Unconventional Investor and Leading Expert in Digital Investments with Matt Raad

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. Podcast Network, the ideal destination for business professionals with great shows like The Ops Authority. Today, we'll be talking with an unconventional investor and leading expert in digital investments. And to drop these vibe bombs, I brought Matt Rard into EO Fire Studios. Matt has used very unconventional methods to create financial freedom in his lifetime, starting with nothing and building a high cash flow portfolio through buying and selling businesses. So Fire Nation, we'll talk about how to buy and renovate websites for income, how to replace your income within 12 months using websites, and using SEO to build a million-dollar portfolio, and oh, so much more.

0:42And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Matt and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business, and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts.

1:16Matt, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Lots of people think they've got to scrimp and save to invest in big, heavy assets, It's typically like property or shares. And both my wife and I, Liz, we've done the total opposite. We were very lucky early in our business career. We were taught by mentor to forget about investing until you've got high cash flow first. And so for us, it was all about getting high cash flow. And this gentleman bought and sold businesses as well. So for us, we've generated wealth through buying and selling businesses because business gave us the leverage.

1:59And rather than going into these big heavy debts or trying to buy real estate when you're really young and you don't have a lot of money, we found business work really well. And Fire Nation, that's why we're talking today about unconventional investing. We're talking with a leading expert in digital investments. Now, Matt, you've actually developed a system on how to buy and renovate websites for both income and assets. Tell us more about this. Thank you, John. It's great to be here. It's just awesome to be on your podcast. and it is a really interesting journey. Liz and I have done it quite unconventionally by we started out as young entrepreneurs buying and selling businesses and we borrowed lots of money to do that even though we're against borrowing money.

2:55But what we did was it was a manufacturing business and we were looking for leverage. We've always been looking for leverage so that we're both from the country and we wanted to be able to live in a rural area and, you know, raise our kids and stuff. And it took a long time to dial it in. We're totally self-taught. But over that time, we've learned how to buy and sell multiple businesses. So the other thing that we've done a little bit unconventionally, I guess, is I know there's a lot of mentors out there that say you should focus on one thing. If I'm honest about it, that is not what we do. We go the opposite.

3:35We've always owned a portfolio of businesses. So once we got success with one, we wanted multiple streams of income and we were buying, I guess, big and small businesses. But I think that's really stuck with us when I was thinking about, you know, what coming onto your podcast. I think that's another important thing that we've done when I look back. And what that's flowed into, we got into mergers and acquisitions. We're doing deals up to like in the tens of millions. This is here in Australia. And we've always hung around very successful entrepreneurs buying and selling businesses. And we're very, very fortunate through doing that.

4:11And we came up, like you said, with a system, particularly around the GFC, we started to see the movement to online businesses. And it was actually Liz said one day, why don't we do what we've done with bricks and mortar businesses, like acquisitions, buying and selling, but do it with online businesses a lot easier and it goes with our theme of really high cash flow and no debt and we were able to quickly buy up websites that literally you know make money from day one John like because we know what we're doing we've got to put in perspective we've had you know 10 to 15 years before that buying and selling bricks and mortar businesses but it just works so much easier online so we developed a system for how we do due diligence.

4:59We made lots of mistakes, don't worry. It wasn't all a walk in the park. But over the years, we've developed a system where it works really well. We have specific kinds of sites that we buy that don't require lots of inventory or tying up our cash because our background is manufacturing wholesale businesses. And we knew that's a killer for us is tying up cash in a warehouse somewhere with physical inventory. So we don't buy e-commerce sites, but we buy everything else. And we just created a portfolio. And then we've been teaching it to our clients over the last, since 2010. So more than a decade now, we've been teaching people how we do it and how we do website due diligence.

