555: From Losing $5M to Making $50M with just ONE Product | Matthew Orlic

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. I used to develop a lot of brands before Dick Smith. And one day overnight, I lost$5 million like that. I remember like it was yesterday. I was walking around the park in a deep emotional state and the victim mentality starts coming out? Why me? How does this happen to me? I was so vulnerable. I had to seek validation within myself. If I continued to have that victim mentality, I knew I wouldn't be able to get myself out of that rut. Thank God I lost$5 million because I had to look towards the future.

1:11I had to look at the positive in that scenario. How can I bounce back from this? It's actually going to push me forward and learn something. I had to do that in order to survive. People spend 90 % of their time on strategy, 10 % on mindset. But I'm telling you now, it's 90 % mindset, 10 % strategy. It's the who, not the how. And so many founders are so bogged down in strategy, trying to work at the latest tactic, this and that, and then they click themselves. The business only grows to the amount that you grow. So if you don't master yourself, you're not going to grow the business.

1:36Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.

1:50Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Founder Podcast. We're here in the studio. we've got matt orlich he's the co-founder of cure skincare he's been building businesses for 20 years he's uh usually based out of croatia he's come down to do this one so matt thank you so much for taking the time to be here no no thank you it's gonna be good so you shared that uh you've been building businesses for 20 years your most uh recent brand cure um talk us through how did you start it you started with your sister but like how big is that brand talk us through how you started it yeah sure so I've been building businesses for the last 18 years I built over 20 different businesses I think it was in four verticals nine product categories and I got to a stage in my life I was about 29 years old where the feelings I had about myself didn't match the level of success that I had you can call it like not a midlife crisis maybe a quarter life crisis and I took work off for three years I pay some top consultants around the world psychotherapists stuff like that, try and work out what was going wrong, right?

2:51Because obviously the money wasn't fulfilling me. And there was one important lesson that I learned during that time. It's the difference between authentic money creation and inauthentic money creation. And I was creating a lot of money and wealth inauthentically, meaning there was no meaning attached to it because money carries data. So it's more important how you make it, not how much you make it. And when I learned that lesson, I wanted to pass it on to my sister. I said to her, let's give you a business, start your business, you're extremely passionate about that you love so much. You don't care about how much it makes.

3:19because I didn't want her to make the same mistakes I did so I moved to Croatia she was still in Australia she kept sending me different skincare products to use and different like post-it notes to use this in the morning night all this kind of stuff she came to visit me in Croatia she saw my skin she's like fuck your skin's a lot better this the products must be working I go well I haven't been using any of them she's like what have you been doing so I brought her into my room and it was like a massive red LED panel that I imported from China with my office and I'm like this is what's making my skin look so good and she's like oh my god i want one how much is it and i was like it's four four grand and her heart like sunk right because she wanted the product and then immediately i thought here's our in to in terms of creating a business for her so i went on google i thought fuck i've got this genius idea i'll just do it for the face no one else has done this obviously there's multiple products out there but that was kind of the start of it because and that's the of the company we don't want like beauty to be a luxury we believe that it's a foundational right for everyone to feel good and confident in their skin.

4:15And I didn't want those socioeconomic barriers of people going to clinics and expensive devices to not allow someone to have good skin. So that's where our first product was born, the LED face mask, which is one of the best masks in the world. We spent two years developing it and has like customizable treatments on the face, which no one else has. And it's backed by the leading authorities in the world. And the business is three years old. And we recently had our first million dollar day. And that was from Black Friday? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, interesting. and I think I've read you guys are on track to 50 million this year?

4:45Maybe slightly on a 47, 48. Okay. But pretty impressive growth. Zero to 50 million, three years. A year. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. In this kind of year. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Yeah. So that's pretty impressive growth. So you said you've been building businesses, sorry, for 18 years. What was your first business? How'd you get into this space? Was it online? Yeah, it's a good question. So like I've done everything. Like if I told you what I did, you wouldn't believe me. Everything from lead generation. I had the license to Manchester United. I did Easter eggs and Woolies and Coles. I currently have the license to Umbro, the apparel company I manufacture for, and Under Armour.

5:20I've had Tattoo Removal Institute, which is a laser clinic. I've had supplement retail stores. I've kind of done everything. Now, the way I got to the position of QL was that I used to develop a lot of brands for Dick Smith. And one day overnight, I lost$5 million like that. $5 million at age 25. And there's two important lessons I learned from that day. I was walking around the park. I remember like it was yesterday. And I was just like in a deep emotional state, but almost teary. And the victim mentality starts coming out. Like, why me? You know, how does this happen to me? How is everyone else making money that I'm not?

