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

I used to develop a lot of brands for Dick Smith and one day overnight I lost $5 mil 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 so I was so vulnerable I had to seek validation within myself if I contined to have that victim mentality I knew I wouldn't be able to get myself out of that rout Thank God I lost $5 million because I had to look towards the future

I 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% of mindset 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 out the latest Tactic this and that then NE themselves the business only grow to the out that you grow so if you don't Master

yourself you're not going to grow the business hear the stories learn The Proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan [Music] hey guys welcome back to another episode of the founder podcast we're here in the Studio we've got Matt olich he's the co-founder of curea 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 going to be

good so you shared that uh you've been building businesses for 20 years your most uh recent brand CER um talk us through how did you start it you started with your sister uh 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 the stage of my life I think 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 remember a quarter life crisis and I took work off for 3 years I PID some top Consultants around the world psychotherapy stuff like that try and work out what was going wrong right because 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 um I wanted to pass that on to my sister I said to her let's give you a business start you a business you're extremely passionate about that you love so much you don't care about how much it makes cuz I didn't want her to make the same mistakes I did so I moved to crotia she was still in Australia she kept sending me different skincare products to use and different like posted notes Use

this in the morning night all this kind of stuff she came to visit me in Croatia she sto my skin she like your Skin's a lot better this the products might must be working I go well I haven't been using any of them she 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 just like oh my God I want One how much

is it I was like it's four four grand and her heart like sunk right cuz 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 fck 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 DNA 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 and I didn't want there social economic barriers of people going to clinics and the expens 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 2 years developing it and has like customizable treatments on the face which no one else has and it's Backed by the leading the authorities in the world and the business is 3 years old and we recently had

our first million dollar day black is that from Black Friday yeah yeah okay interesting and uh I think I think I've read you guys are on track to 50 million this year yeah to me slightly under 47 48 somewh okay right but pretty impressive growth Z to 50 million 3 years a year yeah exactly yeah yeah in this count of year yeah 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 did 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 Willies and Kohl's I currently have the license to umro the perel company I Manufacture for and under arour I've had T 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 Q 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 $5 million at the age of 25 and there's two important lessons I learned from that 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 almost almost teary and the victim mentality starts coming out like me you know how does this happen to me how is everyone else making money that I'm not and in that moment I learned those two important lessons one was perspective because if I continued

to have that victim mentality I knew I wouldn't be able to get myself out of that rout losing that money so then I started RSE engineering who are the founders that I Know that I've had massive losses and I started Googling them all I go that's it this is why it's happened thank God I lost $5 million 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 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 out to cure where a lot of Ecom Brands today are so reliant on meta right which where not met is less than 50% of our business thecon Brands like 80 or 90% because I learned that concentration risk can actually be the downfall of your business and that Foundation when we built cure 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 the in a night like as soon as Dick Smith went bankrupt um they owed me like3 or4 million and the company would have been worth like millions in value as well so it would probably be over $5 million but overnight boom like talk talk us through exactly what happened I want Keen to hear this story okay um so I think it started back when I was about 21 years old I I I was doing import

wholesale I was importing brands in the country and I was wholesaling them to retailers and until the day that I realized that the brands I was importing aren doing anything that I can't do so I went to China I started developing my own Brands and I started approaching Mass retails one was a headphone brand called oners 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 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 and headphones so you agree I went for that plan to the retailers and got an exclusive deal with Dick Smith and that was my in 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 started making incremental brands for every product category I had a brand called Sports beats just for Sports headphones I had a brands for speakers just speakers I had a brands for drones called my drone I had a brand for power bank called jua up and that's how I Started to open the markets up in terms of mass retailers cuz 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 yeah has to like 10 years ago now wow yeah so you're 25 years old they obviously you know had perchase orders big 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 suppliers 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 so affected us a

lot more than others and did you what what did you do like did you have to let go staff like 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 like so vulnerable s these retailers I said 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 to retail route I still work with 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 at Brands like udy and stuff like that because I had to do that in order to survive you know unfort I actually didn't have to let off anyone During that period I was fortunate enough actually still made a profit that year somehow of a couple hundred grand yeah um but still I had to re-engineer everything from scratch because like dicksmith was a lifely hood 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 yeah got you so um you said that like take me back to that point where you Said that you were beating yourself up that negative selft 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 founder 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 Shack or how to build an eom brand like with Greta or even things like mindset yeah where we got Joe dinen he founded a company called tough M no no Spartan he founded Spartan and then he acquired tough M100 million year brand and I I know that mindset so important so I was like let's get one of the coolest guys out there that's a legit founder build a massive brand and he's been through everything got the

