Matt is the founder of a range of ecommerce brands that he built over the past 8 years including Midnight City, Neon Beach and now his latest brand, Space Goods.

Together, we dive into the biggest challenges young entrepreneurs face, from managing investor expectations to staying focused and prioritising health. Matt shares proven strategies on simplifying business operations, outsmarting competitors, and the future of influencer-led brands.

Hit like, drop a comment, and subscribe to ensure you don’t miss out on more discussions with voices like Matt Kelly every week.

Matt’s Socials:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@themidnightpod

My Socials:
Instagram - Darrenlee.ks
LinkedIn - Darren Lee
Twitter - Darren_ks

(00:00) Preview and Introduction
(02:36) Managing Investor Expectations
(05:27) Documenting the Entrepreneurial Journey
(08:25) Agency Challenges and Simplifying Operations
(11:06) Balancing Health and Business Demands
(15:18) Importance of Removing the Founder from Daily Operations
(18:09) The Impact of Environment on Productivity and Well-being
(22:06) BreathWork and Meditation for Mental Health
(23:19) Lifestyle Choices: London vs. Bali
(27:36) Understanding Personal and Business Goals
(30:30) The Nuances of Building a Business
(35:13) Comparing Success and Dealing with Self-Doubt
(39:34) Lessons Learned from Business Mistakes
(45:17) How to Stay Focused
(50:02) Influencer Brands and Their Sustainability
(53:14) Dealing with Competition and Copycats
(56:42) The Future of the Wellness Industry and Functional Beverages

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Ever wondered why the loudest voices online are often the least successful?

In this episode, we sit down with Matt Kelly, entrepreneur and founder known for his raw and unfiltered documentation of the entrepreneurial grind.

Matt is the founder of a range of ecommerce brands that he built over the past 8 years including Midnight City, Neon Beach and now his latest brand, Space Goods.

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Matt Kelly: 0:00

That's the other thing that I think changes significantly when you raise investment is that it becomes all about removing yourself as a founder because I'm the biggest risk. Lifestyle setup is very important and I've questioned recently why am I in central London when I don't need to be?

Darren Lee: 0:12

My focus is not only just this product. You have to go experiment on what I should do, right, yeah, which is how you fuck up and basically go full circle in everything you're doing.

Matt Kelly: 0:21

My level of self-confidence relative to what I've done is probably the lowest in the whole space that I've known. The opposite being someone that's done nothing, that thinks of the shit.

Darren Lee: 0:29

Before we start this week's episode, I have one little favor to ask you. Can you please leave a five-star rating below, so we can help more people every single week. Thank you, what do you think has been different in that regard? Like if you kind of don't enjoy it as much or like, let's say you're in the humdrum of it, like how does that different for you from traditional, as in now raise money?

Matt Kelly: 0:55

yeah, like, do you think that adds a level of like intensity? And yeah, I feel like my entire like entrepreneurial career is just one massive fucking experiment and I'm probably just one of few people that is willing to put all that bullshit on the internet instead of gloss up and pretend it's all perfect, as in like. I mean, anyone that watches my youtube knows I feel like the tone of my youtube.

Matt Kelly: 1:15

Since I started the whole doc series, like after the pod, I've kind of transitioned to that which is me doing it weekly yeah, maybe it's me doing the weekly process of building the brand and it's actually it's quite sentimental because I look back two years ago and I can watch the video and see how much more excited I looked. And now I watch back my own videos sometimes and think and I get comments saying, fuck, you look depressed and I'm like, oh shit, I kind of actually do in, like some recent episodes, and it's just like I don't know the weight of putting pressure on yourself to build something and then, by default, if you're going to document it, it can't be glossed, it can't be filtered, otherwise it would be, you know, some fucking curated edit.

Matt Kelly: 1:58

Yeah, which isn't real a hermosy edit yeah, but then also the dilemma of that now is, now I've raised money off really like really good respected investors, I'm a bit of two minds of how honest I should be on the youtube, which is something I was saying the other day to someone. It's like well, my entire like brand is I just document the shit I'm doing, but if that's talking about negative things or I feel like I'm losing interest right now, I don't want the wrong person to watch that and get the right idea yeah if you, if you talk about, though, like a founder-led brand, uh, that's dependent on you.

Darren Lee: 2:36

It's like okay that you need to be really honest, but it sounds like you know, with the nature of your business, it's not really dependent on you. Because you run ads, you build a business around that. People don't just buy space because of mac kelly do you get me?

Matt Kelly: 2:46

not at all, yeah, I mean. Yeah, it's not. It's not like a, an influencer brand, exactly. It's more just, I'm publicly the founder, if you were to be interested and want to find it yeah, um, why do you think you have that weight?

Darren Lee: 3:00

you know, you said you feel like there's like an extra weight or it's more pressure. Why do you think you have that?

Matt Kelly: 3:06

I think twofold, or maybe threefold. Firstly, I just put a lot of pressure on myself in general, always have, probably always will. Secondly, I've documented the process instead of from the start. I'm going to build a really big business, so it's like, fuck, I better do that then and then, thirdly, now I've taken like millions of pounds off investors, which is, I mean, in like the money, twitter, drop shipping sphere. I've not seen anyone do that before, or at least document it. Um, obviously founders have raised money before, but it maybe it's quite controversial, yeah, in a d2c business well, you're doing it because you have the ambition of going much bigger.

Darren Lee: 3:46

Right it's not like you fucking it's not like you're just trying to get 10k and just sit on the fucking beach right, and obviously I know you're. You're very different from that regard, which puts you in a category of one right. Like when you say you look at, like the money twitter space, like how do you think that's going to play out? Like do you think we think we need a massive recession in the fucking online space?

Matt Kelly: 4:05

yeah, I do think it's got out of hand, like the whole money twitter space, I mean, it's just. It's literally just people lying to such a degree that everyone is lying to keep up with the people that are also lying, and it's like no one and all the genuine people aren't generally putting out content, which is kind of the problem. Um, I'm not saying I'm the most authentic person ever, but there's definitely less people that put authentic content out, especially in like the entrepreneurship specific like econ space, which is where most people in kind of money twitter it's econ agency, whatever you may.

Darren Lee: 4:38

You had a good post on that the other day about like the more experience you are, the more time you spend in the fucking in the arena, the less like ego you have. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting observation, like because, uh, like you've been doing as many more years than me, but like I've just been in the content space for almost like half a decade and I've seen that as well, being like the guys that I talk, the guys have the loudest voice, are actually the smallest right, and I don't know about you, but like what, every year I want to nearly voice my opinions almost like less, because it's like I know nothing, you know so it's very interesting to see when people get into the space, especially in bali, right like you've every high ticket fucking closer here.