5:53And in that moment, I learned those two important lessons. One was perspective. Because if I continue to have that victim mentality, I knew I wouldn't be able to get myself out of that rut, losing that money. So then I started reverse engineering. Who are the founders that I know that have had massive losses? And I started Googling them all. Okay, that's it. this is why it's happened thank god i lost five million dollars because i've lost it early in my life and that means i'm going to be successful right and i changed the whole narrative and i got myself out of that and started to level up again and the second lesson that i learned was that concentration risk like a lot of my eggs were in one basket of all my brands that i was developing in dick smith and that was a big big mistake and i've taken that lesson now to cure where a lot of econ brands today are so reliant on meta right which we're not meta is less than 50 % of our business.

6:37Why are they calling brands like 80 or 90 %? Because I learned that concentration risk can actually be the downfall of your business. And that foundation will be built here on a multi-channel approach, which allowed it to be so successful as well. So dude,$5 million, was it in a month you lost it? No, in a night. Like as soon as Dick Smith went bankrupt, they owed me like$3 or$4 million and the company would have been worth like millions in value as well. So it would probably be over$5 million. The overnight, boom. talk us through exactly what happened i want to i'm keen to hear this story okay um so i think it started back when i was about 21 years old i i was doing import wholesale i was importing brands in the country and i was wholesaling them to retailers and so the day that i realized that the brands i was importing aren't doing anything that i can't do so i went to china i started developing my own brands and i started approaching mass retailers one was a headphone brand called on years and at the time the way i got into mass retailers i was like this is influencer marketing like 15 years ago i did a deal with sony music australia and i said so i'm going to give you a percentage of all sales if all your artists promote my headphones inside your video clips do their open like singles new singles in the retailer shops and i'll give you guys percentage of all sales on headphones sony agreed i went with that plan to the retailers and got an exclusive deal with dick smith and that was my end of my first brand and from there i just started spinning off different brands because one thing i realized back then was the power of niching down like we look at a shelf i have nothing to compete against i haven't got the budgets of sony or dr dre beats or nothing else i have the shelf and that traffic so i made it start making incremental brands for every product category i had a brand called sports beats just for sports headphones i had a brand for speakers just speakers i had a brand for drones called my drone i had a brand for power bank called juice up and that's how i started to open the markets up in terms of mass retailers because i was able to provide a solution where no one else really could at that that margin so the retailer can make some money yeah got you and then uh dick smith went bankrupt when was this it has been like 10 years ago now wow yeah so you're 25 years old yeah they obviously you know had purchase orders yeah ones yeah yeah they got the stock yeah and they sold through it and then i was just left in the dark like a lot of other supplies right i wasn't the only one yeah but i think you know we were a small to medium business we're not a large corporation that affected us a lot more than others.

9:00And what did you do? Did you have to let go of staff? Talk us through that. Yeah, it's a great question and probably something I didn't mention. That's what got me into digital marketing because I was so vulnerable saying to these retailers and said, fuck that, I can't do that anymore. I'm going to learn the art of digital marketing for my brands to live online. So I stopped going the retail route. I still work at Rebel Sports today and still have some other businesses. That's where I learned the art of digital marketing and that's where my agency was formed. I worked with brands like Woody and stuff like that because i had to do that in order to survive you know unfortunately i actually didn't have to let off anyone during that period i was fortunate enough i actually still made a profit that year somehow of a couple hundred grand yeah um but i still i had to re-engineer everything from scratch because like dick smith was a livelihood of my business that's where all the sales are coming from now where i'm going to acquire customers so i had to start from ground zero essentially all over again so um you said that like take me back to that point where you said that you were beating yourself up that negative self-talk like talk me through that because that there's a lot in that mindset piece and i know it's something you're very passionate about it's not sexy yeah like you talked about we were talking about this offline like you know our focus at founders is to grow our membership founder plus and we we find like next level founders to come back get back to our platform and teach their skills and experiences on all sorts of topics like paid advertising like with new shack or how to build an econ brand like with greta or even things like mindset yeah where we got joe decina he founded a company called tough mutter no no spartan he founded spartan and then he acquired tough mutter 100 million dollar brand and i i know that mindset's so important so it was like let's get one of the coolest guys out there that's a legit founder built a massive brand and he's been through everything got the craziest stories and uh we sold we launched this program on you know mental toughness on building of your mindset because it's so key for founders it was one it was the worst selling product in the history of founder isn't that crazy yeah it is and i think this is the biggest problem with people today right a lot of people spend 90 percent of their time on strategy 10 % of mindset but I'm telling you now it's 90 % mindset 10 % strategy the way Richard Branson views the world and solves problems is the only difference between me and him he just looks at things differently he has different mindset to it it's not his skills not his capability it's just the way they view things and more I work these high-level people like nine-figure founders or billionaires it's literally their view of the world that's different to mine and I'm trying to acquire their belief systems they've built and trying to replicate them inside of myself because everyone has limiting beliefs, negative beliefs or negative beliefs.

