How to Build a Startup The Right Way – With Balance!

Adventurer in Residence at Under30Experiences and Co-founder at Under30CEO – Matt Wilson

 

Matt Wilson from Under30CEO joins me to talk about building both of his companies, how he got it wrong at first and sacrificed his health and life before realizing the cost. Now he helps entrepreneurs lead a more balanced life – and he’s practicing what he preaches by having fun and building his new startup!

Resources Mentioned in the Podcast:

• AppSumo.com
• Noah Kagan

Go to Under30CEO.com and Under30Experiences.com for more info!

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript:

Announcer: Welcome to the Eventual Millionaire podcast - with your host, Jaime Tardy. Real talk and real advice from real millionaires, with a sharp focus on you - the Eventual Millionaire.

Jaime: Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Tardy and I'm super excited to have my friend Matt Wilson on the show. He runs an amazing site called Under 30 CEO. He also has a travel company under a different name - Under30Experiences.com. I've seen tons of stuff on Facebook and it makes me want to go on their crazy adventures that they've been going on. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Matt.

Matt: Not a problem, Jaime.

Jaime: So tell me about the site, because I remember seeing the site and thinking "Under 30 CEO, that sounds cool," and when I heard about it I was under 30 so it was cooler then and now I just feel old so tell me about how you actually came up with that site.

Matt: This is the thing - people are attracted to that name, no matter how many "What's going to happen when you turn 30?" jokes I get. People are attracted for whatever reason. Under30CEO.com is a site that we started six years ago now that basically helps young people start businesses. That was the core of what it did and now we've branched into other stuff - talking about health and fitness and, of course, travel and living more well-rounded lives because, as we started to work on our internet startup for 14 hours a day, crammed into our little cramped apartments in New York, and not being very healthy about the whole thing, we decided you need to have a really solid foundation to build success on top of.

Jaime: Which I think is really interesting because as people start to build their businesses they let everything else slide because it's difficult - you've got to grind for a little bit in order to do some of that stuff. Do you think people, even at the beginning, can start really paying attention to their health and being more balanced or do you think they have to do hardcore when they start?

Matt: No. I mean, honestly, if you look at all of the overnight celebrities and the Disney stars and the people who, all of a sudden, rise to success and are not eventual millions but all of a sudden skyrocket, well they probably, to be honest, don't have their shit together, like well-rounded people altogether. My stress levels have been through the roof, I have taken off long periods from the gym and that's something I never would have sacrificed before I started my business. You get 15 minutes for lunch and you run out and get the closest thing and I've still tried to be health conscious through the startup phase but it catches up to you and I see some of my very successful friends just crumbling and then, when something bad happens, like the economy crashes or you have a family issue or whatever it is, then that's when it really gets serious if you don't have a solid foundation.

Jaime: So what do we do? In my audience there are people who have day jobs that are trying to start something on the side or they're in the first five years of business so they're still going "Okay, we can still move forward, but we need to sacrifice." Knowing what you know now, do you think people should be paying more attention to being well-rounded at the beginning or not?

Matt: Now I think about building a business in much more of a - I hate the word holistic because it sounds like voodoo or something - but in much more of a holistic way. I think about designing my life; I don't think about the dollars behind it or getting famous and having an awesome podcast or an awesome blog or whatever your listeners are going after. I now look at it altogether, at how I'm going to create the life I want to create and whether it means I'm going to take off years of my life or I'm going to age quickly or let my health go or not have any time for relationships and friends when I'm young. You always have to make sacrifices but you should at least be conscious of what you're doing. I absolutely think that you should be designing your life. A lot of people say lifestyle business is just for people who want to surf and live in Costa Rica in the winter, like I do, but that's not true - you should be designing your business so that you can live the life that you want.

Jaime: No matter what that is. Because some people have a family and you don't necessarily want to work forever. It depends on what you want. If you don't ask yourself that question, you don't know what you want and so you just build whatever sounds like the best thing and it might not be what you want in the long run, which sucks, right?

