Triathlons to Tech: Matt Bonvicin's Serial Entrepreneurial Odyssey

Anthony: [00:00:00] Hi guys, welcome to Threatening Founders, the podcast that uses AI to find patterns between successful entrepreneurs and side hustlers so you can apply these insights into your ventures. I'm your host, Anthony LaBosco. Today's episode is with serial entrepreneur, Matt Bombison. Matt started 15 businesses over the past two decades, and I feel like this guy's only just started.

Anthony: Matt's from Long Island. He went to Chaminade High School and the University of Buffalo. Which he didn't finish. He doesn't like to be the front man of his businesses. He's more of a Steve Wozniak type. You know, he likes to make the magic happen behind the curtain. So I'm going to talk to Matt about why and how he started some of his businesses, and also about some lessons he's learned along the way.

Anthony: Like the critical role of a trusted team, the power of open communication, And work-life balance. If you like this conversation and think someone else would too, [00:01:00] hit the subscribe button to get our latest episodes. Thank you. And sit back and enjoy the conversation with Matt. Welcome to another episode of Threading Founders podcast that uses AI upon commonalities between successful entrepreneurs, side hustlers to offer actionable insights for our listeners so they can apply them.

Anthony: I'm your host, Anthony Lobosco. Welcome man. It's great to have you. It's great to have you on the podcast. How you doing? 

Matt: It is great to be here. Thank you. Good evening. And, uh, I am looking forward to, to speaking. Awesome. 

Anthony: So, so let me get this straight. You're a serial entrepreneur who doesn't like to be the front man.

Anthony: What does that actually mean? 

Matt: It means that if I ever start the next big business that turns into SpaceX or Google that I'd rather keep on working for the [00:02:00] next on the next one and let someone else grow it. And build it and be on the red carpet. Um, it's just not my thing. Yeah. Uh, I love coming up with ideas.

Matt: I love implementing those ideas. And to me, that's, that's the fun part. Truthfully, I've joked with, with my best friend about this. If, if who's usually been my front man, If I were the next Elon Musk, I would basically pay him and say, your name is Elon, publicly, and, um, I'll be the wallflower. Yeah. Be careful what you 

Anthony: wish for.

Anthony: Be careful what you wish for. Um, so before you started your first business, you were in corporate America. Tell me a little bit about that. What was that? What'd you 

Matt: do? I was, um, so like, as you mentioned, I never did finish college. I did a year and a half. I got sick. I left and I was working. I went [00:03:00] back to a job when I left or was better again.

Matt: Um, I went back to a job. I was already doing in high school, which was managing a network for a law firm and from there went on to do that. Uh, New York hospital in the city. I didn't like the city, so I went down south to Atlanta. Anyway, they put me in a contract, an IT contracting company put me into Birmingham, Alabama at Bell South.

Matt: Um, okay. So from Bell South, which eventually now is AT& T again, did a bunch of positions there, changed jobs a few times. But I, I was always doing. Again, I'd say I'm a jack of all trades when it comes to IT and the master of none. I've kind of done everything there is. Um, I may not be the best at any one of them, but even when I was working for [00:04:00] other larger companies and enterprises, I still was always looking for that.

Matt: Hey, what's what's the. What's the maximum bang we can get with this little investment of time and money. It's just what I enjoy doing. And eventually, you know, that led to my first business at one point. 

Anthony: What inspired you to start your first business and your first business was named sportswear and that's w a 

Matt: r e.

Matt: Yep. Um, so I had. I was, when around 2000, the turn of the century, uh, as the kids will call it, I was still smoking and was dating a woman who was a runner and was getting me into running and getting me into, you know, back to cycling, which is what I used to do when I was a kid here on Long Island, a lot of cycling.

Matt: So I got into triathlon [00:05:00] and quit smoking. Um, there's a positive. Um, but that led me in around 2000. Or to co found a triathlon club in Birmingham, Alabama, where I lived, um, kind of, you know, in leadership lessons, that was a big one. You know, I never intended to really start an organization that, you know, I think by the end of that year, we were the fourth largest in the country.

Matt: We were bigger than LA. We were bigger than New York at the time. Yeah. How many members, 

Anthony: how many members did you 

Matt: guys have? At the height in that first few months, it was about 380, I think, which is not huge. There are a lot, clubs are a lot bigger today, but that's, that did kind of teach me that it's not necessarily the best athlete who's going to be the person who's best to run it.