craziest Stories and uh we sold we we we launched this program on you know mental toughness on building your mindset CU 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% 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 a different mindset to it it's not his skills not his capability it's just the way they view things and more I work with these high level people like n 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 and that's the thing that's stopping them back from the growth because I'm 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 grow to the amount that You grow so if you don't Master yourself you're not going to grow the business take us back yeah you lost 5 million bucks yeah didn't know what to do scared n 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 cuz I was I was like you know what 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 you cons 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 4 grand a month you know I mean for like 7 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 and tell you like hey maybe you should get a job do you know what I mean and then you have to battle against those 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 what 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 victim mentality that's all I'm going to reflect in my out of out of 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 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 found ERS would have given up like what what did you do what like what changed and you said you st did you study Founders did you get a coach like I really want to go deep because this is like this is key and not enough Founders Talk about

this staff 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 VI 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 crave conviction like in terms of Our thoughts and our 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 it's going to create our actions it's going to create our results and because I have the 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 going to create negative beliefs and negative actions and 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 yes it does it starts with self-awareness and you have to understand that you are the creator of Your own reality literally your your life is just your thoughts and images expressed so the more thoughts images you express that's not in alignment with your desire reality the more you're going to manifest that into your life so no matter what happens into your life you have to be conscious or your unconscious thought 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 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 in the day to-day when you're running it's like so did you so so

you started with the awareness did You develop any daily rituals non-negotiables to help rewri your mindset as well yeah most definitely I think the the I do 4D daily non-negotiables I've kind of created that it's the Mind Body in spirit because I think stepen Cav even mentioned this he goes in the future there's not a CEO that doesn't integrate the Mind Body in 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 information into a positive way than stuff like journaling because you are Not your thoughts and you be able to throw all your thoughts on paper every morning just stream of Consciousness allows you to see that I'm not that do you know what I mean so that's like and then that's

that's a reflection stage in terms of spirit and in the mind you obviously have to read something personal development you acquire different philosophies like that reality mechanism I I mentioned you before and start learning from the great people in Terms of the way they thought their belief systems and try and acquire that because 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 m a car and work 3 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 9 to5 work 30 years pay off the morgage right so people don't understand they've acquired These money habits and money blueprints from their environment that's probably not serving them and that's the only difference between myself Elon Musk besides some intelligence um Richard Branson Etc okay man this is crazy I didn't think this interview was going to go this way but I like this direction yeah 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'd been building businesses like like like how did you work that out and talk me through this because this is another really important thing that nobody talked about for sure for sure I think I was about 29 years old and it just daunted 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 do 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 my 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 going to get any happier if I'm put another million Dollars next to my name I need to go on a spiritual journey

and work out for myself so and the only way to do that is to leave everything behind so I didn't work for 3 years I left all the business under the management I said I'm not working until I work my out myself cuz I can't continue to live like this just was tormenting you're working 10 hours days 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 but I look at it from 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 to understand that's why that one concept That I mentioned before the authentic vers that money came in but amongst that I learned a 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 wanted to get up every morning and work 9:00 to 5: and not care about the money and not care about the success and the results I had to seek validation Within Myself not the external World yeah I see so 3 years is a long time yeah a long time yeah so what period was that from 29 to 32 I'm 35 now starting like six years ago okay all right so you obviously had the business was the businesses were successful enough that

you had a you strong leadership team in place corre y okay all right 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 if 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 correct right it depends on the founder um 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 a thing the people management side the people yeah Exactly 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 wnc who's the hacker but then you also have that third AR more mechanic side but you need either two of those three or 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 were you single like like yeah I 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 and what I don't

like cuz 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 even like business like I started from such a young age of 17 so for me it was just a 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 so much peace into What I'm