Matt: Absolutely - and I see this a lot more in men, where they're like "Whatever. I'm just going to be single for five years and get my business together and then I'll be rich and I'll be able to attract a hot woman." Well, you're probably going to be fat and look creepy and 35 and you're going to try to hit on college girls and they'll want nothing to do with you. Women have an entirely different problem because everyone's biological clock is ticking and if you want to have healthy children you have to start thinking about that. I think we're really going to see some unfortunate issues start to come up as our generation starts to get to that age where the clock really does tick.

Jaime: It's interesting to see, especially being a woman and knowing what people are going through. It's insane. One of the interesting things, and one of the reasons why I started doing what I'm doing, is that it's called Eventual Millionaire because it doesn't matter how long it takes - it's supposed to be about life first, then money. So you're preaching to the choir as far as my people are concerned. Life first, then money, that's the point. It's not all about the millions - don't get me wrong, money is good - but you want to have the lifestyle that you want. People are super excited about blogs and podcasts and all of that fun stuff and don't realize how long of a process this can be. So I want to hear about your process. You're older than I am, in blogging years - I'm four and you're six.

Matt: Don't blow up my spot, Jaime.

Jaime: I know, you're younger than me, but in blogging years you're older so I have to do something here, I just feel old, having you on my show. So how did you actually start? This was a long time ago - take us through the six years and how Under 30 CEO has been growing.

Matt: We basically started in 2008 when I graduated from school and I didn't want to go and get a job, I wanted to start a business, and what I realized was that I wasn't surrounded, I was living at home with my mom in Poughkeepsie, New York, not exactly the hotbed of entrepreneurship by any means. You have to do what you have to do but I was at home and I didn't have any tools or resources and it seems like the beginning of the internet to me, and I'm sure there are people laughing and saying they remember the days before social media, but, really, Twitter was just taking off so we were able to capitalize on building community around the site and helping people and so that's what we did, we just brought a bunch of people together who were trying to be successful while they were very young and we knew, in your Eventual Millionaire type fashion, that these people were going to be successful and if we surround ourselves with a really good network of people while we're young, as those people progress we're going to have a really awesome network, which we do now. We've worked on this for six years, we've published lots and lots of content, we've published over 4,000 articles for entrepreneurs and now we're even building a curriculum for this lifestyle that I'm talking about that goes through everything, saying you should be paying attention to your nutrition and to your fitness and controlling your stress levels and your emotions and learning to meditate before you even decide. It's like all the stuff that they should have taught us in school. Then, our level two, is going to be about how to manage your personal finances because, as I mentioned, the celebrities, you don't know how to balance your checkbook now and there are so many people who I know who have businesses and can't balance their own checkbook - what are you going to do when you actually have money? So that's the type of curriculum that we're building out now.

Jaime: Which is awesome. I noticed that you said "we" - it's more than just you now. Do you have a bunch of people working on it?

Matt: Yes, I have a co-founder, his name is Jared O'Toole, and we have Ben - we've been friends since fourth grade - and now we are a team of six. I think there's a core team of six but for Under 30 Experiences, our travel company, we actually have about 20 alumni who are all community managers in our different cities, like I was referring to Courtney in Austin who's hanging out and getting the community together there.

Jaime: Tell me about Under 30 Experiences and how that came about, because the cool thing is that once you dive into a market you can find out, like you were saying, what they really want, like "Hey, wait, we do need to know about health and fitness," and stuff like that. You already have a community built so you can teach them whatever you want, so I'm sure this came from that so tell me how Under 30 CEO transitioned into the travel company'

Matt: As I was talking about, looking at a more holistic view of my life, I was stuck behind a computer for 12-14 hours a day and that was just not for me. I love Under 30 CEO and the community and everything but I wanted to go out and experience the world. I took a random trip to Iceland and I came back and I was like "Wow, I really need to do more of that," so we started Under 30 Experiences as retreats for entrepreneurs and what we realized while doing that was that a) everybody wanted to come and b) nobody wanted to talk that much about business, they just wanted to hang out and relax and, sure, people do naturally talk about business but it's not like going to a networking event. People unplug and they get to take a step back and, sure, of course business partners have formed out of Under 30 Experiences but now it's just for young professionals who want to go and have a good time but still connect with a likeminded group of people.

Jaime: How did you know there was a market there? Because you went on a trip and thought "That's cool, I want to do something with that," so how did you test it?