Matt: And even then I didn't think I was the best person to run it. I was [00:06:00] happy doing the background stuff, but. Um, part of that goes into a fake it until you make it mentality, um, you know, of, of the confidence where, you know, if you really exude the confidence of like, we're going to make this happen, you want to be a part of it.

Matt: And that leads even into business, you know, whether it's working for a company or for yourself. Um, so I got very involved in the sport of triathlon. I got very involved in the governance of triathlon when I was elected to the USA triathlon Southeast board of directors and eventually was, was appointed, I guess, elected president of that and met a lot of people at the national level and, you know, both locally and nationally in the sport.

Matt: And then I got more involved in. How the sport work and realized there was a better way to do event management. A better way to [00:07:00] use technology to help manage events that would make participants happier and would make event directors, the people who put on the events, more money and kind of improve the workflow really.

Matt: And that was my first business. So before 

Anthony: you, before you came to that realization, how are things being done? 

Matt: So it was similar to, if you really go back, that was 2005. So we're almost talking 20 years, but back then you, maybe you could buy tickets online for a concert. But you, there was no secondary market, you know, where I can't make it.

Matt: So I want to, you know, sell this ticket to somebody else. Um, so basically at the time you paid online. That was it. Everything. The transaction is done. You show up for the event. There's no [00:08:00] other. Integration to send participants an email or to cancel when I break my leg 2 weeks before the race, or to have a wait list.

Matt: So that somebody who wanted to do that race and, you know, it was already filled the capacity. So I broke my leg. I could get a credit to do another race in the future. That person on the wait list could automatically be put in. They're happy. The race director is happy. The race is still full. That person probably is going to pay a lot more money for the event than I did because I registered six months earlier and they're paying the price right before.

Matt: But at the same time, everyone's happy. You know, it's, and that didn't really exist. So it's a very common thing these days. There's a lot of, this is all common for anyone who registers for a 5k, even you'll see a lot of stuff like that. [00:09:00] 

Anthony: Really cool. So it kind of hits on a couple of, a couple of different things, right?

Anthony: I mean, your passion for triathlon being involved in that, and really, you know, your passion for automation, right. All in one. But at the end of the day, if, if, if I can. If I'm understanding this correctly, you are, you were looking at a way to really improve the quality of your members and the experience of your members.

Anthony: But in reality, you're kind of building a side hustle as well. And did you realize that you were doing that at first? 

Matt: It really, I. I remember thinking about whether it could be a side hustle, and I decided against it. So I quit my job at the time, and it was probably October, maybe September of 2004, and then when registration opened in [00:10:00] March the next year, the software I had ready to go.

Matt: So it really, you know, I think I had 39, 000 in my bank account when I quit and it was okay, I have enough to live to and keep in mind, you know, another positive of living in a place like Birmingham or New York is it's significantly, you know, cheaper than trying to do something like that in New York or other places.

Matt: But no, that was quit my job and, you know. Just code all night long, sleep when I could, get it done. So 

Anthony: you, you went from hobby to business? Forget about side hustle. You, you, you said, you know what, I can do this. And you just said, you know what, I'm going to go and do this. And during that process, Matt, [00:11:00] did you in your mind think about, um, Well, I'm sure you did, but did you spell out business, how you would make money?

Anthony: What steps did you take in order to plan for that? 

Matt: Well, the really good news for me was my friend, Therese, my friend, Therese, really good friend who had. In managing the majority, she and her business partner had been managing or putting on the majority of races in for triathlon in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Florida panhandle.

Matt: So I worked very closely with her. He was on board before I even wrote the software. God bless her. Um, probably, you know, times towards the end before the season was opening, saying, is it going to be ready? Is it going to be ready? Is it going to be ready? So, so I already had a customer. Yeah, right. Already able to work with [00:12:00] them to say, you know, I see these as your problem.

Matt: You know, how can we address it? Um, so that's the good thing. I remember modeling it based off of, you know, this was always a certain portion of, it's kind of like, well, I do not want to compare a Ticketmaster today, but it was, if a race was 40, maybe it was, A set 2 plus, you know, X percent of the of the registration fee with the model at the time.