11:42And that's the thing that's stopping them back from the growth. Because I'm a fundamental believer that it's the who, not the how. And so many founders are so bogged down in strategy, trying to work out the latest tactic, this and that, but they neglect themselves. When the business is an extension of you, the business only grows to the amount that you grow. So if you don't master yourself, you're not going to grow the business. Take us back. You'd lost 5 million bucks. You didn't know what to do. Scared. no like talk me through those feelings right and and how you you worked your way out like tactically you shifted and but like like your mindset how did you work your way out of it so in life you can't control what you look at but you can always control what you see and i had to look towards the future i had to look at the positive in that scenario in order to get me out of it like because i was i was fucked like you know i mean you built that business for seven years and if anyone knows anything about import wholesale business you don't see any of the money.

12:39You can consistently reinvest the money into more stock. The retailers pay you 120 days later. I didn't see any of that stuff. I was paying myself like four grand a month, you know what I mean, for like seven years. And when that happened, it's just like, you start questioning whether you're right for business or not. Then you have your mom, your parents to tell you like, hey, maybe you should get a job. Do you know what I mean? And then you have to battle against those types of belief systems. So for me, I had to find other narratives that would push me forward and allow me to restructure my thought process to give me a growth mindset and that's why i said before like i started reverse engineering other founders who lost heaps of money and i started seeing how could this be a positive impact on my life you know if i how can i bounce back from this it's actually going to push me forward and learn something because the victim mentality like your inner world creates your outer world if i keep seeing a victim mentality that's all i'm going to reflect on my outer reality so then i just had to be a positive mindset from then on that's not something you can just turn on though right like it comes down to your daily rituals your daily non-negotiables yeah what what what shifts did you make to focus on your mindset not be a victim because many founders would have given up like what what did you do what like what changed and you said you start did you study founders did you get a coach like i really want to go deep because this is like this is key yeah and not enough founders talk about this stuff and like i said this is not sexy yeah yeah now i get you so i think i had a fundamental understanding of psychology and how reality creation worked which worked in my favor so essentially we perceive information from the outside world right by all our senses based on information it goes into our consciousness and we interpret that information from that we create belief systems the belief systems can can create conviction like in terms of thoughts and actions and we have the result so it's everything is about how we interpret the information that we get from the outside world that's going to create our beliefs that's going to create our actions and create results and because i had that fundamental understanding this is why when information comes into my mind i'm aware of it and i'm aware that how i interpret it is going to create different beliefs create different actions so if i allow myself to interpret the information in a negative way i'm gonna create negative beliefs and negative actions and it's just that awareness of knowing what my mind is doing and stopping it and creating reprogramming and firing new like wiring new neurons into my brain that allowed me to get out of that situation does that make sense It starts with self-awareness.

15:01And you have to understand that you are the creator of your own reality. Literally. Your life is just your thoughts and images expressed. So the more thoughts and images you express that's not in alignment with your desired reality, the more you're going to manifest that into your life. No matter what happens into your life, you have to be conscious of your unconscious thoughts. But that's tough. Yeah, like anything else, right? Like going to the gym, like building business. But it's the most important fundamental thing you should be focusing on. because if you because in order to change the fruits you need to change the roots but in life we are constantly moving around unconscious of or we are not conscious like this is um something that i've become interested in over the years like it's easy to forget yeah like it is so easy to forget you get caught up in the day-to-day when you're running it was like so did you so you so So you started with the awareness.

15:53Did you develop any daily rituals, non-negotiables to help rewrite your mindset as well? Yeah, most definitely. I think that I do 4D daily non-negotiables. I've kind of created that. It's the mind, body and spirit because I think Stephen Covey even mentioned this. He goes, in the future, there's not a CEO that doesn't integrate the mind, body and spirit that won't be successful. And I think that's more true today than it was back 30 years ago. You need to holistically integrate those things in order to be a successful entrepreneur. So part of that ritual is obviously the nutrition right because if we believe that thoughts create our own reality then things like eating the right foods creates the thought changes the thoughts we have which will create a reality exercise changes our thoughts changes our ability to interpret the information into a positive way then stuff like journaling because you are not your thoughts and you be able to throw all your thoughts on paper every morning just stream consciousness allows you to see that i'm not that do you mean so that's like and then that's that's a reflection stage in terms of spirit and then the mind, you obviously have to read something, personal development, you acquire different philosophies, like that reality mechanism I mentioned to you before, and start learning from the great people in terms of the way they thought, their belief systems, and try and acquire that.

