invited students to tour his business, Otto Media Group (OMG).

He’s also on the board for Greater Mankato Growth (GMG) and Hospitality Minnesota, and he’s served on the Public Safety Advisory Committee for the City of Mankato, the Community Impact Board for Greater Mankato Area United Way, and on committees for Loyola Catholic School, among others.

And he manages to do all of this while owning and building several businesses before even hitting the ripe old age of 30. The business most commonly known to Mankatoans both past and present is undoubtedly Zanz Mexican Restaurant –the home of the famous cheese chilito, for which Otto is constantly begged for the recipe.

“Even at 10, 11 and 12 years old I was doing small jobs around the restaurant,” said Otto, who studied marketing in the College of Business until 2016 when his parents had serious health issues, and he took over operations to protect the livelihood of the family business. “My parents met and got married because of that business in the 1980s when it was Zantigos. I literally wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that business.”

These days, Otto’s sister, Molly Otto, runs Zanz, which frees up Otto for his two other ventures.

In January 2016, he began OMG with his business partner Mike Sargent (who later left to pursue other ventures). They started by focusing on managing social media channels for businesses, but demand for other services widened their scope.

“We said, ‘Let’s help businesses do a better job of envisioning what they could be in the future and then executing that from a marketing standpoint,” Otto said. “Now we’ve got a really cool creative shop on North Riverfront and a dozen talented contractors on the agency side specializing in websites, logos, video production and photography.”

In January, Otto bought Connect Business Magazine. He said he’s grateful that the contractors who handle all the operations, from editing to design, have stayed on through the transition.

“The magazine fits perfectly with what we do with (Otto Media Group), and both Zanz and OMG are community focused like Connect,” Otto said. “We envision taking that existing team, expanding it and trying to model something more like a business journal. But we want to continue to tell really great community-focused business success stories.”