Matt: And I remember modeling that and saying, okay, so if 1000 people over this month sign up, that means this much money and it was it was hard and and working with someone who had already done this, meaning my best friend and. It's still a leap of faith, because if everybody hates it, at the time, you had, you still had another option, which was literally sending a check in.[00:13:00] 

Matt: So, you still had to do it well enough and seamless enough that people used it. Um, so anyway, short answer, I remember modeling it and, and even then it was, it was a leap of faith. Yeah, 

Anthony: I mean, where I'm sitting, I get it, and I, I feel it. There definitely isn't a big element of a leap of faith, but you essentially had a focus group.

Anthony: I did, 

Matt: and customer. Sort of. Yeah. 

Anthony: Yeah, you had a focus group and, and, and customer. So, you know, that's amazing how you were able to do that. Was that, it sounds like you just, that just kind of fell into. Things. Did you plan for that to happen or 

Matt: no, it was, it was being encouraged by this friend, Therese, as I mentioned that, you know, I, I also got involved in the timing of races, which is a lot of electron, a lot of.

Matt: Uh, I T in that didn't used to be. It was used to be all manual. Now everyone wears chips and [00:14:00] it's very, very, very complicated. The shorter races sometimes are harder than the longer races because you know, you have people finishing a race. And meanwhile, you're already giving out awards to the people who finished it, you know, half an hour earlier.

Matt: Um, and that whole flow from the time you buy, you enter the race, yeah. Until award, the race is over and you have award to me, there were so many different opportunities for improvement that I did discuss with his friend over time, and she had been in business for 20 something years at that point, and, and really encouraged me to do it.

Matt: That's awesome. 

Anthony: And, you know, I mean, your skill set too is, is so rare and, you know, a lot of people pay a lot of money for someone like yourself, as you know, to do, to basically pull that all together. Meanwhile, you're the one that does that. So kudos to you, man. That's great. I mean, that just seems like [00:15:00] a perfect storm.

Anthony: Um, at that time. 

Matt: Totally. And, and, you know, even in, um, We're getting to almost so to a point where everyone is so specialized and it is definitely no exception that sometimes the generalist who can pull things together are kind of the key. And I think that's going to be happening more and more and more and more and I'm totally convinced I think I've said this to you that you skip ahead another 10 1520 years I think it's the people persons that people people who are.

Matt: Good communicators who are probably going to be paid the most, and they're going to be the hardest to find, as opposed to you can find a specialist for any, anything, um, so yeah, generalist, I'll describe myself as a decent it generalist. Yeah. 

Anthony: Awesome. What was the turning point of your, of your business, [00:16:00] do you think, like when, when did you know it was going to be successful?

Matt: It was when it was going to be, I was going to say the turning point for me was I think somewhere when I was in Machu Picchu. Realizing that I can do everything I need to do to handle if something goes wrong, pretty much off of my phone, you know, which to me, that was a crazy thing. These days, everyone works remote is a little bit different.

Matt: Back then, I think I left Colombia. I went to Machu Picchu with some friends and then I went to Brazil. I don't remember. And I was running a board meeting for USA triathlon from Rio realizing I've already won, you know, me. A hundred million dollars off of this and this is already awesome. Um, but 

Anthony: when you, that's, that's incredible.

Anthony: That's a, that's a wonderful feeling. I have a, I have a good friend of mine [00:17:00] who was at Cisco systems early on in the, in the nineties. And, uh, He had a boat that was called the, um, um, the virtual office, right? So picture that like in the, in the mid nineties, right? The virtual office. And you know, that that's exactly that whole concept at that time was pretty foreign.

Anthony: I think it was running pots lines to his. Choose both, but in a sense for you, you know, take it 10 years later and you're doing stuff off your phone and you, at that time you don't have, you don't have almost, I mean, I would imagine you don't have an iPhone, that's 2005, so you're probably working off your Palm Pilot.

Matt: It was, it was at least enough to say, Okay, you got to get back to the hotel. Something went wrong. And that has happened. I remember leaving a club in Hong Kong one time because something happened in Beverly Hills that I had to, I had to fix. But yeah, it's at least enough of a warning that you [00:18:00] can keep an eye on things.