doing cuz I've pushed the boundaries and everything else and that's why I'm about to operate and at such a high frequency I think today and why the companies are doing better today it's 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 um 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 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 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 do 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 but if you create a business where it's authentically driven and intrinsically motivating based on the mission that you're

creating and has sense of meaning attached to it I can't compare someone making $100 million in crypto to me because he doesn't care about the crypto I know he's chasing the money you know what 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 cuz now I'm not playing anyone else's game I'm 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 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 $100,000 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 like dramatically decreases that's Like the breakout point for living a certain quality of life and for you to make 100 Grand a year doing something something you love is extremely easy extremely easy and I guarantee you'll make you'll have more filled life making $100,000 a year doing something you abely love and passionate about than making 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 hate doing and a lot of us entrepreneurs like myself would s 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 cuz 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 juice is hey guys I really hope you're feeling inspired from today's interview now the truth is all successful e-commerce Founders started from zero with a spark of an idea and a whole lot of determination but let's be real building or growing an e-commerce business is no Walk in the park and that's where founder plus comes in which I'm really excited to share with you it's a culmination of a decade worth of work at founder so if you're feeling stuck in your e-commerce business you're lacking confidence to

move forward or you're worried about making costly mistakes or not knowing how to grow your business founder plus is here to support you on your journey you get access to a customized learning pathway with proven Frameworks from successful e-commerce Founders for fast results incredible programs a supportive community Community weekly live mentorship exclusive savings on Startup tools and 24/7 real human support trif founder plus today for just $1 for 7 days so you can accelerate your business goals visit found.com start dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial all right now

let's jump back in the Sh so talking about cure right massive growth you've been in the game for a long time though um what was what do you believe were some of the key things how did 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 to that where if you have a better product you can get better influences you can create better marketing and everything else the second is audience leverage now that means acquiring someone on else's audience to get a negative CAC to 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% the 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 um has fantastic people and a fraction of price any else in the world so I have all those four leverage points in cure are and that's why we are successful today yeah and uh you're the co-founder uh are you the CEO yeah okay Okay so well myself and my sister like co-o okay Coos okay is your sister based in she's based in in Sydney austral yeah she's the brains beond 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 when 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 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 like 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 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 with

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 what I mean there stuff you go through And you got to work for that 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 what I mean um but then the highs are amazing you know that'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 S yeah so out of your you said You' 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 you've just you've just acquired tens of thousands of hours in business like do you believe that the 10,000 hour rule exists I do believe it exists but I would I wouldn't want to have it in like one

skill I believe in being a generalist Has a lot of a lot of benefits today and you need to have a long 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 you know what I mean I understand the whole Spectrum which gave us a unique point of view that no one else had which able us to create a brand that no one else could and that's what formed it yeah

um so This is an interesting thought right because 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 can do 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 found it but like I 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 found that you think are fundamentally key in this market especially with you pair AI as well so it's a great point I 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 of marketing company your ability to sell and Market that generic product the same that Elis has like a supplement is what differ you from the rest so how can

you Outsource it there's different Ecom 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 ask me it's definitely creative strategy definitely Creative 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 business today of organic creative not even paying for ads that's how important creative is for Ecom brand 100% And I've seen it done I've seen it done and

our big inititive 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 have done it extremely well yeah we did Big interview with them did you seen it yeah I watched 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're worth

I don't know what it is it was their organic marketing engine yeah They have very very good at creative it's crazy what they've been able to do with a team out of the Gold Coast right you and I both from Australia we both know there's not Talent there you're from C from Melbourne 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 if 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 they're playing at a very high level out of the goal Coast oh yeah it's phenomenal yeah it's crazy so great so talk me through your actual strategy like what what 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 anyone 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 Cur is successful I'm in LED I'm in I'm in water filters I'm in Micron needling 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 real systematic process you have to just throw so much at the wall that you can find patterns understand what it sticks now I spoke to someone at Heist smile was trying to poach 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 effet in you also said that uh you're being 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 years okay yeah all right well then I don't know if I look I've spent hundreds of Thousand maybe yet 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 biggest skill any entrepreneur can can learn is the art of prioritization right they 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 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 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 it's as simple as that dude that's why fer exists yeah that's theg life yeah it's the biggest life hack so but but why do you think that people don't Fork out the money why would someone