17:00Because I think what people don't realize is that we all have money blueprints, right? That we absorb from our parents. And you're potentially one money blueprint away from success, meaning that when I was 18 years old, I remember vividly telling my friends I was going to make 200k a year buy my mama car and work three days a week by the age of 25 now they laughed at me they called the waiter over like look what this idiot's saying they're not my friends anymore but the reason i'm saying this story is because why did i say 200k and why did i say three days a week because a mentor of mine at the time when i was 18 that was his reality and i acquired his money blueprint from him and i thought that was possible my previous money blueprint was my parents worked the nine to five, work 30 years, pay off the mortgage, right?

17:43So people don't understand they've acquired these money habits, money blueprints from their environment. That's probably not serving them. And that's the only difference between myself, Elon Musk, besides some intelligence, Richard Branson, et cetera. Okay, man, this is crazy. I didn't think this interview was going to go this way, but I like this direction. I'm going to keep going with it. So you talked about money blueprints and you talked about there was a point in time where you were making a lot of money with your business but you didn't feel worthy yeah talk to me about that talk to me about what the business was the point in time how long you've been building businesses like like how did you work that out and talk me through this because this is another really important thing that nobody talked for sure for sure i think i was about 29 years old and it just dawned to me one day that i just wasn't fulfilled i felt empty and for whatever reason there was there was a moment in time where i knew that if i made an extra million dollars i would not feel any better i just intrinsically knew that at the time i probably had nine different businesses at the time yeah at one stage i had 13 and i'm at my max running at the same time which was not a great idea but at the time i think i had nine businesses and i just realized hey i'm not fulfilled i'm not gonna get any happier if i I'm putting another million dollars next to my name.

19:01I need to go on a spiritual journey and work shit out for myself. And the only way to do that is to leave everything behind. So I didn't work for three years. I left all the business under management. I said, I'm not working until I work my shit out myself because I can't continue to live like this. It was just tormenting. You're working 10 hours a day. You don't even know why. Nothing feels good anymore. You're like numb to any success, numb to any deals. And I had to develop feelings again. Like I just wasn't feeling anything. I was like numb. So, some people might say it's depression. I don't know.

19:32But I look at it from a different perspective. It's just like a notification that I need to change. So, that's why I took the three years out. I started working with the top psychotherapists in the world, health people, spiritual people, trying to absorb everything about the self, right? So, I understand. That's why that one concept that I mentioned before, the authentic versus inauthentic money came in. But amongst that, I learned a lot of other lessons. But I knew that if I was going to live a life that I was happy and fulfilled with, I had to create a life of limitless creation, one that I want to get up every morning and work nine to five and not care about the money and not care about the success and the results.

20:06I had to seek validation within myself, not the external world. Are you hesitating to take the next step in your e-commerce journey? Founder Plus has you covered. With proven frameworks tailored to your business needs for fast results, a supportive community of over 30 ,000 like-minded entrepreneurs and weekly live mentorship sessions, Founder Plus is your key to success. Try Founder Plus today for just$1 for seven days and start building your dream business with confidence. You can visit founder.com forward slash start dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial. Yeah, I see.

20:40So three years is a long time. Yeah, a long time, yeah. So what period was that? From 29 to 32. I'm 35 now, son. It was like six years ago. Okay, all right. So you obviously had the business was, the businesses were successful enough that you had a strong leadership team in place. Yes, correct. Yeah, okay. I actually made more money when I wasn't in the businesses. Funny enough, that's another concept to speak about. Yeah, look, that's a funny story. You often hear that, don't you, right? Yeah, you do, yeah. If you've got a strong management team, leadership team, and you actually get out of the business and get out of the way, but it depends on the founder.