5:43Now you have made a lot of mistakes. And that's actually why we're talking to you because we want to learn from people who have made mistakes so we can avoid those mistakes. And we want to learn from people who have had success so we can emulate that success. And you've done both. And you've created this process to replace our income within 12 months using websites. Let's talk about that. And I know you have a couple of great case studies to mention as well. So let's talk about real world examples too. I don't want to talk about the mistakes, John. I want to make out that it's all easy and a walk in the park, which it's not, which, and as you well know as well, anyone online that makes serious money online knows the journey.

6:20and it's funny these days over the now that we've been doing it for 10 years if you're listening to this you really need to hear this this is why it's great that you listen to someone like John and all his guests you'll see success does take unfortunately longer than you think but it's worth it and that's the one thing that I've noticed now with people being so busy so we train people who are typically you know working full-time jobs earning a lot of money and that takes a bit longer to get them to replace their income. So that's the first thing. So we can certainly teach someone how to replace their income in 12 months.

6:54And I've got a great example. One of our clients, Mark, was a professor here in Australia, professor in chemistry, and he took a sabbatical. And so what that meant was he had more time to focus to this process of learning how to buy and sell online businesses. And he was one of our really big success stories in that he did it in less than six months. Now, that's unusual. So just to give you and your listeners a bit of a realistic timeframe, in my experience, that's unusual. Typically, what our first goal is for our clients is to get to their first$10 ,000 online through a business. Now, that journey, because people are working full-time, typically does take longer than 12 months.

7:42But I can share with you the process, just quickly the process that Mark followed and that we get people to do because you think about it, if you're learning a significant money-making skill, it's like transferring to any new career or job. There's stuff you're going to have to learn. So if you want to become a plumber, by the way, who are paid very highly here in Australia at the moment, you're not going to jump in and become a highly paid plumber within six months. It will typically take longer and you've got to do some practice, some training. It's exactly the same with online businesses. So right this minute, I could show you websites for sale online that will pay you$10 ,000 a month, that's net, but that would be pretty silly if you're a total beginner because you don't know what you're doing with those.

8:33You've got to learn the skills first. So the bit that we love doing and helping people is that first bit of the journey, learning the digital skills required to make money online. Because it is, as you know, John, it's quite a different environment. And so Mark, going back to Mark, what his process was though, and this is what we teach everyone, he learned how to build a good website, which is what we think that's the first step. We believe or we've seen such amazing results. And then we taught him how to do really good due diligence so that he knew what he was looking at when he was looking at these websites to buy.

9:08because there's lots and lots of websites out there to potentially buy and there's lots of strategies you can follow. So we got him focused on what we call passion sites, sites that are run by genuine people who just want to sell them and move on. And then he did lots and lots of practice due diligences, built a site, and then what we do is we get people to buy a small site first so that they're staying safe. and typically this is so they're doing it as a bit of a side hustle while they're working. But in Mark's instance, he did a bit of a naughty thing, John. He broke our rules. Our golden rule here is your first website that you buy should be under$5 ,000 or under$1 ,000.

9:49Now, Mark went out and bought a much, well, not a much bigger site. He bought a site under$10 ,000 but he bought that in October. So remember, he was playing with this full time because he'd been he'd been a professor he took six months if they i think they call it a sabbatical um he bought that in october by december when the december sales come around it was an affiliate site just a standard amazon affiliate site it was in the stem niche which because he's a which is science niche and it was just a passion site and he made his money back within six months on that particular site he's still naughty though yeah yeah he's still naughty because he bought too big a site He didn't tell me, he told Liz.

10:32So his big due diligence on that and the renovation call that he did on that, he booked it in with Liz and not me so that I wouldn't find out that he'd broken the first rule. But I had to eat my words and Liz thought it was hilarious because it worked so well. It was a particularly good site that he bought. And the rest is history. Like Mark's been a coach with us. He and now his wife Sylvia's done the same. She's quit her job. She was in a senior role in a listed charity. And so she's been able to quit her job as well. And they've bought up a portfolio. And so for him to get to the point where he could quit his job, to give you an idea, his portfolio, like the raw base cost, was around$50 ,000.