Matt: That's the great thing about the internet today - you can just come up with a landing page and say "Is this something that I think people would be interested in?" You can do a Facebook ad and market it to all of your Facebook friends. We just started doing fitness retreats but we thought "You know what? This is going to be really easy to test out," and sure enough I partnered with a guy named Adam Griffin who has a community called Body Fit and I said "Hey, Adam, let's see if we can put fitness retreats together. Do you think your audience would be interested?" and, sure enough, he put up a blog post and he had six people sign up for our first trip.

Jaime: Really? Alright, tell me about the logistics behind that. I've always wanted to do in-person events or retreats or something like that so tell me about how you got into it, especially when you didn't really know anything about that space before.

Matt: I explained it very simplistically, and it is, but if you're going to go to places like Central America, a lot of times people are definitely going to have a lot of questions for you and want to see you as a trusted resource, so there's a balance and the reason why I partnered with someone who was very credible in the fitness industry is that I knew that there was a market for it, just intuitively and just from talking to people about their health and fitness needs, because that is one of the things that I really love, but I'm not a trainer so I said 'Wait a second. Let me partner with someone who's incredibly credible in the space. He writes for Men's Health and he has his own startup and his own community and his fitness app that I actually use." So building that credibility is the hardest part but posting on your Facebook, saying "Hey, who wants to go on a retreat with me? I want to go to Miami," or wherever, is really not so hard. But the one thing to be forewarned about is that everyone says they want to go to Miami, right? Who doesn't want to go to Miami? However, having them actually come up with the money and sign on the dotted line, that's a whole different story.

Jaime: Definitely, and that's what I want to know about. Don't get me wrong, I've seen this stuff on Facebook, especially with Under 30 Experience, and I'm like "Oh, that looks really awesome! Let me see if I have the dates available," and then life happens and then I'm like "Oh, they went and I missed it." Or it's one of those things where travel sounds super fun and interesting and it gets you excited for five minutes and then you're on to other things. So when you have people sign up and you say "This is the date," give us the logistics on how we set it all up and how you know you're going to make money from them, because I know a lot of people who do retreats or events who don't really make anything from them and it's a heck of a lot of work.

Matt: Events are not a high margin business so we have to do a lot of them. In January we are running five or six trips. We have three ski trips this winter, I mentioned that we have our fitness retreats, we have a Costa Rica trip in January, a Nicaragua trip in January, a Belize trip in January, so you do have to do a lot of volume so, yes, it's not as easy as it sounds. Some coaches like to charge a premium for them being there but our fitness trip, we just want the thing to run, we're not worried about making money with it right now. It's a $995 trip for five days.

Jaime: Wait, what? That's it.

Matt: Your flight is not included.

Jaime: But $1,000 for a five day trip? That's cheaper than a cruise.

Matt: Yeah, it's a very affordable trip. I could had said "My training is very valuable. I'm going to charge $3,500 for this trip," but that's not what we're trying to do here and I see a lot of coaches or yoga teachers who say "Hey, I'm this famous guru, let me come and charge people a lot of money," but people get there and then they have super high expectations - and I've made that mistake before, I've charged too much for a trip.

Jaime: You have? How do you know whether or not you have?

Matt: You can feel it. If people are expecting a four star resort, they'd better get a four star resort.

Jaime: Because they walk in and they?re like "What the heck?" right?

Matt: Exactly. From trial and error we've found a really nice price point that is very affordable yet still very nice. We're not sleeping in hostels, we're not going camping, nothing like that - it's still a place where you would want to spend your vacation. The places are actually beautiful but we're not staying in a westernized resort where people are going to be waiting on you hand and foot; there's an element of getting out of your comfort zone.

Jaime: Awesome. So tell me a little bit about how long you've had the travel company, because I find it really interesting to hear the story. I actually had another person who started a travel company going to the Olympics and hearing the stories, I just think it's really interesting. So how long have you had Under 30 Experiences?

Matt: I set out on that trip to Iceland two and a half years ago and the Startup Iceland conference actually happened to be in Iceland at the end of May and I said "Let me try to get a trip together in two months," which was absolutely crazy.

Jaime: Are you that kind of guy, though? The kind of guy with super tight deadlines and it's going to be nuts.

Matt: I'd like to say that I was that type of guy.