Matt: By the way, as far as, as far as the boat, my, my most recent favorite was last year. Oslo. I saw a boat and it wasn't even huge. It was a decent good size and the name of it was FinTech Dream.

Anthony: That's awesome. That's awesome. Hits on so many different things. Yeah. Yeah. It's on so many things. Um, so in terms of being, in terms of really having that feeling of that it was going to be successful. And I'm going to, I'm going to kind of push you toward it because I think I know the answer to it is when you had gotten that small check.

Matt: Oh, yes, yes, yes, I have said this. Okay. Uh, so most people, most of the time you assume, I think a lot of people equate. The entrepreneurship was, you know, all of a sudden someone buys you out and there's [00:19:00] 10 million, you know, of course, there's a lot of pain and suffering and heartbreak in between. But I think what you're referring to is the season open that year.

Matt: I'm staring at a computer screen wondering if anything's going to crash. The first customer gets on and registers for a race. And I think the race was 38, which probably for me equated to about 80 cents of profit and not much, but I called my best friend who was also in business for himself in Texas at the time.

Matt: And he kind of forced me to pause and say, you know, like you created this, you created something that someone paid you for that created value. Forget the fact that it's only, you know, 79 cents. You know, focus on that. And he was totally right. You know, anytime someone wants to pay you to do something, especially when it didn't exist before, you [00:20:00] know, that's awesome.

Matt: Even if you're the kid selling lemonade on the street, sidewalk. Yeah, 

Anthony: absolutely. And if one person doing it can be repeatable. 

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. 

Anthony: So what would you say during that whole entire process, what was your biggest challenge you faced during the, you know, early stages of building, you know, that business, and how'd you overcome those challenges?

Anthony: Um, 

Matt: you think that you're doing building, and in my case, a technology company, which I was, I'm enough of a developer, I knew I could pull that part off. Um, but it's everything else. You're going to be doing the marketing, you're going to be doing the accounting, you're going to be doing, in truth, You know, I, I spent three years doing consulting, um, until last year, and if everybody who did [00:21:00] consulting had started a business at some point, then consultants would probably be paid even more than they are now.

Matt: Um, because in consulting, you're expected to be the expert in whatever you're asked to be. When you own a business or especially start it from scratch, you simply have to become the expert. You have to be. Great. It's, I remember having more difficulty with what the hell is double ledger accounting? You know, I, but I have to track this because I got to be able to do my taxes and I have to know what I can write off versus what, and learning that stuff, which to me was annoying.

Matt: I just wanted to write code and do what I was, you know, um, and get to the final product, but it really, once you realize nothing's beyond your grasp, you can do it. [00:22:00] You may not like doing the accounting, the marketing, the sales, you know, but it's got to get done. Someone has to do it. And once you start realizing I can do this, you know, it's probably why once you've done one business, you're that much more likely to do another one, big or small.

Matt: Because I've been there, done that. The stuff that was annoying the first time that, you know, you already know how to do it. 

Anthony: So how does a guy like you that doesn't like any of those tasks or, um, how do you, how do you figure out how to do it? 

Matt: Well, these days you Google. Back then it wasn't quite there yet.

Matt: Um, but I had numerous friends who ran their own businesses. So, you know, I, I think I've said this before, but to anyone starting a business, you want to form a core group of, you know, your friends hopefully are they, an entrepreneur [00:23:00] doesn't have to be a, you know, slick as it sounds, they could be the barber.

Matt: They can be the. Dry cleaner you go to, but those people are important because you're going to be asking them on a very regular basis. Who's your accountant? Do you like them? Um, who do you use for this? You know, for simple stuff. It's there's so many commonalities. That if you are surrounding yourself with those people who have been there, done that.

Matt: And the other thing to remember is you're going to get called for a favor, which is, Matt, I have no idea what software. Right. And that's totally cool because two months ago, they hooked you up with a new banker who solved a problem for you and suggested something else. Um, so it's, to me, I discovered this when I [00:24:00] got into triathlon, when all of my friends were triathletes.

Matt: It was very hard to skip a workout or it's very hard to slack off You were kind of accountable without even thinking about it And it's the same thing If all of your friends are thinking about new business ideas or doing new business ideas Then you got you have people to bounce ideas off of just like they do so it's who you surround yourself with 

Anthony: Awesome.