11:18That was across multiple sites, big and small. So he bought a couple around$20 ,000. and then he did go back and buy some smaller sites and basically he renovated them over time and that was enough to get him so that he didn't have to go back to his job as a professor after the six months he quit, which is pretty cool. Fire Nation, I hope you can tell that, of course, there are exceptions to the rule and Mark is one of those. But at the end of the day, most people are smartest when they're following the processes of people who have been there and done that. There's a reason why Matt has a rule.

11:53There's a reason why he has a step-by-step process. So for the vast majority of people, it's going to behoove you to follow the step-by-step process because that is a proven process. You try to skip ahead, you really could be stepping in some doo-doo because we don't want you to get too far ahead, make mistakes that you're not ready for yet because there's a lot to learn through this process, which we'll be talking more about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. We all know that starting a business is hard, but there are tools out there that help make it easier. HubSpot is one of those tools.

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13:02Starting a business doesn't have to be so hard. Go to clickhubspot.com slash ENT to download the guide right now. Matt, we're back. And before the break, we talked about Mark and the success that he had despite not following some of your rules. But I want to talk more about the process and the systems and really specifically the fact that you've created a way to utilize SEO in building million dollar portfolios. So talk to us about this process. It's a particularly interesting question at the moment, John, isn't it? With the changes in SEO out there, the changes in Google and with AI. Now, we're really excited about it.

13:46we see a lot of positives coming out of it. So if you're listening, if you've never been online, one of the big things that happens with SEO is ranking websites. And for us, that's kind of a cornerstone skill that we like to teach people, even though going forward, I think it's all going to change and it is changing in front of our eyes. It's still a cornerstone skill. And I think it's really, really important. And it's very exciting because with SEO, it's a skill that helps us rank websites from rather than doing paid traffic, it's what's called organic traffic. And we do have a process for it.

14:26The frustrating thing with SEO for beginners, if you want to get into this, the frustrating thing is that it takes time. It is typically 12 to 18 months for content to rank these days and has been like that, by the way, for the last 10 years. And so to us, it's business as usual, but there is some big changes. SEO is to a degree, I guess some people are viewing it as a lot harder, but out of that, some really good opportunities have come. So there are, one of the opportunities that we've seen out there now is a lot of sites, content sites that we would typically buy or that our community members would buy have been hit with Google penalties.

15:08So it means their traffic's come down. Now, what that has thrown up, if you're experienced, that's a great thing because we can buy sites at a lot better price because the prices have come down a lot. But more importantly, if you're a beginner and you're looking for good sites or you're a buyer of good sites, it means the sites that are still standing and doing well are a lot easier to do due diligence on. And due diligence is the key skill here when you're buying websites and you want to get that instant cash flow. And I think one of the things I guess that I should throw out there, John, is that the beauty of, we teach two strategies, building websites from scratch and also building online businesses that make you money.

15:54And, but also in particular, if you want to leapfrog that, buying online businesses. So you've got two things in life if you want to get ahead, and that is money or time. So if you don't have a lot of time, but you've got more money, then your strategy is probably smart to get out there and buy a website and then step it up to buying bigger websites. If you don't have a lot of money, you can do a lot more of the work yourself and it will just take longer. That's all there is to it. So in this game, we're not talking about buying businesses with no money down. That's in the bricks and mortar world.

16:31That typically doesn't happen with online businesses. Where we get the leverage is finding what we call the fallen angels. So passion sites that have been neglected. And that's where our SEO skills then come in because what we do is we tidy them up. So where we actually made our money, John, where we came across this strategy is with bricks and mortar world we used to go literally door knocking around factories you know in those grungy industrial areas we would literally or and or send them remember snail mail we used to send confidential letters to these factories because we got really good at spotting what good businesses look like um we do little things like because we owned our own manufacturing business we could tell by you know the amount of cars in the car park um you know you go okay well that's probably turning over a couple of million dollars because there's five cars in the car park or he's got you know six vans or right you know seven seven units and so when we got online we just did exactly the same thing we got really good at identifying these passion sites so in like knitting or you know learning how to be fit we had three key um niches health wealth and happiness but we got really good same sort of thing in the grungy areas of the internet so not on page one of google but you know page five and page six and we just literally sit there googling over lunch or in your pajamas and we look at these sites and we go that's a that's a fallen angel someone's neglected it like you could tell they hadn't posted on the website for 12 months they're the ones that we just quietly approach with a quiet email and say hey we're a cash buyer we're interested in in this niche uh notice you haven't done anything with your website are you open to you know jumping on And back then it was Skype.