Darren Lee: 5:17

Who, yeah, basically like, loves to talk big numbers, but what's like. What's funny here is it goes back to what you were saying about growing the brand. It's not like you say those things and make more money.

Matt Kelly: 5:27

You say those things just to impress people who don't care in the beginning, which is just a fucked up status driver a lot of people falling into yeah, I think it, like I kind of mentioned, it's like people get insecure because they see some cap artists sharing screenshots without context or sharing a leased car without context, and and then they think to keep up, they have to do the same thing.

Matt Kelly: 5:49

And there are people doing well, but people that are doing really well don't flex almost without exceptions, unless they've got something to sell you, like an andrew tate type, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But you have to just see it for what it is, and it's like people that are flexing lifestyle is usually to get you into that funnel to buy their course, which is how they pay for their lifestyle, not the business, which they claim is how they pay for their lifestyle and it's just being aware of it because there is so much bullshit. Um, although, at the same time, I know people that are really flexing online one or or two examples I won't name any names that both came on my podcast and I actually thought before they came to my podcast they were massive cunts. But then I met them in person. I thought they were really genuine nice guys and I was like, okay, maybe they are just a brand online and that's fine.

Darren Lee: 6:38

Yeah, you, you interviewed Jordan Jordan Platten. Yeah, I had him on my show recently and I I always bring this up as I was very interesting, like he's helping people go zero to one with agencies and I was kind of like how do you distinguish yourself between like iman and he was like market. He was like I'm going after 21. Very interesting, super, super interesting, right, because as a result, he positions himself slightly differently and he's super down to earth like he. He loves fucking going to like warehouse project and shit yeah he's like, he's a cool dude, you know.

Darren Lee: 7:07

I thought it was interesting um positioning because I guess for someone like that you know he's been in the space for many years he has a good awareness to be like. I don't want to like blow this up in my face whereas a lot of guys will just have no idea what they're looking at. Um, and it's funny because a lot of guys would message me to come on the pod, right. That's where a lot of this comes from myself and I can. I can see it. You can see someone who's completely full of shit or someone who's working working to actually get better, right interesting.

Matt Kelly: 7:36

I mean, I was the same when I was younger. I was very arrogant, probably thought I knew everything, um, and then, yeah, just experience teaches you that you don't really know anything. And all the people that are further ahead are generally the most humble or they're not online at all, so you can't even see them yeah, well, everyone's telling you to go build a personal brand.

Darren Lee: 7:58

Right, that's the difference. Like it's like, it's just like another wave that's going to come and go, and come and go. But you just kind of make sure that you don't blow yourself up and, in the meantime, by saying something like absolutely retarded, which is like the vast majority of people- right, yeah, although sometimes I think, fuck, I should have just gone down the whole guru route, like five years ago yeah, I saw you mentioned a video. You're like oh wait a minute to start a fucking agency yeah, you have a love-hate relationship for agencies man I just think there's too many agencies, not enough good agencies.

Matt Kelly: 8:25

I really, really believe that, and I've worked with many shit ones some good ones as well um barriers entry too long yeah, and there's 99 agencies to every brand.

Matt Kelly: 8:34

Because it's a lot easier to run an agency yeah, and that might be controversial to say, but the reason I say that is because, objectively, there is next to no risk in running an agency. I mean, granted, if you start hiring people and so on, but as a one-man band, which is what most agencies are to begin with, you get paid for the service. The brand that's paying you, and this is what I'm working with right now, which is an example of this. I don't know if they'll listen to this. I'm paying them. They're not delivering almost anything they promised, so I so I'm paying them. There's no risk on their half. They're getting paid regardless. I'm getting no results, but I'm paying them.

Darren Lee: 9:06

That's the difference with a brand and an agency because you've put so much money with your own brand initially right, like you're basically building the business first and then the customers come second yeah, I also think agencies take way too much credit for brand growth.

Matt Kelly: 9:19

Like it really grates on me when you see some email marketing guys like generated 500 million for clients, it's like no, you just had access to their clavier account which already existed and you added in a flow. You didn't do the product design, the finance, the customer service, the marketing, the logistics, any of that. You just you're like taking credit for something which would have happened anyway. Um, yeah, I think some agencies are good I work with some good ones but there's just I think there's too many of them. I think it's time there was like an agency call I called online business recession.

Darren Lee: 9:55

Yeah, exactly like it is coming, like uh, for sure. What's going to happen is like the squeeze will come on. Less companies are going to hire externally.

Matt Kelly: 10:03

The much I got fucked, this is costing too much like brand owners assuming they're the people that hire most of these agencies in this context, like me are going to realize hold on, I'm paying this agency too much for something I can either just hire for or do myself how much would you be paying? I'm working like seven agencies right now. My business is way too bloated right now. It's fucked Do?

Darren Lee: 10:23

you think, if you didn't have the investment?

Matt Kelly: 10:25

you would have done that. It's a good question, because I was chatting about this the other day. I think it's very easy to increase costs and spend money quicker when there's more money. Then I'd always be the coach, though. Yeah, it is a balance between hiring to grow and investing in growth versus just not getting silly with overheads. I looked yesterday business has like 100 grand a month fixed overheads now, which is fine. It's pretty healthy as a percentage, but to me I was like fucking hell, that's growing quick. Where's that come from? And I was breaking it down Agencies, people, freelancers.

Darren Lee: 11:03

But the opposite is you hiring, though right, if you didn't use agencies.

Matt Kelly: 11:06

The opposite of you hire yes, so now I'm really trying to move away from agencies and hire more in-house. The challenge with that is it then becomes like a hr problem. You've got to deal with people, the benefit of an agency and why it's good to start with to use them. Is you just slot in? Yeah, you're just paying for expertise, provided that good, whereas you hire someone like I hired someone in january, big salary, wrong person took me two months to fire them. Then it's two months trying to find the replacement just headache.

Darren Lee: 11:34

What do you think like is your focus going forward with actually scaling up, like, do things change as you've brought in more investment, or do you just do things better?

Matt Kelly: 11:48

yeah, it's an interesting topic and probably one I've not spoken about that much on on my pod because I don't know. I felt like maybe I shouldn't speak about it if these investors going to watch it I mean, I know one of them watches it, I don't know let's do. Um, I suppose what's changed when you raise money, especially from VCs as opposed to angels, is the outcome. The only real good outcome is exit now, which has pros and cons. I mean, for me, I kind of like that pressure because that's what I would want to shoot for anyway. I suppose the downside to that is that's plan A, plan B or plan C, which might just be a smaller exit if you own the whole thing or just running the business profitably and just never selling.