21:15Correct. It depends on the founder. So I get the feeling that you're the kind of founder that is quite creative, have a lot of energy good on strategy product and marketing but probably the mechanic side not so much you think the people management side yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah so you find that there's kind of from my experience there's a couple of founders is the one side like steve jobs who's the hustler and then you've got wozniak who's the hacker but then you also have that third archetype more mechanic side but you need either two or those three or one of those two to complement each other yeah yeah so okay so what are the things that you learned over the three years like that's a long time so you didn't work at all no no i might have checked a couple emails a week but no more than like 30 minutes a day so what were you doing were you traveling around the world yeah single like like yeah i was single i got my skydiving license i started skydiving all around the world um i tried a lot of plant medicine stuff i just i just experimented right like because i don't even know what i like what i don't like because in life we have to experience everything i believe in the in the fringes and then bring it back to what you think you know you like and you don't like at the time i really didn't experience anything besides business how do i know i even like business like i started from such a young age of 17 so for me it was just a moment to go crazy do everything that i didn't do the complete polar opposite and then see where that lands me and that's why today i'm just have so much peace into what i'm doing because i've pushed the boundaries and everything else and that's why i'm out to operate and at such a high frequency i think today and why the companies are doing better today is because i'm better as a person okay so you talked about i want to go back we didn't quite get there around the money blueprints thing and and the fact that you didn't feel worthy about the money that you were making when was that the case and how did you rewire and work on that piece of the puzzle yes that's a good question i think that was about 29 when i realized that was kind of happening to me well sorry it was 30 when an actual psychologist told me why i felt like that that concept of authentic money versus inauthentic money and i understood that the stuff i do i was doing wasn't intrinsically motivating it was all to achieve a certain number so then if it's all to achieve a certain number then my internal validation is tied to that number and in a world where you see everyone doing stupid numbers here and there, you see one person doing 100 million and you're not, then you think you're worthless.

23:49Do you know what I mean? Because I'm tied to that number. I'm not doing for any other reason than the number. So now the playing field for me is just about numbers. And I'm comparing myself to every other number in the world. And you can't feel good about your situation when you're doing that, right? You know, comparison is a thief of joy. So if that's my data point, then I'm fucked. But if you create a business where it's authentically driven and intrinsically motivating based on the mission that you're creating and that sense of meaning attached to it i can't compare someone making 100 million dollars in crypto to me because he doesn't care about the crypto i know he's chasing the money i'm saying so i'm playing a different game now where i'm playing game against myself because my interest is going to be completely unique to me what i want to do and that's how i was able to re-engineer my internal mechanisms to actually live a more field life because now i'm not playing anyone else's game playing my game yeah i love that um but some people watching this or listening would be like well that's easy to say matt you've done really well you've done you've put yourself in a position where you don't have to work it's easy like what would you say to that like for founders that are in the early stages the same shit money you're making now doing something you don't like you can make it doing something you like like in reality in in psychology the breakout point is a hundred thousand dollars a year, meaning that there's a lot of research showing that after$100 ,000 a year, the level of fulfillment from making more money than that dramatically decreases.

25:11That's like the breakout point for living a certain quality of life. And for you to make$100 ,000 a year doing something you love is extremely easy. Extremely easy. And I guarantee you'll have more filled life making$100 ,000 a year doing something you absolutely love and passionate about than making a million dollars something that you hate. Because one thing that I noticed as well in my journey is that you start to self-sabotage yourself. Because think about it this way. if I don't like the business I'm building, why would I want it to grow? That requires me working more on the business that I fucking hate doing.

25:39And a lot of us entrepreneurs like myself will self-sabotage. I would go partying. Every time I made a bit of money, I'd go partying. I'd ruin myself. Because intrinsically, I didn't want to keep growing that business because I hated building that business. And you see this, I see this a lot with people that I coach. And the really thing I just work with them in is reestablishing their belief systems and their pattern of life because I think that's where all the juice is. So talking about cure, right? massive growth you've been in the game for a long time though yeah um what was what do you believe were some of the key things how'd you start sourcing the product yeah so we developed the product from scratch but i think the main takeaway for cure is there's four different leverage points when it comes to e-commerce right four leverage points when it comes to e-commerce to make any brand successful one is product leverage you have to have a differentiated product in the market in order to gain leverage because there's a flywheel attached that where if you have a better product, you can get better influences, you can create better marketing and everything else.

26:34The second is audience leverage. Now, that means acquiring someone else's audience to get a negative CAC. So taking up with influencers, giving some influencers potentially equity in your brand is a great way to do that. The third is margin leverage. Today, you need 70 plus, if not 80%. Gross. Gross margin. You just need it, right? If you don't have it, don't do it. And then the fourth one is OPEX leverage, operating leverage. I set up the office in Croatia, which we spoke about offline. which has fantastic people and a fraction of price anywhere else in the world. So I have all those four leverage points in Acure.