Jaime: Oh, nice, yeah.

Matt: But now I'm planning more than a year in advance for our trips and that's scary too because we are sending money all over the world for the deposits on these places so, who knows, if we go back to our place in Timbuktu next year - that's not one of our trips - but it's scary, it's a scary business. We started it two and a half years ago and then I took off on a trip to Costa Rica. Somebody had told Jared "Hey, you should check out Nicaragua, there's some microfinance projects going on and I have some friends working over there, what do you think?" and I looked at a map, I had no idea where Nicaragua was, and I said "Oh, yeah, I think I can do that." I didn't speak Spanish at the time so there were a lot of moving parts to the business. I think I travelled to seven countries that year and I've been pretty much travelling full time for the last two and a half years.

Jaime: Because you're in Paris right now.

Matt: Yes.

Jaime: What I find really interesting is seeing you create a business within your other business, especially because your first business was about learning how to do startups and entrepreneurship better. So what did you learn from 4,000 articles all about entrepreneurship that you could really implement the second time around? Any advice, especially for somebody starting up with something brand new?

Matt: Here's something that I think might resonate with your audience, and it's something that took me a long time to learn - whenever I start a business now or start a new revenue stream or write something, I say that I'm doing it for life, that I'm starting this business for life, because there are too many people chasing the quick dollar to pay the rent, like I had to for so many years, but you realize that it's not sustainable and I want to set up a better system where I go to all of these places before I bring anybody there. So, for example, I went on a trip to Bali a year and a half ago and we're just running our first two trips to Indonesia next month but that investment was made - it's a $12-1500 flight and the stay over there, etc. I looked at that as "Okay, I'm going to this place but I could bring people here for the next ten years or for the rest of my life," or if I wrote a blog post I would want it to be evergreen content so that if my grandkids read it they would be like "Oh, yeah, Grandpa Matt, he was pretty smart back in the day. This is some good stuff." I don't just want to write it to get a few tweets and likes on Facebook and let it go by the wayside. You have to think about your legacy when you're doing this, in addition to your revenue stream. There are too many people that are trying, and I did it for years, to come up with a new revenue model or a new source of income just so that they can keep their business alive and that hurt us for a long, long time.

Jaime: I like that. I want to call you Grandpa Matt from now on.

Matt: Sure.

Jaime: That commitment - a lot of new entrepreneurs don't do that, it's "I'm going to try a bunch of things and see what hits," instead of really moving forward and going "I'm going to make this work no matter what." I see that as a huge issue for people. Where did that shift come from, for you? Because you said before it wasn't like that and now you know - where did you have that realization?

Matt: I think both statements are true - we're all about testing things to see if it works. Like I said I got together with my buddy Adam and said "Shall we do fitness trips and see if it works?" but I was upfront with him and said "I want to run this for X number of years. If we're going to be partners in this, let's agree on that."

Jaime: Testing within the commitment is huge, I think. If it doesn't work you can let it go but I see too many people shotgunning and doing seven things at once. Do you know what I mean?

Matt: Of course, and, yes, this all takes a lot of luck but I think, honestly, that shift really came once money wasn't an issue anymore.

Jaime: Isn't that funny?

Matt: Because then you have a chance to breathe and step back. Under 30 CEO is what funded the project with Under 30 Experiences and has funded my travels and all of that. Then you say "Alright, well what can we invest in and what type of business can we start now?" but the pressure is off once you hustle your way to sustainability then it's a lot easier to look long term.

Jaime: Definitely. Actually, I want to know a little bit more about Under 30 CEO and your business model. Can you tell me how big it is or anything like that? Because I've seen you guys grow but I don't know where you're at, at this stage, so tell me a little bit about your business model and how big it is.

Matt: With Under 30 CEO I could tell you all of the business models that we've tried with the shotgun approach.

Jaime: I kind of want to know those too.

Matt: It's been everything. Most people don't know but it was a Bing social network when we first started.

Jaime: Was it really?

Matt: Yeah, and we did consulting and that paid the bills for a long time. The business AppSumo, if you've heard of it - the daily deals for apps and tools for entrepreneurs - we were literally doing the same thing as AppSumo when they launched.

Jaime: Really?