Matt Kelly: 12:36

It aren't really options, or at least they're not good options because the people that have given you loads of money want plan A, which is a big exit.

Matt Kelly: 12:44

Good options because the people that have given you loads of money want plan a, which is a big exit. Um, like, I mean, a big exit in their eyes is like 300 million quid, which and so my lead investor is a fund called five seasons ventures in the public domain, so it might be quite interesting. Some people. So they've invested in brands like y food, which sold to Nestle last year for 500 million Fuck, or something like that. Again, you can Google it, it's in the public domain.

Matt Kelly: 13:09

Butternut Box, big pet food subscription brand in the UK that sold for hundreds of millions last year as well. Subscription business what have they got? Dash Water is another big one in the UK. This, they do. That Vegan meat brand they do like this isn't chicken, all that shit. Yeah, I've seen that. Um, so I guess, yeah, that's like the north star. Um, that's also what I want, but there is a lot more pressure, I suppose, because, yeah, there's no free lunch, like you take money off people yeah it's to get to that next stage right, which is grow the business and eventually get a big outcome.

Darren Lee: 13:49

Hmm, how do you think the past like year and a half since we last met have affected your health?

Matt Kelly: 13:57

Um, I don't know. I mean, I think running any startup is stressful. Um, I'm definitely not in as good shape as I was. I feel like, as the business has got more complicated, I definitely have a habit of slightly sacrificing my health to some extent, whether physically or mentally, um, or both. Why do you think that happens? I think I don't know if it's the same everyone, but for me it's like oh, if I'm spending three hours training every day, like I probably fucking used to, instead of one just getting it done, then that's less time I can spend on my laptop.

Matt Kelly: 14:38

Yeah, um, but that's also partly because I'm in this stage right now where I feel like every day that I'm not working is like genuinely detrimental, because I don't. I don't feel like I've got to the stage yet where I've built a good enough team where I could disappear, which is what I'm working on now. I don't know if it's ever realistic, but I'm trying to do that a bit more. That's the other thing that I think changes significantly when you raise investment is that it becomes all about removing yourself as a founder, because I'm the biggest risk really well for an exit, of course, yeah, yeah, I mean not remove myself entirely but being less reliant on me and to give a example of this.

Matt Kelly: 15:18

So I spoke to these guys every week about another brand I won't mention a really big supplement brand in the uk doing about 30 million in revenue, doing like 15 percent even die, really profitable. The founders want to sell it but they've barely built a team so they're really struggling to sell it because it's like, well, the business is so profitable because you don't have a team. You hire a proper team. It's less profitable. Two percent yeah, exactly.

Matt Kelly: 15:41

Um, that's just one example. Um, so it goes from being how can I be as profitable as possible and you know, just hire freelancers, kind of chad scale, drop shipping, mindset, do everything on a laptop to how can I build like a legitimate, long-term, sustainable business that doesn't rely on me so much, because I think most founders, if they're honest, including me right now, if you disappeared for a month, the business would probably disappear yeah and well, again, that's the opposite of what you see online, right?

Darren Lee: 16:13

um? So you know you interviewed shan, right? Shan's been a big mentor for me for past like two months, three months, and he's huge on. You can't remove yourself.

Darren Lee: 16:23

Now, obviously, different model, different business yeah but he's like everyone telling you to fucking, you know, three hours a week, like they're not driving a huge business as a result, and he's like really, really dialed in with that and he's been grilling me on that, being like, yes, you can hire people and you hire better people than you eventually, but like you need to be fucking in the details yeah, I think he's right.

Matt Kelly: 16:43

I guess I mean like more you're not doing everything, but you are still leading it, but it would still function without you.

Matt Kelly: 16:51

For sure, whereas a lot of founders are literally running their fucking Facebook ads and it's like if you have a car accident, the business is going to disappear. Exactly, I'm not at that level, but I'm definitely still very much. I think it's also just a delegation thing. Like when you're the founder, I find it really hard to trust that anyone's going to do a job as good as me. To be honest, I've managed to delegate the back end of the business, so like finance, operations, customer service, but all the growth, marketing, brand stuff. I still agonize over myself because I don't feel like anyone gives a shit enough.

Matt Kelly: 17:26

Why do you think that is? Well, I think firstly because they don't give a shit as much as I do, but nor will they ever, because it's not their business. But secondly, no one knows the business as well as I do. Right, and it's the same for any founder.

Darren Lee: 17:43

Do you think you can fill that gap though? Like? I'll give you an example. Like our company is I've ate full time now On the podcast. Yeah, so my company. So Kickoff Sessions is a podcast. Like our company is I've ate, I've ate full-time now on the podcast. Yeah, so my company. So kickoff sessions is a podcast and the company is vox on a separate episode. So we're doing like we're running entrepreneurs podcasts, we're growing them, we're building them for bigger companies. So we're going after like 50 million a year companies. So like, let's say, I don't know who'll be example of, like a consumer good podcast.

Matt Kelly: 18:09

So running podcasts for them, for them, I didn't know you did that. Yeah, yeah that's the main. I thought you were just on the podcast. No, no, no, no.

Darren Lee: 18:15

So the podcast was the entry into, like what it was, and the opportunity then is not running creators even though there's a few creators that we still run, but it's mainly going after businesses.

Matt Kelly: 18:30

So we've, about about.

Darren Lee: 18:31

You should run my podcast.

Matt Kelly: 18:31

Get it going again, the problem is I never hired anyone in the pod.

Darren Lee: 18:33

Well see, that's the problem I can't be asked filming stuff myself. That that's the problem, right. So it's, uh, it's the execution layer which is getting a fucking done. It's a strategic layer which is like improving, like you know, like how do you actually get good guests? And the last area is monetization. So plugging in the back end, like making fucking money out of it.

Darren Lee: 18:46

Uh, I think that's where I've been like the strongest on, and the reason why I'm saying this is because, so that's obviously like retainer plus performance. So the bigger the business is, obviously there's bigger performance. But at the same time, the people that I've hired, they kind of want to learn from me and they want to learn from the companies and learn from the founders and entrepreneurs in those businesses. So they're very much in tune with the, with the business. Yes, there's some people that just want to get paid, but for the most part they're there to kind of learn, probably because of the age, demographic, like 20 to 25, but it's interest, observation, right, because of course you're not going to care for you as much as much as you. But I think, like when we're going from 20, 30, 40 customers, um, they're part of the journey, they want to be part of it.