27:06And that's why we are successful today. Yeah. And you're the co-founder. Are you the CEO? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So myself and my sister, like co-CEO. Okay. Co-CEO. Okay. Is your sister based in? She's based in Sydney, Australia. She's the brains behind all the products. Like this one thing I learned as well, like without her passion, the business wouldn't be where it is today. if it was just me it wouldn't be where it is today you know her heart is so entrenched into that brand more than any other founder I've ever seen in my life because we have something that was so authentic to her she cares more about the brand than her future kids you know what I mean like it's just it's insane I've never had that level of passion for a company in my life that she has what's it like working with your sister?

27:50like anything highs are very high the lows are very low but ultimately I think it's rewarding it's just understanding each other like she worked for me previously she ran a couple of brands so she was one of my best employees yeah you laughed and said the highs are high and the lows are low what what are some of the lows the lows is when you're arguing you know when you're not on the same on the same level when i know what's right for i think what's right for the business she disagrees or she disagrees my leadership style my management style and then we block each other on whatsapp and we don't talk to each other for a day or two you know i mean there's stuff you go through and you gotta work for that shit um and the worst thing is sometimes we live in the same house so we blocked each other on whatsapp but we're living in the same house you know i mean um but then the highs are amazing you know there's like to do that with your sister the person you care about the most in the world is one of the most fulfilling things also yeah and we're just two completely different people which also makes it slightly harder yeah so out of your you said you've started 20 different businesses 20 different businesses but you've been doing this for 18 years um cure is your most successful yeah okay all right and um you know you've just acquired tens of thousands of hours in business.

29:01Like, do you believe that the 10 ,000 hour rule exists? I do believe it exists, but I wouldn't want to have it in like one skill. I believe in being a generalist has a lot of benefits today and you need to have a large skill set in a number of different areas. Like the reason Cure is built today so quickly is because I had 10 ,000 hours in different avenues, not just marketing or not just product development. I understand the whole spectrum, which gave us a unique point of view that no one else had, which enabled us to create a brand that no one else could. And that's what formed it. Yeah. So this is an interesting thought, right?

29:38Because, you know, we have a lot of founders in our community and they say, oh, look, should I outsource content creation? Should I, you know, pay a web developer to build my site? And I'm always of the opinion, these are core fundamental skills that you as a founder. you need to learn and you need to lean into it like throwing money at those particular problems it's just wasteful and and and then like you have to go back to them now look i there's one skill that i'm still in two minds i don't think i need to know it but i don't know how to run i don't know i don't know how to do media buying i don't think it matters at this point because it's so much creative we can do it for you yeah but like you know what i mean like yeah like but i think there's some other key skills like i'm really going deep on copy now like we have copywriters here at founder but like i want to be a better copywriter because i think it's a fundamental skill so in saying that what are the core skills as a generalist or an early stage founder that you think are fundamentally key in this market especially with you pair ai as well so it's a great point.

30:45I think that people don't understand the business they're in. Founders don't understand the business they're in. When I see a founder with a generic product outsource marketing, big no. Why? You are a sales and marketing company. Your ability to sell and market that generic product, the same that your analysis has like a supplement is what differentiates you from the rest. So how can you outsource it? There's different e-com brands that are more product development founders. Okay. They can afford to outsource sales and marketing because they're product development now in terms of the skill set they asked me it's definitely creative strategy definitely crave strategy i think this is like the most unique skill set that any founder can make so much so that i believe that you can build a 10 million dollar business today off organic creative not even paying for ads that's how important creative is for an econ brand 100 % and i've seen it done i've seen it done and our big initiative next year for cure is to go organic first and not paid ads to not rely on pay ads we're going to humanize the brand we're going to invest so much money in content creation organic and i've seen it done victory is a great example of it i think high smile i've done it extremely well yeah we did big interview with them yeah did you see it yeah i watched it yeah it's good yeah yeah and i'm telling you now it's their organic stuff that's what drove their business to whatever billion dollars or whatever they were i don't know what is it was their organic marketing engine yeah they're very very good at creative it's crazy what they've been able to do with the team out of the gold coast yeah yeah right you and i both from australia we both know there's not talent there you're from melbourne yeah like that those are the real talent pools but it's crazy like they must have a crazy culture yeah like that that's like that's one thing i know is like you can work out anything if if you find if you put your mind to it so you need to find people that have that same mindset and they must have that in that culture to be able to do what they do because they're playing at a very high level out of the gold coast oh yeah it's phenomenal yeah it's crazy so great so talk me through your actual strategy like what like what does that look like how much content how do you know what's good what does it look like to test it like actually talk us through it so and also if everyone wants like an sop in terms of creative strategy i'm happy to provide our internal one just message me on instagram but um i think for us we're fortunate that we built multiple product categories another reason why cure is successful i'm in led i'm in water filters i'm in microneedling other people have sold businesses in those categories so i've got like three businesses in one which gives me a lot more things to talk about but but essentially we have education where we do problem story teach right that's a that's a big one for us and then we just try and replicate that across all the different product categories and there's no rule systematic process you have to just throw so much at the wall that you can find patterns understand what sticks now i spoke to someone at high smiles trying to approach one of their content creators now whether this is true or not she told me there was no teachings from them internally she said that we just saw in the account what worked and we iterated on it so the only thing you can the best you can learn is from yourself and that just comes from taking shots on goal like if you're not creating two videos a day then you're not really putting any effort in you also said that uh you're big on mentoring and coaching um and you said you've spent about half a million bucks is this in the past year on coaching or probably like three four years okay yeah all right well then i don't know if i look i've spent hundreds of thousands maybe yeah well a million bucks on coaching all that kind of stuff i'd say in the past three or four years so when it comes to coaching where do you think entrepreneurs or founders should be investing their time when it comes to i guess learning great question so you have to apply like the The biggest skill any entrepreneur can learn is the art of prioritization, right?