Anthony: I like that a lot That's a great, great lesson. I don't know if 

Matt: I answered your question. 

Anthony: No, you did. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, having, having a core group of not only trust advisors, but even taking it set further friends that are, that really have different, um, you know, different areas of expertise that can really compliment each other is really the key to, uh, 

Matt: to success.

Matt: And run an organization, you know, in my case, I started one was elected to another started a triathlon club was elected to another and I realized very [00:25:00] quickly, you know, you can't you could be the president. Yay. You can't do everything you need to recruit good people and realize your weaknesses. And sometimes when someone is better, even you, what you consider to be your strength and listen.

Matt: Um, And that, that, that's where I think even running a, you know, a nonprofit organization really came in handy as well. Yeah. 

Anthony: So what was your exit? Matt, on this, 

Matt: my exit on that was I met enough through USA triathlon. I met another, uh, entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur, very interesting guy who was looking at the time to start a social networking website for athletes, like Facebook sort of for athletes and license the technology to that new company with an exit [00:26:00] over like a two year period.

Matt: Yeah. So, which was totally fine because a different person, I knew it could take it and make it bigger. I probably could. I've always been told you, you, you do well in sales. I'm kind of a people person, but it's not really what I would enjoy doing. This person had a proven track record, um, had started and sold a record label.

Matt: And. Um, really to me, it was a perfect opportunity, you know, for both of us, so great. 

Anthony: So this led to kind of an avalanche of businesses, but you know, more so, I really want to, I love the story of the second business that you got into. So tell me a little bit about that and how you, how you made that transition from, [00:27:00] uh, sportswear to your second 

Matt: business.

Matt: The second one was a side hustle that was an opportunity that was just put in front of me by a friend who did, um, online marketing for some large corporations and kind of had discovered a loophole at the time doesn't exist anymore inside of Google for advertising. So, it really was a side hustle until it became clear how much money this, you know, was in this.

Anthony: When you say, when you say side hustle, you mean that it was a side hustle to your consulting while you were exiting? 

Matt: Yes. It even started before that. Um, it even started earlier than that. At the time, then I, my, I got my best friend involved, which was perfect because he's the hire people, grow the business, let me focus on the [00:28:00] technology to automate it.

Matt: Which was awesome, but basically what we did was, you know, in the world at the time, and it was a Wild West for affiliate marketing, which is stabilized a lot in these days, but it's still around you everywhere in every article you read every link you click. It sounds like a sting song. Um, so, um, Basically, 

Anthony: we're 

Matt: going to work on words for that, uh, Broadway musical coming out 2025.

Matt: Um, so it was arbitrage. You would, we would sign up for every affiliate marketing program that was, if it existed, we would sign up for it. It could be sometimes 200 a day, 5, 000 running on any given day, who knows? But the software that what we did was say, Okay, on average, we get [00:29:00] a hundred clicks per day on this merchant from our ad.

Matt: We spend 3 per click on that merchant and we make 2 per click. That's not good. We're losing a dollar every time. Sometimes you're, but what you basically wrote this to try and be smart enough. I don't want to say it's machine learning, because that's the cool thing to say these days, but it was breaking things down to numbers that it could self regulate and say, Okay, on this merchant we get 100 clicks a day, they cost us 1.

Matt: 50 each, and on average we make 15 each. And now I'm willing to pay up to 15 a click to get more of them. And that's, that's really what that software did, as well as automate the ad creation. Even the copy and converting it to different [00:30:00] languages, but we have people, yeah, we have people who would feed the number, the raw data in, it would crunch it on an ongoing basis to, 

Anthony: that sounds like a business that you can literally do from.

Anthony: Almost anywhere, as much as it's automating is when you have the automation down, am I totally, 

Matt: am I, we would get, we would get texts and we would get alerts and messages and emails, you know, when something went horribly wrong and all of a sudden there was a thousand dollar click or something. But, um, we did, I, I've, I'm a big traveler.

Matt: I think when I left Morocco in March, I was country 65, and I probably did 40 of those. You know, while I was working on that software, so I did the software, Kent did the business, Kent then fed back into ideas of, okay, this is what we need the software to do now, you know, so some of it was [00:31:00] my idea, some of it was his, some of it was the people that, you know, were working for us, but it was, it was a decent amount of money for a while, it really was.