Matt: Yeah, but, at the time, selling GoDaddy domain names, the commission on a $12.99 domain, was not going to pay the rent in New York City so we went away from that. Noah Kagan is making millions of dollars on that.

Jaime: I know! Darn that Noah! My gosh.

Matt: I know, but that's okay because Noah was a lot more experienced than we were and he made money at Facebook and he made money at Mint.com, I think the other one was. Then we pivoted again - and I think I wore out the word "pivoted" back in the day when we were struggling - and we were making a ton of money from just advertisements and stuff like that, just advertising on the site. We had half a million people that were visiting our site every month and, as I was telling you before, we're developing a course curriculum for people, kind of like a personal MBA, where you could spend $150,000 on an education that doesn't really teach you the real world stuff or you could come and spend, whatever, a couple of hundred bucks at a time on some really cool courses and learn productivity and how to manage your finances and the right foods to make you perform at your peak. The stuff we're looking to now is the brain science behind meditation and how that allows you to tap into the parts of your brain that allow you to be more creative. I feel like we've done it all, Jaime, but I think we're still in our infancy. We want to run this thing for a long time, even when we're over 30 years old.

Jaime: It's so funny - I get people going "When you're a millionaire, what's your site going to be called?" and I say "I also own EventualBillionaire.com" and they laugh, but I actually do. So you don't own Under40CEO.com, do you?

Matt: No.

Jaime: You should have planned for that!

Matt: Our demographic, the people who we build a relationship with, with our list and our readers and our travelers, they're all going to get older and, guess what? They're still going to care about business and they're still going to want to travel, so all is not lost.

Jaime: Yeah, they'll be like "I'm totally over 30. No one will know that I'm still reading their site." Because I'm over 30 and I read your site. I'm young at heart, that's what matters more than anything else. I really appreciate this, Matt. I could talk more - I love what you've done, watching Under 30 CEO, I know I've guest posted on your site, I think it's a killer site. I'm going to finish up with the last question I always ask - what's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of $1 million?

Matt: Well I guess I was referring to it earlier, but it's the fact that everyone needs to sit down and think about building themselves a solid foundation and looking at all of the different parts of your life and saying "Hey, am I going to be healthy in ten years? Is this business something that I'm going to want to do in ten years? Say my circumstances change and I have a family in ten years, or whatever, or I don't have a family in ten years, is this still where I'm going to want to be?" Are you tying yourself down geographically because you decide you're going to buy a home in a certain area? I have all of these friends buying houses because we're getting to that age and I'm thinking "Wow, well what if the economy is no longer good in that location? You don't have any skills online and you're not going to be able to work virtually - what are you going to do?" All of my extended family lives in Flint, Michigan, and the auto industry is not there anymore and there are no more jobs. These are all things to think about when building that solid foundation and giving yourself the tools and the resources and teaching yourself the skills that it's going to take to be successful in the long run.

Jaime: I love that. It's so funny because when we talk foundation it always sounds very unsexy, like "Oh, let's talk about foundation," but it's hugely important and people tend to gloss over it for that quick buck, like you said before, but, in general, if you're really asking yourself the right questions then you can know you're on the right path. Awesome. Thanks so much, Matt. Where can we find out more about you and your travel company and all of that other fun stuff?

Matt: You can go and read all of our content on Under30CEO.com but if anybody wants to come and hang out with us in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Iceland, Alaska, or come skiing with us or whatever, we are more than happy to have you and you don't have to be under 30 - that's the best part.

Jaime: Thank you!

Matt: That's Under30Experiences.com.

Jaime: Matt's super cool to hang out with. He's a friend of mine - you should be paying him just to hang out with him because he's so cool! Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Matt. I'll definitely link everything up in the show notes so that everyone can check that out. Check out Under30CEO.com because I know all of you guys listening right now will love that content. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Matt.

Matt: Awesome, Jaime. I really appreciate it.

Announcer: Thanks for listening. You can find out more great information like this on EventualMillionaire.com.

Tags: AppSumo, Business Growth, business startup, business success, Health and Wellness, Matt Wilson, millionaire interview, Startup, Work Life Balance

Categories: All, Business, Business Model, Entrepreneurship, Millionaire Interviews, Starting A Business

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