go out spend $1,000 or $2,000 on a purse or a bottle of odur IV but then not want to pay that 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 was span two three 4 5 10 grand whatever it is I could spend that on ads yeah yeah you know what I mean like like that that's that's where the M goes right like

but the ads won't be offici yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly so talk me through the theory of constraints because I like not everybody's familiar with this Process so um the founder of Amazon he actually what's his name again I'm going to mind blong Jeff 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 produce a better outcome so that's all it is it's looking at your outcome whether it's product sales or marketing and looking at the constraint and you 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 solvent you solve it with internal resources AI or external there Your three

options and the reason why cure is successful today is because I created this training inhouse which I try and train every single individual to understand the theory of constraints they can all do it 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 sounds like you seem 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 100 million dollar 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 by 30 by this and that 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 the money

so 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 then 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 you're how are you planning your goals for

2025 you and I talked about you know personal brands are focused 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 would be Topline right and then 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 consultant to me on how to to do that then I

create standards and input output equation meaning that what can I UT into the system for a period of time that'll Be unreasonable that I won't make that Revenue you and for us it's like if we post four reals a day across all channels is it 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 workingout same with anything else if you're working out is like on a bad week I do twice a week on a good week I do seven your job is just to raise the floor like on a bad week it's 4 and a good week at seven that's same with 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 over again yeah and um 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 that I stick to what I said I was going to do Am I better that 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 CA 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 know what I mean I'm heed to build the foundations And make sure everyone's happy where customers are happy our team's happy I don't 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 I agree so um you also said that only like in terms of paid advertising um a lot of Ecom 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 And it's a balance yeah definitely matter right but if I was going to give advice 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 don't think a lot of people are doing it like found I know so

many Brands midday squares as well done fantastic was just done founder content personality behind the brand there's another Chi that in Australia some Clothing brand i c top of my head but she's done the same thing where she get the office involved and builds character personalties to the brand she's going a brand just like that where it doesn't require any skill set a bit of creativity and a bit of personality so I think if 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 property into pay ads that I agree that's the way to go um when it comes to content you learn to craft and then you work out what works and it's a now paid as a creative game it's just a 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 Umbro

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 United and Liverpool I had the tattoo removal laser Clinic I had the digital marketing agency I had a headphone brand called Sports beats I had iPhone access accessies brand called juice up I had air beats which was Bluetooth speaker brand um I had a retail Supplement store called Elite Subs that's 10 what else I'm missing some a while ago that's okay okay how were you operating

and was that 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 you're not right yourself it extends to your business and how chaotic I was internally reflected that extern by doing a million different things and the way I was able to do it Is by transformational leadership so there 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 a huge team like that right so I'm just coaching people where before is very transactional and I think what I realized today which I didn't even back then is that before was like I hire people to do the job I tell them to do then I upgraded that mindset to know hire

better people that are better than me to tell me what to do but what I understand today more than ever is that millionaires build systems billionaires build people and my job is to create the Container and build the people to build a business I work for them when someone comes to me now I work at their fiveyear goals and I try and make sure their 5e goals can live inside the company and I'm helping coaching them so now I work for them and that's what my mind shifts really changed interesting so at that point when

you had the 13 12 13 different businesses you were still a transformational leader yeah y okay I had to be otherwise I couldn't have Operated all 13 you know yeah okay um but that's still insane even the thought of operating that many different businesses so you still like you still had the work to do and you still do right now like it never stops yeah definitely that time yeah I was working stupid hours because I didn't have enough resources individually in the company to to be super profitable so I had to spread resources across all

companies to try and be more efficient Which I thought was better back then but obviously it's not got you and then you moved to Croatia y um you set up an agency there how big's your agency agency is not big we're very Boutique we probably have like four media buyers you know and about 25 clients because the media agency is extension of me in my personal brand it's all referral we've never done really any marketing yeah you know Marin the head guy that took Woody from 4 to 250 mil he like partner now he Does

an amazing job on Twitter in terms of educational content yeah but it's just like referral friends and family essentially they come in yep got you so you guys used to do the media buying for for the Audie we have mutual friends for gretto introduced us you said you've done some work with Davey and stuff so when it comes to I guess you talked about time what are your other challenges that you're facing right now That you're working through it's just belief systems you know like what does someone who has a nine figure brand believe that