Matt Kelly: 19:30

So it's maybe like hiring, I don't know I'm thinking, yeah, loud, I am really trying to just get better at hiring. It's really hard. I think it's really really hard. I think I struggle with it as well because I think my management style is just way. Maybe not way too, but like it's just anti-corporate very friendly. I'll tell a new hire about my fucking ex-girlfriend and the first time with me. Like it's just very open book. That's maybe just like my severe autism, but, um, so I just hired like a head of growth who's dying next week, hired the wrong person a few months ago in that role, but this guy, I think, will be good. Um, and yeah, like he'll get a bit of equity in the business, okay, if he sticks around. So that's something I've done since this investment last year is there's like 10 of the business for future employees, which I think not all businesses do that. Um, most venture-backed businesses do do that because it's just a way to incentivize people.

Darren Lee: 20:31

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Darren Lee: 21:09

So so you give someone like 50K, but it's paid out over three years basically. So it's like every December they get hit like 15, 20k. Basically it's incentivized. That's actually how VC companies really stick you in there.

Darren Lee: 21:17

So, I got hung up on a lot of companies when I was younger. I still have the equity, but that's actually how they get you to be there five years as an engineer or whatever. It's a different way to view it. There's all different these like sneaky strategic ways, but fundamentally it's about like, how do you get people who give a fuck about the business yeah, that will stick around for it. Exactly what are our aspects? You think of? Uh, taking a hit, like you said about the physical side, the mental side, like what have you? You know I saw you write about brett work what are things are you kind of using to help you in that journey?

Matt Kelly: 21:48

um, I'm doing a breath work tomorrow actually with who with some? What's it, odira? Do you know, odira? That's not the person, that's the place. Yeah, it's like down the road somewhere.

Darren Lee: 21:57

Yeah, I know ibrahim you know ibrahim yeah yeah, he's huge into bread work man. Yeah, he messaged me about that.

Matt Kelly: 22:02

He's a great guy yeah, I went on his spot before. Yeah, he's, he's a liver in a corner.

Darren Lee: 22:06

He's an awesome dude. Man spent a lot of time together. He'd be a good guy to catch up with for yourself. I know you're leaving tomorrow but, he's worked really.

Darren Lee: 22:15

He's done a lot of stuff on that side in terms of, like, brett work meditation. He was going to get me more involved in this because I could fucking have a mental health crisis half the time, but he's an awesome guy, tell me about it. He's an awesome guy, tell me about it. Yeah, awesome guy man, because, like I think he had a he's finished his agency and he's kind of slowing it down and finishing it out and they did well, uh, and then he was kind of helping me basically and then, as our company was growing, he kind of saw a lot of problems. He saw the problems in me that he had when he was younger and that's what put him down to brett work meditation side of stuff and, and it's been huge, I've done a couple of sessions with him too.

Matt Kelly: 22:51

Yeah, I definitely need to prioritize that more. I mean, like things like just even getting in the sun. For me I'm actually beneficial, which is why I came to Bali for a month and I'm sad I'm going back to London in two days, but then I'm probably going to leave London Been there five years. I think lifestyle setup is very important and I've questioned recently why am I in central london when I don't need to be, and especially during the cold months, it's like fuck me, why am I here?

Matt Kelly: 23:19

yeah um, yeah, so that's something I look back on. I think I should have left london like two years ago. That would have been better for my mind where would you have gone though? Not sure.

Darren Lee: 23:30

I mean, I've got a lot of mates that moved to dubai recently, for example um, I'm not entirely sold on that, but I do think for me like just sun alone is a massive factor the problem with dubai, though, is that you're actually not really in the sun, because it's not like bali. We're like, we're in shorts yeah, you know, it's like you're in cares, you're at home, true, you know, I spend fucking most of my time just locked my apartment there and just working like 15 hour days, because I I wouldn't I'd be out there on my own, my girlfriend would stay here, and I have nothing else to do. If you spend a lot of time there just recording, yeah, and there's always a question of do we move to business there? Right, but that question goes through my head like four times a fucking day. Yeah, um, but basically, it's just, I find it not conducive to like actually being like really healthy.

Darren Lee: 24:11

Obviously, gyms are good and network is good, but, man, there's only so many fucking stakes you can get with people, right, like you have to stop to do the work, yeah, as, which is why, I think, another reason why I'm kind of opposed to doing it, even here. Like you know, I don't do you think bali is distracting? It depends, like there's a lot of stuff going on, but if you have a good network of people, they kind of understand if you're going to be kind of locked in a while, like a few of my mates. I would be like, oh, you want to come for here, whatever? Like I can't, I'm working, you know, I've calls, I've meetings after this and it's.

Darren Lee: 24:41

It's a right community. But if you want to be flip-flop fucking 5k a month over there, it's a great place to live as a result. But there's a few guys here that are doing serious shit, like I met james kemp recently. Fucking, he's running uh, he's two kids. He's running a huge consulting business 99 profit, 300k a month. He's in his mid-40s, right, but some guys like that are just fucking killers it's an interesting point.

Matt Kelly: 25:06

This because I know some guys. Some guys have been on my pod, some that haven't. I won't name their names cause they might not want to but one of them's doing like 5 million a month of this brand, doing like a million a month profit, um, and he doesn't believe in offices, doesn't believe in living, living in one place, which is funny because so. So this is the benefit of having a YouTube channel, because I looked at my video I made a year ago when I was in Bali it was maybe a year and a bit, it was April last year and I vlogged and said I'm sick of the laptop lifestyle, I want to get back to London, get an office. And for anyone that watches my YouTube, I got an office in March, went in for literally a week and said fuck this, I don't want to be in an office.

Matt Kelly: 25:54

And it's like it's just funny how I mean, I'm just very flip-flopped with decisions sometimes, which is maybe something I need to work on, and maybe the answer is somewhere in between. It doesn't have to be the cold office in central London or the beach in Bali. It could probably be somewhere in between. Whatever that is Trying to work that one out. But it also depends who you speak to, because there's plenty of ways to skin a cat, so to speak. There is genuinely no one way to like.

Darren Lee: 26:17

There's a million ways to make a million quid, or whatever so that's why we go back to uh guys, selling you hard, selling you, saying it's a certain way, when it's not it. That's the way that they have in their course versus the reality. Is it's nuanced right?