Anthony: Yeah. Oh, I'm sure it was more than decent. That's great. So, then from there, you had. You had probably roughly what about a dozen more businesses after that? I mean, we're not going to go into detail about every one of them, but maybe just a highlight of some of the other businesses and how you had gotten Involved in them because I think it's interesting with you that um It's like a web of, it's, it's basically a circle of trust that you have, right?

Anthony: And you have this circle of trust of people that, um, that you have gotten involved in. But why don't you explain that a little bit to me? 

Matt: So it, um, first of all, many of the, many of the subsequent businesses were sort of subsidiaries of [00:32:00] the original, and it was easier to segregate in different industries, et cetera, by just doing a new business.

Matt: There was a point when we used to create a business almost every week by sending an email to chase and say, here's my new T a tax ID, I need a new account, but. In totally separate realms. That brings us to Steve. Steve is a good friend. He was a mentor to Kent, again, my best friend, when they worked together at a financial company many years ago.

Matt: And, um, Steve is, I don't even want to say what I think his age is because he appears to be a very young, I'm going to go with 55, but Steve is always. Looking for the next thing. He's the ultimate serial entrepreneur. Amazing. Phenomenal. And sometimes, you kind of roll your [00:33:00] eyes. Sometimes, you're like, I get it, this is amazing.

Matt: Sometimes, and I've been involved with one with him that I just didn't, I didn't see it. I wasn't the target customer. I wasn't, I still built all the technology and I loved it. I enjoyed it. That was a private safe deposit box. It was fascinating to me, um, from a technology point of view, but even though the whole time I, I wasn't, I wasn't.

Matt: Someone who would pay to use his service. Um, he started, uh, to call it a yoga studio in Arizona was really underselling it because it was, it was a massive, you know, from bar to yoga to hot yoga to, um. Oh my gosh. It was like 9, 000 square feet. It was huge. Wow. He's always looking for, for something and running them by Kent, running them by me, [00:34:00] because we all look at it very different.

Matt: But I've learned to realize when you've got the friends like this, you know, take it seriously, even when it doesn't jump out to me. You know, because I've been wrong more than 1 with the same people, you know, who have built successful businesses that I've been a part of. But at the beginning, I was shaking my head and, you know, kind of brought, you know, kicking and screaming, but it, it really is, um.

Matt: People like Steve, I think Steve made Kent, well, to a certain degree, Kent made Kent, um, Kent made me, um, you know, these are, the more people you have like this, the more ideas get bounced around, the better, you know, it's, whether you get involved or not, but in my case, I was always the technology person, in the end, when it came down to, we [00:35:00] need some technology to support this, that was, okay, time to call Matt, 

Anthony: That's really cool.

Anthony: That, that actually kind of brings me into, uh, The final part of this conversation as much as I really want to get into all the businesses because I think it's fascinating. And I think that, uh, you guys have probably gotten very creative on a lot of, a lot of things, but you know, some lessons that you've learned.

Anthony: And I think that maybe starting a good place to start would be, you know, you know, having a strong team. What else can you say about. 

Matt: It's interesting when you know people well enough that you know, Kent knows me well enough to know that this one's going to take Matt a week. He's going to shake his head and say, no, but he knows that I'm going to come back in a week and probably say, huh, what about this?

Matt: Um, When you know people well enough that you, you know, can even divide tasks [00:36:00] without talking about it, you know, it gets already done as soon as you talk, you just, you know, go over at a high level because you know each other well enough, um, always be open to the fact that someone could be doing, could have a better idea than you, you know, I'm tomorrow teaching a class at my job.

Matt: On tech something technology and I will almost always start it with because I'm, I'm usually the one coming up with the master plan, but I'll always start it with, if you have a better idea or you think you do them what I've done, let me know. I'm cool with that, which is really good. I think. It sets a precedent, it sets the mood, you know, a mood that's like, I'm not telling you the way to do this.

Matt: There is no one way for a lot of things. That's a superpower in itself, especially in IT where I feel like everybody wants to convince everyone that they know everything. So would you 

Anthony: say then, with you guys, with, with Kent, with Steve, with other people [00:37:00] as well, I mean, checking your ego at the door is also a key, um, It's also key to do, 

Matt: right?