18:18And so part of that skill is having SEO knowledge. Whilst the environment's changed, you still need the SEO knowledge to identify those really good websites. And that's where the massive opportunities are in this game going forward. Now, we were buying these websites before brokers even existed. It's even easier now because you can find amazing websites through this. There's lots of brokers. There's, realistically, there's about a dozen awesome website brokers out there, but just be aware you are paying full price when you're buying through a broker, but you can still nab bargains. And we have lots of case studies of clients that have bought themselves bargains through brokers.

19:00But that's how having these SEO skills does allow you, knowledge is king when you're buying businesses. That's the bottom line. You've just got to get that knowledge and then you can identify these fallen angels that everyone else is missing. And literally, they're in front of you every day. If you start looking around, once you know what you're doing, you're like a kid in a candy shop. There is so many websites out there that you can play with. Then it's just coming down to your knowledge and your due diligence skills. Now, Kate and I have been working together for 12 years. So we've actually talked about the topic of building a business with your partner a few times.

19:38So I don't want to go super deep on this, but I do want to just maybe glean one or two really great takeaways about partners and how we can work with them to build a successful business. Can you speak to that? Absolutely. Liz and I have been business partners for, I'm not allowed to say how old Liz is, but for almost 30 years since the day we started going out with each other. And I think one of the key, and we work together 24-7 because it's online and we've always worked from home or for most of that time. And I think for us, one of the keys to success is, and it's a key to success in life and being successful, is we have a shared vision that we built together.

20:24And that's been key. And we were heavily influenced many years ago by reading all the, you know, the what you call mindset books, like Think and Grow Rich and things like that. And any of those books always talk about having a vision. And in particular, I was heavily influenced by, as was Liz, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who started with nothing. And his main key thing is having a vision. And we really took that on board and for both of us. And we teach that now. The number one thing here we are teaching people how to make money online, but you know what the number one key to success is, is having a vision.

21:01So to answer your question there, John, for us working together for 30 years side by side, we have a shared vision. And we work on that once a week. Every Monday we sit down and go, are we on path here? Are we doing the right thing? Is there a different way we could do this? But at the end of the day, both of us know in our souls, I guess, what our vision is. And I think that means we flow together. and we're not, you know, and I guess in a sense, we're very lucky that, you know, the two of us met and we do have similar ideologies and come from similar backgrounds, you know, come from rural background and we've been able to grow together, but it is through working on that vision relentlessly.

21:42So Matt, I know Fire Nation's really leaning in and listening to the things that you're saying throughout this entire episode. I mean, we've talked about buying and renovating websites, about the SEO side of things, about working with partners and our partner, whether that be life or business or both. What would you say is the one key takeaway from everything we've talked about that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from our conversation today? Awesome question. If you are interested in buying websites, online businesses, which obviously, unbiased, I highly recommend you do if you're looking for high cash flow businesses, then the one big takeaway I would give you is learn how to do really good due diligence.

22:30It is something we made all the mistakes early in the piece and even with bricks and mortar businesses, it's a big part of our story. It's why we're so passionate about it. Learn how to do good website due diligence and understand value of online businesses because then you have a money-making skill for life. You can recognize value where other people miss it. And, you know, can I share one quick story about how powerful this is? So Annette, who is what we call here in Australia, a gray nomad, she's traveling around Australia in a caravan. So in America, I think you guys call it, you know, RVers.