Matt Kelly: 26:29

you can. Everything is nuanced, you can take it as you like.

Darren Lee: 26:32

You know um, and it's strong opinions, loosely held, like there's so much things. I've changed my opinion on the past four years.

Darren Lee: 26:37

It's all again. It's all documented, true interviews, to be fair, but a lot of stuff I've like changed my opinion on. But I think there's nothing wrong with that. It just goes back to what do you want? Um, now, I'm nowhere near the fucking scale you're at, but I would kind of be more on the aggressive side, like looking to just keep on going, keep going, keep going, keep it growing. That's what I really want, that's what I'm really pushing towards, and other people are different, but I think it's about understanding that then you can kind of have the trade-offs right, and I think a lot of people that I I know quite well would be aware of that for me. So they're kind of like we don't need to fucking try pull them out to the pub, right?

Darren Lee: 27:10

yeah have you just, have you been able to kind of lock down as in terms of what it is you actually really want?

Matt Kelly: 27:16

you've been kind of thinking through that and it seems like you think a lot mentally in terms of that stuff yeah, I've got a document in my google drive called like life goals, and it's split down between one, five and like 20 years or something which I probably don't refer to enough, but like the headline is just freedom you probably have that note up.

Matt Kelly: 27:36

Yeah, so this is something I've been thinking about as well before because, like I've been guilty in the past few years and I made a video about this like two weeks, two months ago in my car, being like hold on, I just realized I don't have to hate the process to be progressing, which is like a wild thing to maybe only just realize. But I don't know if it's like because my last business fucked up three years ago. Ever since then it kind of got me like paranoid about oh shit, I'm enjoying myself. It could go wrong again. So now I need to be so locked in that if I'm happy, I'm not making progress. That's basically like the the not making progress.

Matt Kelly: 28:17

That's basically like the the dark side of where my mind got to.

Matt Kelly: 28:18

And then I was like, hold on, why can't I enjoy my life and be making progress which is obviously like optimum? And then it's like, well, okay, so if I'm locked in and I want to hate my life because if that's the only way I think I get to the end goal, which is whatever build a big business, sell every loads of money and have freedom. But then it's like, like you just said, yeah, I already have freedom. I can come to bali and run the business. What would I be doing different if I had 50 million quid? Probably the same thing. I just have 50 million quid I'd still be running a brand.

Darren Lee: 28:44

I guarantee you spend it because you'll have gone through, like the evolution in your brain, like you might I don't know get a ferrari or some shit, but you're not going to spend it aggressively and retardedly yeah, so I don't know. It's just like you know the story of the the fisherman, yes, the fisherman parable.

Matt Kelly: 29:00

Whatever it's called, it's exactly that, yeah it's exactly that, right.

Darren Lee: 29:03

but again, what is it that you enjoy? Uh, is building right? You know, like all these founders, like they enjoy, is building right? You know, like all these founders, like they enjoy that building process, the creation process, the building process.

Matt Kelly: 29:13

It might be zero to one, one to 10, but that's what you're chasing, right, like I honestly want to be doing this and a variation of the business or the business whatever, till I'm like 60, because I enjoy that creation process and building something, and it can be different versions and so on, but that's what you're looking after, right yeah, and the other toxic belief I seem to have developed I don't know if it's from the result of being in london two years longer than I should have been and I don't know I've just associated that place with grunt work is thinking that, oh, this is all really hard, I'll be happy when I'm retired and then I'll sit on a beach.

Matt Kelly: 29:50

But then it's like I sit on a beach for one day and I'm fucking bored out my mind so it's like hold on, you're already doing what you largely what you would do if you had unlimited resources anyway to some extent. So why not just keep doing it and maybe just optimize the way I'm doing it a little bit more, maybe if I want to live somewhere that's more sunny, for example, because for me that genuinely is a big factor A huge one.

Matt Kelly: 30:19

Maybe I want to live in a more optimum time zone. I don't know. Maybe I enjoy having more time in the morning, so maybe being ahead of the UK time is better, for example.

Darren Lee: 30:30

Yeah, I don't know, I'm trying to figure it out yeah, it's a good thing to have, but it's chaos and order at the end of the day, right, like we, our brains like seek the order, but then when it's too orderly, we turn into chaos, we ensue, and chaotic minds will lead to, like you know, bad relationships, bad relationship with money, as a result, because things are too orderly uh, health as well, you know. So it's like we're always trying to optimize for that order, but then we need that element of chaos, right, and I think chaos for our founder is business a lot of times, like that's the pursuit, but they're trying to build. This is all subconscious, though. None of this happens in the front mind, right, but I think that's a that's a funny way to look at it because, uh, especially when I, when I was in body factory, body factories changed quite a lot. It's gotten a lot older because it's all the other fucking gyms now and all the only fans.

Matt Kelly: 31:14

Yeah, I've not been there since last year. I used to. I used to go years before.

Darren Lee: 31:19

I stopped training there now, to be fair, since I moved out. Wrong gyms better, yeah, they're nice, but I remember I've met a few people there that are like late 30s, sold their companies and a lot of them are like it's funny. They're always like, yeah, I'm getting my health in order now. It's an interesting thing to say, first thing to say, when I say it is again, I'm trying to get my health together. A lot of guys are very ordinary individuals. I think that's an interesting observation that you neglected that piece in pursuit of this goal. But now, in pursuit of this goal, but now the entire goal was to go back to here, which is the health thing which is just funny, right?

Matt Kelly: 31:57

uh, then that's not for everyone. I just think it's an interesting observation, though. See how it pans out. Yeah, I definitely feel, even at the ripe old age of 28 now, which is old, same age as me. Yeah, 96, 95, end of 95. When's your birthday? October, nice, yeah, how about you?

Matt Kelly: 32:11

come back to bali merch yeah, yeah, I definitely feel like health. I already noticed more like if I don't train, I feel like shit and just little things like that. Or if I drink too much, it's like is it worth it? No, um, and I always have this idea in the back of my mind I should become like an athlete first, entrepreneur second, because then the business will feel easy anyway. But then I end up getting into the habit of like.

Matt Kelly: 32:36

Recently I was saying like I was in like elite shape, like a year ago. Now I'm in like okay shape, but I've probably put on a few kilos. Well, I have, and it's because I've not. It's been like an afterthought, like I used to enjoy. Well, there's been periods in my life where I've raised to like be a row when I was younger. So that was like my life.