34:31They have to apply the theory of constraints and understand where the constraint is the business and solve that one problem. And then what they do, once they have that problem they're looking to solve, they reach out to someone who has solved it, who has two steps ahead of them, and they get coaching from that person. That's what I would recommend. And you do it per problem. Do you know what I mean? You don't go holistically like a life coach or anything like that. You want to find someone that's done what you're looking to do, a couple steps ahead only and pay them to help you solve that problem so you take the learnings from their past and just accelerate it yeah it's as simple as that dude that's why founder exists yeah exactly right like that's the biggest life hack yeah yeah it's the biggest life hack so but why do you think that people don't fork out the money why would someone go out spend a thousand dollars or two thousand dollars on a purse or a bottle of vodka at ivy but then not want to pay for a coach it's because they are so skeptical if it will work for them and i think you and i know the power of investing in yourself but for others they just don't do it they'd rather they would think if i would spend two three four five ten grand whatever it is i could spend that on ads yeah yeah you know what i mean yeah like that that's that's where the mind goes yeah like But the ads won't be efficient, yeah.

35:44Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So talk me through the theory of constraints because not everybody's familiar with this process. So the founder of Amazon, he actually, what's his name again? I'm going to mind block. Jeff Bezos. So Jeff Bezos gave this book called Goal to his leadership team. It's one of three books he gives them. And the book Goal is based on the theory of constraints. It was a guy that took over his manufacturing utility from his parents and he had the outcome, which is like the end production line. And he understood that he had to find the constraints in the manufacturing system in order to unblock them and can produce a better outcome.

36:20So that's all it is. It's looking at your outcome, whether it's product, sales, or marketing, and look at the constraint. And you do that by asking yourself, like, why can't you 10x the business today? What is the one thing stopping you from 10x in the business today? Then once you find that constraint, you go to solving it. You solve it with internal resources, AI, or external. They're your three options. and the reason why cure is successful today is because i created this training in-house which i try and train every single individual to understand that they have constraints they can all do within their lane and i've got even sop that i can share if they message me on instagram but essentially if you train your whole team to consistently work on theory and constraints that is strategy it's utilizing your limited resources against unlimited options right and finding the one option that's going to accelerate you forward by finding what that constraint is in your business so you got a lot of answers man you got you sounds like you seem to really work things out what's what's your biggest constraint right now what's holding you what's holding matt back from building a hundred million dollar a year business time time i don't i don't doubt i'll do it it's just time and what i've learned is that putting time like constraints ruined me when i was younger you know i had my vision board i want to be 100 million dollars by 30 by this than that but you can't you can't decide how when it happens you can decide the how like what but you can't put a timeline on when because there's too many variables and i know that if i stick to my daily non-negotiables in terms of what i need to do as an individual every single day i detach from the outcome i live in a moment of peace knowing i've done what i need to do that allows me to operate a higher frequency that i will attract that stuff into my life the problem is a lot of people they put these constraints in terms of when they need to make money because i want to buy something or something instagram or twitter which then you start operating from a place of lack you don't have this thing you don't have this thing which detracts from your life but if you live every day in that moment and just do daily non-negotiables shop every day for work deep work your nutrition your exercise everything else you're able to detach from the outcome then you can live it in a peace knowing that you will get it it's just a matter of time so your how are you planning your goals for 2025 you and i talked about you know personal brands of focus but like yeah talk me through that what does that look like sure so i have a goal for the year right i set the goal then i unlock resources revenue target top line yeah it'll be top line right and i'm like how am i going to achieve that goal right and then i unlock resources so i'm doing organic content engine to unlock that resource then i started hiring consultants i've got two agencies consultants me on how to to do that then i create standards an input output equation meaning that what can I input into the system for a period of time that'll be unreasonable that I won't make that revenue and for us it's like if we post four reels a day across all channels is unreasonable that after a year we won't grow to you know hundreds of thousands of following whatever and that's the way I operate and then I just focus on those daily standards and that's it and I disconnect from everything else it's the standards that you have to focus on and I think as individuals as a company you have the ceiling of where your standards are and you have the floor you don't rise the level of your goals you fall to the level of your standards so it's important just to raise the floor same with working out same with anything else if you're working out is like on a bad week i do twice a week and a good week i do seven your job is to raise the floor like on a bad week it's four and a good week it's seven that's same business so we're just consistently improving our systems and processes and raising our floor of the company you know in terms of personnel and everything you know how b players become c players and we get rid of the c players and then we get new A players and we just keep doing that cycle over and over again.