Matt: If you get to a certain size, um, um, you need the figurehead, you need someone who's at least, but that at least do it humbly, do it with, you know, the assumption that you're not always the smartest person in the room just because you came up with the idea. Once you start sharing it, be open about it.

Matt: Absolutely. You 

Anthony: know, it's ego, man. It's ego. You know, it comes down to his ego. And, you know, I think when people, when people realize or are able, because everyone is not able to check their ego and that's, that's a superpower. Checking your ego is a superpower and putting it beside and then saying, you know what, I don't know what I don't know.

Anthony: So I'm going to ask, Someone else when you're when you have a when you have a group of people That you're able to do that and you feel comfortable and you're okay with people saying to you All right, Matt [00:38:00] do this do that because I know you're awesome at it I know you're gonna do it and it's coming from a good place and You know It just kind of goes around and around and that's how it all works man and what you have and what you've created with this You know, with your group of friends and your group of entrepreneurs that you guys have, uh, you know, been on the journey together.

Anthony: I mean, that's that in itself, in my opinion, that's your biggest superpower. That's what has 

Matt: so many different rings of friends who like are always talking about different businesses, 

Anthony: you know, but they have all like, if you, if you were to, if you were to get commonality between them, they probably have a commonality between them as well.

Anthony: A common characteristic. Totally. 

Matt: That's a very big part of it is being able to say, I can add this, but I won't add this. And also the things that even you think might be stupid, having, you know, being comfortable enough to say like, [00:39:00] uh, what if we painted yellow, you know, and be totally okay with the fact that if everyone looks at you and says like, what?

Matt: What are you trying to, you know, that's, that's another one, you know, if you have good enough people that you're with that everyone should be able to do that without feeling like an idiot when they say an idiotic thing. Yeah. Yeah, there's 

Anthony: no stupid questions right until someone says one. Right. And that's, I mean, that's, that's it.

Anthony: And that's unfortunately the culture that we all have, you know, that we're all part of, but when you can break down that barrier, and you can say those stupid. You can see those stupid questions or comments or anything like that and then just kind of move past it. That's that's amazing. Yeah. And I, I 

Matt: think those are some lessons I learned even running non small nonprofit, well, um, company, uh, organization is I, these are [00:40:00] my ideas, but be very open to the fact that someone with many better ideas can come along any second.

Matt: And that's cool. Everything you've 

Anthony: done in your, in your career, how did you work life balance? Was there any, was there, was there an aspect of work life balance and you learned during that 

Matt: process? A lot. And a lot of that is, you know, also, I think we've all learned a lot since COVID on, you know, we're all sitting in our office, our home office all day.

Matt: And, you know. I think the world has gotten better, much better at it, but I, I'd like to think I have, but in the early days where it was my money on the line. And even with all this, the. I had a certain amount of time to get some, get this done and create a product and oh, I can say there's definite regrets there, um, was dating an amazing woman that I [00:41:00] did not spend nearly enough time with, um, because it was just this race to get to the end.

Matt: And the truth is, these days, as I've learned, No matter how busy the workday is and things are really hitting the fan, I solve problems when I take a break in the middle of the day and I go ride my bike or I go run and all of a sudden I solve everything. So you're not always doing yourself a favor by just keeping working, keep working, keep working, keep working 20 hours straight.

Matt: Um, so that took a long time to learn. So I wouldn't say I was great at that in the beginning. I'd sure as heck like to think I'm, I'm much, much better at it now. It's also a lot easier once you have enough money coming in to say, Okay, I can take a break now. Um, but that was a, that was a long time coming.

Matt: Yeah, I, I definitely overdid it. Back then, for sure. 

Anthony: Or did it with the [00:42:00] working? Would you consider yourself a workaholic? Or work hard, play hard? That kind of 

Matt: thing? No, it was too much work, period. Like, at least in that first year. It's almost like the Catholic guilt where it was like, if I'm not sitting in front of the computer doing something, you know, quote, productive, then I'm not doing my, quote, job.

Matt: Even though as I've later come to realize you need the breaks, you absolutely need it, you know, and, and when I step away in a big problem is usually when I solve it and without even thinking about it, it just happens. 