Matt Kelly: 32:55

Then I got, went through a fat phase, then I went through, went through like a marathon phase where I got in incredible shape and then I was like, ah, then the business got too busy or more busy and I didn't have really a goal with my fitness or health. It was just like, ah, fuck it, go to the gym, do a half-assed workout, run for 20 minutes instead of 60 like I used to do. You know, don't watch my diet as much as I used to, but it's like, yeah, those things. Gradually I now realize why. When I was 15, telling my dad that he should lose four stone, I now understand why it's probably quite hard to lose four stone when you're fucking 55 and you work a full-time job, unless you've built those habits earlier.

Darren Lee: 33:38

Um, yeah, it's like what are you optimizing for?

Darren Lee: 33:41

yeah, exactly you know, uh, I call that like the infinite game, right. Which is like that's a problem with events like marathons, bodybuilding shows, is that it comes with a finite end. Yeah, so a lot of guys will do fucking go balls to the wall, and that's part of the training too, right, like I'm training for a marathon right now, and like there's that periodic training you need to get to, but when you finish, it shouldn't be. Oh, my god, where's the donut? It should be okay. How can I recover from here, get back to training again? Um, and that's actually interesting as well.

Darren Lee: 34:09

Those are for business, right, because, like a finite game of business is exit. I need the fucking exit, yeah, which means you're a failure until you're a success. That's exactly how I feel, but that's wrong, though you know what I mean. It's a. It's a. It's a wrong frame if you flip. If you flip to being like I've built this incredible business 28, we're doing like a million a month or whatever fuck it is. At this point, I'm still building and in comparison to everybody else not the founders, but in comparison to the fucking general public, we're smashing it. You know, um, what do you think you've you think like that from like a failure perspective?

Matt Kelly: 34:38

um, I reckon. I reckon, like objectively, my ratio of like self-perception to like actual things I've done the ups and downs, just general experience is like I don't know what I'm trying to say like my level of self-confidence relative to what I've done ups and downs, just general experience is like I don't know what I'm trying to say Like my level of self-confidence relative to what I've done is probably the lowest in the whole like space that I've known, the opposite being someone that's done nothing that thinks of the shit. I genuinely think I've done nothing but I've done some stuff. I think it comes from largely having outrageously successful friends.

Darren Lee: 35:13

Really, but did you have that always growing up though?

Matt Kelly: 35:15

No.

Darren Lee: 35:15

Okay.

Matt Kelly: 35:16

No, um, well, I think it comes from that, but also my perception of what was possible in my early twenties skewed so much because I met so many people. I went to Steve Tam's event in 2017, right, I always cite this. Like, finally, looking back, that was the moment. Yeah, it's the first time I met so many people. I went to Steve Tam's event in 2017, right, I always cite this like finally looking back.

Matt Kelly: 35:32

That was the moment that was in Singapore. Yeah, it was the first time I met other founders. Have you spoken to them? Never, really no.

Darren Lee: 35:37

He's such a cool guy Just at that event, but Such a funny guy. Yeah.

Matt Kelly: 35:41

And I met loads of guys back then and then my life in, I guess, statistically unusual in the sense that I just started traveling full-time, was making good money, drop shipping at the time and all this and met loads of guys that were doing cool shit.

Matt Kelly: 35:54

So then the threshold to what was normal and also went through like a cunt phase of having a finance Ferrari when I was 23 and all this sort of shit. So I had all the material things very quickly in hindsight, too quickly which meant anything below that was shit. Lived in the penthouse flat in london with two mates and all that shit which isn't as cool as you think. It is anyway. But at the time it's like crack cocaine, like the first few weeks. And then I think dan bozarian talks about it it's like like paraphrasing the more shit you experience, it like raises the dopamine threshold to the point where anything cool is not cool anymore. It's a bit dangerous because and yeah, what I'm saying is I experienced all that and then, along that process, met some really successful people, like most of my best mates are objectively more successful than me.

Darren Lee: 36:48

But they're not. Well, you're not basing them as an individual, based on how much they make though I know that it might be perceived like that, but like that's not the metric that they would view you on. So you're not, you shouldn't view them on that metric.

Matt Kelly: 37:01

Yeah, I suppose when I say successful with them, I'm talking about they're doing bigger numbers, for sure.

Darren Lee: 37:05

But you know what I'm trying to say in terms of like I know exactly how you feel, right, like, fucking everyone that I interview every single week is making more money than me, but I'm not basing their value based on how much money they make. They're just fucking smart, interesting people that have a lot to share with other people and, as a result, we might have a friendship or whatever that's developed as a result. But I think it's almost like a fucking social credit score score with your mr. Yeah, yeah, walking around like in sims. You know sims back in the day, yeah, it literally is the number above your head how much money you're making yeah.

Matt Kelly: 37:39

So the long and short of it is I have a terribly bad habit of comparing myself to people, especially in a monetary sense, and especially people in e-commerce, because I can relate to that. I can't really relate to someone who's done crypto or whatever, because I've never been in that. Um, or is it football or something, because I've never tried doing that. But in my game and there's pros and cons to having successful mates I mean, I still think it's net beneficial to be the smallish fish the smallish fish in a big pond or whatever it is than being, you know, go back home to York, ran from everyone tells me how fucking amazing my business is, or whatever, and it's. I think that that's a bad thing for your mind, at least for me. So, yeah, I think that's why.

Darren Lee: 38:34

Interesting man? Yeah, but again I think so. Yeah, I think that's why it's interesting man, yeah, but again I think, if you can look at it from a perspective that like you're not actually a failure and what you've done is like incredible, but you're just building up and you're continuously improving, getting better, and it's just that beginner mind that are you familiar with rick rubin? Like his book creative act? His entire section dedicated to having that beginner mind, which is like we're always going from zero. Every day is a new day, we're trying to learn more. Um, and he had an interesting conversation with rory sutherland about this in terms of like everything you're testing is actually going from zero. That's, that's the whole point of this. And then you have no uh hard opinions on things. You can adjust, you can get better, you can go into fucking new markets, new territories or whatever. As a result. That allows you to I don't think more.

Matt Kelly: 39:16

Think more like holistically, versus just looking at the numbers on the screen yeah, I do always feel like a beginner, to be fair, which is probably a good thing what would you have done differently with the business, like, do you think you would have gone after, like, uh, different products or different markets?

Darren Lee: 39:28

like, what's your thinking now, looking back in two years? What would you have done differently with the business? Do you think you would have gone after different products or different markets? What's your thinking now, looking back in two years, with this?