40:00Yeah. And you said something interesting about time. You're patient and you said that it's going to happen, but it's just a matter of time when. Then how does that relate to your goal for the year? So goals are there just to give you a North Star. The goals are there for you to only create a new version, a better version of yourself. That's why we have goals. Life is about being and becoming, right? Not acquiring and possessing. And when you understand that, it's like, did I get better this year? Cool, then that's the real goal. If I don't hit the numbers, I don't care. Did I stick to what I said I was going to do?

40:41Am I better? Did I learn more? Sure, then it's a win. And I think a lot of people today don't understand that if you grow 20 % year on year or 30 % year on year, you are a world-class company. like relax like it's fine i even slowed down the growth of cure this year to be honest i slowed it down 20 because i'm here for 20 years why would i want to put stress on the ecosystem on the team on the company for what reason do you mean i'm here to build the foundations and make sure everyone's happy where customers are happy our team's happy it's unnecessary like we're making money life's good and i think that a lot of people chase the revenue because they want to post a twitter post and instagram post but ultimately you know the quicker you grow the quicker you can fall i agree with that yeah yeah i agree so um you also said that only like in terms of paid advertising a lot of econ brands rely on paid ads and you've talked about having that i guess diversification for your revenue engine you're not relying on just one channel i've been there i've been hit hard and it's it's brutal right right so talk me through founders in the early days what's the best channel from your experience they should be focusing on to get traction and then how do they know when to start diversifying because then you can also spread yourself too thin and it's a balance yeah definitely meta right but if i was gonna give advice to any founder at the start it'd be unlock organic before you go to paid and then and then put paid behind what's working organically 100 you know and i just don't think a lot of people are doing it like i found i know so many brands midday squares as well done fantastic it was just done founder content personality behind the brand there's another chick that in australia some clothing brand i can't remember top of my head but she's done the same thing where she get the office involved there's builds character personalities to the brand she's growing a brand just like that where it doesn't require any skill set just a bit of creativity and a bit of personality so i think if i was starting again today i'd go organic first build the especially if you have no money it requires zero money just time because that's what you have in terms of resources and i'd go all in organic figure that out and you'd be super profitable and then you can reinvest the profits into pay that that i agree that's the way to go um when it comes to content you learn the craft and then you work out what works and it's now paid is a creative game it's just the way to go yeah so you said at peak you had 12 different businesses or 13 13 yeah what were they so i have the manufacturing of umbra their apparel brand i have pro sports group which we were the largest in football equipment in australia i had skywalkers as electronic bikes i had the easter eggs for manchester night in liverpool i had the tattoo removal laser clinic I had the digital marketing agency.

43:30I had a headphone brand called Sports Beats. I had an iPhone accessories brand called Juice Up. I had Air Beats, which was Bluetooth speaker brand. I had a retail supplement store called Elite Subs. That's 10. What else? I'm missing some. That's okay. It was a while ago. That's okay. Okay. How were you operating and was that when you were coming from a place of self-validate, like not like lacking that self-validation? I think it's a perfect example when you're not right yourself, it extends to your business. And how chaotic I was internally reflected that externally by doing a million different things.

44:07And the way I was able to do it is by transformational leadership. So there's two different types of leadership, right? Transactional and then transformational. Transactional is like, this is how I started. I hire people, I tell them what to do, I check if they've done it, and then I tell them what to do next. You get burnt out. And then transformational is like, I give you an outcome, we measure the results, and then I coach you. And by the second transformational, you can run, you can manage a fucking, a huge team like that, right? So I'm just coaching people where before was very transactional.