Matt Grey
How I Went From -$15k to $8.7 Million
Matt went from being broke, in debt, and suicidal to building companies making $8.7 million per year.
Matt attributes his success to 4 mindset shifts:
- Realizing he needed to build and own things, not just acquire skills and work for others.
- Taking control of his time while working a corporate job to invest in coding skills and self-education.
- Reaching out and connecting with thousands of people, increasing his "surface area" for opportunities.
- Taking care of his health through better sleep, diet, exercise and journaling to get clarity on life purpose.
He built a portfolio of companies including Bitmaker, Herb, and FounderOS by leveraging skills like marketing, team building, writing, and creating systems.
Key lessons are to invest in yourself continuously, connect with others, build/acquire assets that can grow in value, automate systems, and design a business that creates freedom versus requiring constant grind.
The end goal is to gain time, location, financial freedom, and "live everyday retirement" by doing work you enjoy versus sacrificing for some future reward.
Matt went from being broke and suicidal to building multiple million dollar businesses. He outlines 4 key mindset shifts that enabled his transformation:
- Realizing while traveling that he wanted the freedom to control his work and life.
- Learning that acquiring skills is not enough - you need to build and own things to get rich.
- Reaching out to thousands of people for advice and connections which led to new opportunities.
- Focusing on his health and self-care which improved his focus and opened up new possibilities.
After selling his first business Bitmaker, Matt built Herb into a successful cannabis site doing over $5 million per year.
However, he was still unhappy and unhealthy until he improved his lifestyle. He quit drinking, started exercising, journaling and pursued his passion of helping founders through his new business Founder OS.
Now Matt runs a portfolio of companies doing $8.7 million per year while traveling the world and living life on his own terms.
His key message is that you don't need to sacrifice everything to be successful. You can build a lean, automated business that funds the lifestyle you want through systems, delegation and focus on profit vs just revenue.
Video 2
Matt Grey makes $730,000 per month while only working 4 hours a day. He attributes this to 4 pillars of leverage: deep work, automation, the founder flywheel, and hiring a chief of staff.
Deep work is focused time in your "zone of genius" without distractions. The author does deep work for 4 hours each morning.
Automation involves eliminating, delegating, and automating tasks. This removes Matt from day-to-day operations.
The founder flywheel involves building an audience for your personal brand, which drives business growth through word of mouth and referrals.
A chief of staff handles tasks that slip through the cracks, freeing up mental space and time for the CEO.
Overall, the author advocates working smarter, not harder. By building systems and leverage, you can make more money while working less. The key is to focus your time on your "zone of genius" and delegate or automate the rest.
Here are the apps he recommends for automating content creation, email sequences, lead generation, and sales funnels. The goal is to systemize and automate recurring tasks so you can focus your time on high-level strategic work.
DEA: Delegate, Eliminate, or Automate
The key is to be ruthless in protecting your "zone of genius" - unique skills that create the most value. Eliminate, delegate or automate everything else. Turn on your DO NOT DISTURB! You know that it takes at least 15 mins to get into flow. When an interruption takes you out of flow, it takes you 15 mins to back into it - assuming you are not now following up on what the interruption was about (which is often the case for me). Train your clients to use your scheduler! Calendly is free, and google also has one they rarely mention.
Note sure if you're doing this? Track your task work for 6-8 weeks and identify where each falls. This idea is also expanded on in the book Winning The Week.
If the task falls outside of your 'Zone of Genius,' process them via: elimination, delegation, or automation:
Track all the tasks you've worked on over the past 6-8 weeks. This gives you enough data to see patterns and recurring tasks emerge.
Indicate if each task gives you energy or drains your energy. This helps you prioritize what to delegate/automate.
For each task, ask if you can eliminate, delegate or automate it.
Eliminate any tasks you can stop doing right away.
Delegate tasks that are below your desired hourly rate. If a task pays less than your hourly rate per hour, delegate it.
For delegated tasks, simply start with a Google Doc. Record a video (Loom or Snagit) of how you do it and train someone on your team. This ensures it's properly handed off.
For automatable tasks, research and implement the right software tool to systemize each one.
Pro Tip: Check out AppSumo for an every expanding list of time-saving software solutions.
Here's a shortlist of the tools Matt uses for his business:
- ConvertKit - For newsletter automation
- HypeFury - To automate your content calendar and create a content backlog
- ChatGBT - To automate content ideation
- TextExpander - To save snippets and text you repeatedly use
- Yesware - To automate sales emails
- SeamlessAI - To automate lead generation
- Kajabi - To automate sales funnels and put your business on autopilot
Q&A