Matt Kelly: 39:34

business. Yeah, yeah, a lot of valuable learnings from this business. I think the theme would be just focus more. And everyone thinks they're focused, including me, but then it's like stuff creeps up. So, like I mentioned before, my overheads have crept up. There's too many fucking agencies. We're doing too many things. We're trying too many channels.

Matt Kelly: 39:56

Launched on Tik TOK shop last week and something that was a waste of time probably shouldn't launch into retail so soon. Probably shouldn't have done. Amazon probably should have just kept with one SKU, which has always been 95% of the revenue anyway. Shouldn't have done the nighttime product. Probably shouldn't launch the fucking gummy products, which was semi half-assed, to be honest. Um, so I would probably just do less things relentlessly well, instead of a few things quite well.

Matt Kelly: 40:20

Um, and it does depend on what space you're in, like. If you're in fashion, you're not going to launch a business with one skew, necessarily. Um, and I would have just focused on bigger levers. For example, maybe would have launched in America right off the bat instead of the UK, or as well, stuff like that. Um, yeah, I think you just complicate things gradually. I don't know if it happens to everyone, but it happens to me. Like you start with one thing like one product on your website. Yeah, and then recently it was like fucking 45 products on the website, because loads of different versions bundles this, that and the other and it's like what the fuck are we actually doing? We're selling one thing.

Darren Lee: 41:00

Simplify it I don't know how to describe, but it's basically like when something is easy to you and you find it easy to like get the goal, there's an inclination to make it more difficult than it is to keep that goal going. There's like some sort of like fucking framework with it, basically. So it's like you're doing the same thing but you're trying to make it more difficult so that it seems like you're working harder yeah, definitely, that's very true it's an interesting observation, right, because that's when you start just rolling out like random fucking colors and stuff for no reason, yeah, and that's what always happens yeah

Matt Kelly: 41:28

and that could be the demise of the business at the end of the day, then, yeah, I always beat myself up thinking I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have done that. But I guess at the same time you have to go through that arc of doing the stupid shit and complicating stuff to bring it back to baseline and be like okay, I know objectively, that was a bad idea. Now, Rather than saying I wish I'd never done that that.

Darren Lee: 41:52

But you can't think like that because at the time you didn't know, and also part of the focus is being able to focus on just a business in general. Like obviously there's different components of when you launch into new fucking products and stuff, but it doesn't need to be just solely focused on. Like my focus is not only just this product. You have to go experiment other shit too, right? Yeah, which is how you fuck up and basically go full circle and everything you're doing, but it's usually um and sean. Actually it describes this.

Darren Lee: 42:16

It's like going off an intuition to some degree. The stuff that really brought you zero to one um to some degree can bring you further on. You think you need to add in the bells and whistles. I was fucking saying with me, like we have a hiring this continuously, but honestly, the same shit that I'm doing in 2022 is what we're doing now in 2024, but after trying lots of different shit, yeah, which is like all this automation, bollocks and all this kind of stuff, but we're honestly doing the exact same thing two years ago as you're doing right now and it's working. So it's interesting. You don't need to fucking.

Matt Kelly: 42:47

You don't always need to try recreate everything yeah, I think there's a lot to be said, for just simplicity yeah, and that's mental headspace too exactly, yeah, just less shit to think about yeah just go deep instead of wide.

Darren Lee: 43:04

Yeah, sam ovens often says, uh, like he famously said, like if you have like two offers, you have nothing right. Two businesses, no business, because like you're trying more shit, yeah sure get some of the work, whereas if something actually worked you could just do one thing, and that's why I think it's funny a lot.

Matt Kelly: 43:19

You know a lot of guys in bali have like seven different businesses yeah, I also like genuinely don't trust people that a have seven businesses or b can't tell you what they do in like one sentence. Yeah, it's just like what the fuck do you actually do?

Darren Lee: 43:32

well, also, like you know, I wouldn't want seven different things. You know, I want to fucking go to the gym, man. I want to go food, I want to go chill, I want to chill my dogs half the time. I don't want seven different things yeah, if one thing can make you, let's say, a million or two million. Why would you want seven things that do 300k and then end up? At the same point.

Matt Kelly: 43:52

It seems like actually like stupid, basically yeah, I mean like also, like, almost without exception, all the most successful people who are talking like financially in business have done one business yeah, for 10 years.

Darren Lee: 44:03

Yeah, or 20 years or however long it takes, and then you might split into like three different products, like apple literally have like fucking four products at a stage yeah because they don't need anything else yeah what kind of advice you have for people that are going like um through that process right now, making things more complicated for themselves, doing retarded shit on the internet?

Darren Lee: 44:23

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Matt Kelly: 45:17

Well, I need that advice because I'm going through that process right now. I think probably every few months. You just got to take stock and cut the fluff. I think so much fluff comes into businesses and like examples of that is like software blow you start using 20 different fucking softwares that just cost more and more. You hire different agencies to try new shit, like tiktok shop, as an example of me right now.

Matt Kelly: 45:41

Um, and yeah, I think you just gotta gotta get better at saying no, because it's so easy to be, especially when you're constantly getting barraged with, like cold emails. For can I do this for you? Can we try this? Have you tried seo? Have you tried this? Have you launched in fucking romania? Like, and yeah, just gotta say no. But I think it also comes down to what you. You need to be clear on what you're actually trying to achieve. Like I've got like a just an a4 piece of paper or document of what I'm trying to do this year and then I know it's all the shit that feels like a waste of time now is because I veered off that list. Like doing TikTok shop, for example, or launching different products that don't make sense, hiring people that weren't in the budget.

Darren Lee: 46:24

How is that misaligned to the goal?

Matt Kelly: 46:25

Because if the goal was like building a bigger business, Well, the goal is building a bigger business, but the strategy was focus on one product. Do it in the UK and Europe, for example. But I suppose at the same time you don't know if that strategy is right until you try stuff. But generally you kind of just have to pick a direction and stick to it. If you don't have a clear plan, to some extent it's probably a lot easier to just go wrong.

Darren Lee: 46:52

Talk to me about I saw your photo of Neutronic and probably a lot easier to just go wrong. Talk to me about I saw your photo of like neutronic and fucking a lot of those other newtonic yeah fucking drinks, what like. What's your thoughts on like using, like big influencers like that to buddy up with a brand, to grow the brand more something you consider?

Matt Kelly: 47:09

yes, my my view on influencer brands and I could be completely wrong, and I'm sure a lot of them doing really well is I think a lot of them will get to three million in revenue and then they'll struggle to get past that because and I've seen it before and this isn't just my opinion this is the opinions of wiser people and it could be wrong. But take new tonic. I mean, I don't know chris william, but great podcast Brands like that. I have a feeling they'll get to a few million because there's the hype of it's Chris Williamson's brand, but then, because it's Chris Williamson's brand, they haven't built a marketing machine that's separate to him.