I don't to be true and how are they operating cuz that's all it is you know like I'll give you a stupid maybe example Richard Branson has assistance that run his life literally filter all information high level things and make decisions for him where this founder who's doing a million dollars a year can't get an assistance read the Emails it's like oh it's too private they're not going to know do you know what I mean but that's just a mindset shift you look at someone like John Maxwell who's a goat in leadership he has someone

that's head of word that tracks every word he says and writes his own books for him he doesn't write them you I mean so these are things they just belief systems and unlocks that I'm not aware of yet that don't know what's stoping me and I'm just trying to work It out along the way and I think that's only difference stopped me from being here to a billion dollars just what I believe to be true and how am I operating so have you mapped out your goals on building a billion dollar brand or or becoming

a billionaire sure I think that's cure that's the path at the moment is is through cure um but once again we don't hit it it doesn't really bother me it's more about how much better am I as a person every single Year and I what am I doing as long as those two are intact then I'm okay but to be honest I probably work about 2 three hours a day on cure only yeah you know I think a lot of my efforts now is probably calendar is to education helping the next lot of entrepreneurs moving

forward and I I need to show people as well you don't need to work a lot of hours if you set the business up correctly you have the right systems the people and education in place you Shouldn't be the one building the business because that's not really a valuable business then the people that build the business then that makes it a valuable business yeah I agree well look dude I could talk to you all day this has been a ton of fun and uh yeah I I love the direction this interview went uh especially around

mindset is stuff I've never really talked about to people stuff I'm thinking about always um I'm curious what is there any questions that You wanted me to perhaps ask you that I haven't asked you or what are some other things that you think Founders don't talk about enough that you wanted to share and we work towards wrapping up I think I just probably leave everyone with a framework in terms if you have a living belief like if you create an outcome I want to make a million dollars a year ask yourself what beliefs do I

have that's getting in the way of achieving that million dollars a year is It I'm not good enough I'm not smart enough whatever it might be and there's three parts to unlock that belief first one is how do I know this true like where do I have tangible evidence that this belief is true the second one is that when this belief start to happen because sometimes you reverse it back to a moment in time where we acquired the belief so one experience can change our belief and our thought patterns forever and the third is what

will need to Happen for this belief not to be true anymore and then if you do that through all your belief systems and re-engineer them in a way that's going to get you towards your outcome then that's going to be the biggest personal growth better than any strategy any tactic you could ever ever hope for and to leave everyone for practical example I self-sabotaged myself a long time being ultra wealthy because I had the belief that ultra wealthy people are miserable right and People have had this before and when I ask myself this when I

went through this framework of what evidence I have to be true do I actually really know someone that is miserable probably not the second one is when that I know it to be true was when I met a billionaire back in Greece when I was in Greece like 5 years ago and he was telling me a story how he made $900 million bought a yacht for $100 million parked it in the bay and then he saw the yacht next to him Was bigger than his and he got depressed so then he told me that story

and he sold everything and now he plays guitar on the beach as a hippie and I acquired that like without even knowing I'm like I don't want to be that that sounds horrible right and then I was like like so what do I need to do in order for this not to be true anymore well I need to do work where I just love doing so much that comes from a place of giving back and self Transcendence that I don't care about the money you know what I mean and there's people that have done that

and that's how I broke for that belief system but for a long time I was self-sabotaging myself from being ultra wealthy I started part you do you party you self-sabotage eat food these are all mechanisms of downregulating your frequency and self-sabotaging yourself success that people aren't even aware of yeah no look I I love that last piece of wisdom And uh look this is this uh it's been a great interview thank you so much for your time and uh where's the best place people can find out more about you and your work I think Instagram

is probably the best place and YouTube I'm I'm dedicating like 50% of my calendar moving forward to creating content that could help entrepreneurs so they can foll me there and hopefully I can help them awesome well Matt thank you so much man thanks for having me it was awesome Hey guys if you love this episode make sure to check out my interview with triny Woodall on how she built a diard community of followers back in her every single move with triny London the true beauty of our community is that there's a passion and we inspire

a passion for them to make the most themselves but that Community itself Fosters you know lifting up women