Anthony: So, you know, that kind of goes hand in hand with, with, with managing stress. Managing, uh, you know, a roller coaster of emotions, right?

Anthony: I mean, being, having your highs and lows staying even, would you say once you started to master or really get a grasp of, I mean, work life balance could also be [00:43:00] set about managing emotions and everything like that as well, but did that go hand in hand with, uh, with at least staying somewhat even? 

Matt: It gets easier when you can make a living for sure.

Matt: Um, you know, when you're not, you know, in my case, criticizing yourself, like, why are you not doing spending every moment of the day doing something to get yourself there? Um, so when you get to a certain point, it definitely gets easier, but you also have, even when you're quote successful, there will be setbacks.

Matt: You know, there are times when I might have lost 20, 000 in a day. And you can't, you get better with it. You know, in that case that we are kind of forced to and realize this is the cost of doing business. I, what am I going to do? Go be depressed in a corner for the next, you know, two weeks or get back on the horse and keep on going.

Matt: Yeah. [00:44:00] Um, but no, I I'd say that's something I've gotten a lot better at, especially in more recent years, for sure. Any parting 

Anthony: words, any parting. Lessons or anything you would, you know, like to tell us, tell the audience 

Matt: surround yourself with some good people, you know, and they don't have to be, I, I've had, I've been lucky enough, even when I was doing consulting, my boss's boss's boss, when he found out I had my own company before, you know, said I want to do that.

Matt: And we started a group that's still in existence, you know, with another former coworker where we throw ideas around and hopefully one day we come up with a good one. Like, they're just, there are people who want to not everyone knows how to get started. Totally cool. We've all been there. Surround yourself with good people, share the ideas, don't keep them to yourself.

Matt: You know, sometimes you have the tendency to say, I think I invented the new perfect widget or the new Google, you know, [00:45:00] I don't want to tell anyone about Noogle because they're going to steal the idea. Well, the execution, this is a Kent quote, not a Matt quote. The execution is everything. The idea is less so.

Matt: So share it with people you trust and get their input and let them. You know, just keep pointing out flaws or add to it. Um, What else 

Anthony: one thing that you talked about was? businesses Don't businesses don't have to be as sexy as you as you think right? They don't need to be you don't need to create A Tesla or a SpaceX or Google or Facebook, you can, something not as glamorous can be extremely successful.

Anthony: And that's it. 

Matt: And it's a very, it's a very interesting time when, you know, I still, I have to admit as [00:46:00] someone who is approaching 50, when I hear the word creator, it still doesn't seem like that should be a job, but it is to a lot of people. There's opportunity everywhere to take things that you are passionate about and turn into a living, you know, we all.

Matt: As kids want to be the next rock star, the next Elvis of Bon Jovi, but there's plenty of people who are singing at weddings happily doing what they love and making enough to survive. Um, you know, it, it does not have to be, sometimes it's, it's right in front of you. And if it happens to coincide with something else that you love, then that's awesome.

Matt: That's going to make it a lot more, a lot easier. Yeah. 

Anthony: I mean, that's, that's, you've won. That's the people don't realize that 

Matt: a lot Etsy alone, you know, where you see people who used to do some have some hobby and now they can make a good living at it, which is awesome. It doesn't have to be anything huge [00:47:00] and the opportunity I guess for even the side hustle is bigger than ever because there's a market for everything everywhere, all the time.

Anthony: Absolutely. I love this conversation, Matt. It was your journey is awesome. I cannot wait to see what's next for you because it's going to be something awesome. Um, it's going to be something, uh, amazing and, uh, I'm just grateful 

Matt: that you are a drive thru. That is the job I aspire to play drive thru. That's where I'm going.

Matt: You heard it here first. Yes. That's what I'm retiring to. Chick 

Anthony: fil A is, uh, is gluten free. So. That's a 

Matt: good, uh, in the 10 seconds. It took you to tell me that I was already thinking of the next idea, which was gluten free Chick fil a equivalent. Ah, oh, well, back to back to plan. A 

Anthony: Oh, man. This is awesome.

Anthony: Thanks a lot, man. Appreciate everything. Thank [00:48:00] you. 

Matt: Best of luck with the podcast. I'm looking forward to listening in the future. Thank you. Absolutely. 

Anthony: Absolutely. Hi, man. Have a good night, Matt.