23:06And so she knows, she practiced this skill of due diligence. She built her own little travel site reviewing four-wheel drive parts and got that to making$1 ,000 a month net, okay? So she's got these digital skills. She knows how this affiliate marketing idea works. She's in a private Facebook group. She retired. She literally is about to travel around Australia with a big four-wheel drive and a big caravan. And someone in that private Facebook group, it's a big group. There was, like by Australian standards, 30 odd thousand people in it and a lady posted in there i've been traveling around australia for the last 15 years i'm getting out of it does anyone want want to buy my website where i blogged about it and not a single person replied yet annette knew how to do due diligence he knew straight away that that's an amazing asset there was so much value in that you can't even And like, it's just mind blowing.

24:08So she just private messaged her, worked out a deal. The site didn't make that much money. It didn't matter. So Annette bought that for$5 ,000, added it in with her other side. And now she makes$5 ,000 a month net off this little semi-passive travel blog because it came with all this lots of SEO value because of genuine content on there in this day and age of AI. It's really important. and that's purely because she knew how to do due diligence and recognise what do you call it, a diamond in the rough. And within a week of buying that, she had multiple offers of people saying, oh, I'd pay$10 ,000 for that.

24:45I was included. I said to her, if you want to sell it, I'll pay you$10 ,000 for that website. It was worth way more than$5 ,000. And, you know, she makes$5 ,000 a month now while she's travelling around with her caravan. So it's pretty cool when you know these skills levels and the other big one if I take it to a big level we had a client Dave and Connor who are in the US they noticed a pet site this is much bigger buy and they bought that for$600 ,000 and it was making sorry they paid a million dollars for it and it was making$300 ,000 a year net and what they did when they got into it they had to do some SEO work but basically the main you want to know the main way that they fixed that up.

25:32The previous owner, because it was a passion site and it was semi-passive, making 300 grand a year, right? That sounds awesome. So he didn't bother optimizing it. They optimized the ad revenue and they just changed the ad network where they were getting the revenues from and it jumped to 600 ,000 in revenue within six months. So that then boosted the valuation of that website to$2.5 million. So within six months, they'd created seven figures in value, but cashflow wise, they'd gone to$600 ,000, which is amazing. And that is the power of this skill. They recognize when they're doing two dealers, there's a massive opportunity here because they knew what they were doing to get this site at a great price and double the incomes from it.

26:21That's net profits, by the way. So Matt, Fire Nation is really excited about the potential that is here, that you've seen yourself, your clients, the stories that we've heard. What is your call to action for our listeners today to learn more from you, to connect with you? I would do our free masterclass. So we also teach this in a study at home course, but even just doing the free masterclass is enough to get you going with this. So you can jump on our website. There's links everywhere. Just do our free 90-minute masterclass. We do talk about the course at the end of it, but the masterclass goes through the strategy.

27:02You'll see a lot of examples from our students of the sorts of sites we're buying. We show you where to buy the sites. So what brokers we're using, particularly when you're a beginner and we show you the strategy that we follow, which is buy, renovate, sell. And we go through the steps of how we do that. And then that should give you enough of an idea if you want to actually pursue this further and get in there. And after that, you can get in and buy a small little site to start practicing. And what's the URL for that? ebusinessinstitute.com.au forward slash masterclass. So we're an Australian side, but we have a lot of US clients.

27:40It's relevant for, it's the same whether you're in the US or Australia. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with MR and JLD today. So keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Matt in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Matt, one more time, give us that URL. ebusinessinstitute.com.au. Or you can search for my name online, Matt Raad. I'm sure it'll come up. And Fire Nation, that is Matt, M-A-T-T-R-A-A-D. That is the full name. And Matt, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation.

28:23For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks so much for having me on, John. Awesome. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Matt for sponsoring today's episode. and Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That is why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. And we're talking step-by-step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com. And I will catch you there or on the flip side. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolfe and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.