Darren Lee: 47:46

That's what Genflor are doing, though, right.

Matt Kelly: 47:48

Yeah, but most of their brands are in that sort of $3 million a year range. There's not many doing $20, $30, $50 million, if any. I mean, I don't know the numbers, but that would be my perception. I guess. At the same time, though, you can build a really profitable business as a creator, because if you don't need paid ads which most of them don't to start with, although some of them like, obviously, Tala with Grace Beverly that's probably a better example of a bigger business but it looks like they've built a business that's not entirely relying on her.

Matt Kelly: 48:19

Now. She's just kind of the face of it. That'd be my perception. And then, in terms of partnering with influencers, I have thought about would it be a good idea to try and get a big influencer on like an equity partnership? Um, haven't done it. I suppose the risk there is does it work out? Are they the right person? Can you predict what they're? Are they going to get cancelled, etc. Etc. Um, again, like with anything, there's nuances. There's cases where it has worked, cases where it hasn't worked. There's obviously influencer brands like prime they're fucking massive and there's influencer brands that probably completely flopped and there's a lot in between.

Darren Lee: 48:52

There's two sides to it. Right, there's the product being shit, which is like prime right, which is, like you know, everyone's getting like heart attacks and going up in the hospital now. So that's one side which whoever white labeled it, you know, is going to be kind of fucked. And the other side then is like if the influencer gets super canceled.

Darren Lee: 49:14

Like one of my mates has a sake you know sake brand from japan. He's based in singapore and I know he was trying to find like big rappers in the us and they had huge conversations with like fucking massive rappers and it's 40 they were going to give them and then it's a lot but, like you know, the brand was making no money, right, but it was very small, just tiny in singapore and japan and they're still looking to do it. Um, but I guess he's just looking to connect, blow up and then just sell. But that's kind of like what they were kind of looking to do. It's just a different approach to how you're doing it. Right, Like you're building an actual business, but with the influencer stuff you're basically kind of you've got to put all your eggs into one basket and hope they don't get hassled.

Matt Kelly: 49:54

I mean it's definitely a hack being an influencer with a big audience to launch a brand, for sure. Like I said, I question whether a lot of them can get past that first few million in revenue which comes from the influencer's audience. Do they give a fuck, though?

Darren Lee: 50:02

That's the big thing as well. Right Like, can you bring that from 10 to 100 in terms of velocity, because you're going to have to get really involved in the business? Even if you have a growth partner, you know Like, can you do it for five, ten years, basically. That's kind of my concern with this stuff.

Darren Lee: 50:16

Sometimes, yeah, what you say is very different than your actions, like you know a lot of these people out there yeah, like happy to grow the brand and look at his prime, but is he really going to be sitting there being like, all right, let's look at how we can improve this, how can we bring it into different markets? No, that's not what he's looking after. You know, which I feel is like the the reality of a lot of these creators who just like build audiences based off their ass or their only fans yeah there's a lot of those you know.

Darren Lee: 50:44

In the beginning it is a it seems like a more risky version. But is that new, though, like just those influencer brands, or is that kind of always been around, different in ways?

Matt Kelly: 50:53

Seems pretty new.

Darren Lee: 50:53

There's definitely more of them, yeah Cause like I remember I interviewed Joe Fraser, reebok founder, and he was telling me that he was doing these influencer campaigns in the eighties but obviously true, like magazine so he'd go into the. When he got Reebok from the UK to the States, some like triathlete or some shit just paid her a ton of money and then put into the magazine.

Matt Kelly: 51:15

That's actually what got them to blow up well, I suppose that's influencer marketing, though right was an influencer brand where the influencer owns the brand.

Darren Lee: 51:22

I think that's pretty new okay, definitely newer, yeah as in, like creators launching their own brand because they realize there's way more money in it potentially, which is what gemper has obviously jumped on yeah, and it's a great idea yeah, and like they're crushing you from that perspective, like they're just you know they're picking really good people to work with, like even like iman and stuff that he works with, you know yeah who probably has, obviously has the entrepreneur in him anyway. To be like, oh, like, I actually have other people connected to, versus like a random influencer yeah what do you think about your space? I see people ripping off your products. Man that's having me I want to break that up.

Matt Kelly: 51:56

I mean there's. There's always going to be competition yeah, like I'm always of the view like respect the competition but try and beat them. For example, like I mean the biggest brands in my space in the uk, like brands like dirty who are bigger than me for sure um, I don't have a problem with them because we're not copying each other. We're in a similar space, but it's just competition. The thing that's annoying is when you get brands straight up ripping you off like the whole website's just clearly a copy and paste.

Matt Kelly: 52:23

The products are copy and paste so I need you to protect, protect that I mean, I've just got a google sheet of every brand that seems to be ripping me off, but I've never really done anything about it. To be honest, I do think generally, if a brand is fully copying something that already a step behind there won't be as well funded, they won't have, you know, the founders clearly not got many good ideas. Um, it is annoying Like, but I do think I try not to obsess about competition, sometimes hard because you see their ads all the time. It's like what are they doing? Again, it comes down to focus, just focus on making your product better. Um it has.

Darren Lee: 53:01

It leaves a really bad feeling, though, right when someone like I think it's. I think what's interesting is like if you see someone rip someone's content off. You're like whatever yeah, they took their hooker and hookers the fuck. But when it's a business, I feel it's very personal. It's like when someone robs your phone.

Matt Kelly: 53:14

It's like they're taking well, yeah especially when you like done the whole building in public thing like me, which, yeah, it definitely has pros and cons, more more cons. I've seen recently, um, I mean there's literally people that have messaged me like a few like a year ago, and I've given advice to and they've launched a brand that's quite literally a copy and paste.

Darren Lee: 53:30

There's a few of those man there's podcasts that you've been on, that those guys have taken my entire products, entire as in, like I have screenshots. They went into a learning academy. They completed 100, which podcast I'll tell you afterwards. Okay, uh, took all the product I have the completion of how much, went through, recreated it in their own learning platform, which is a fucking course, but we don't use it Like it's a set. It's set there, it's low ticket whatever, and rewrote the entire copy and these are like friends and network.

Darren Lee: 54:02

Yeah, so I just think people, you know, sometimes when you're in closed doors like I don't know, I'm very, a very close fit wall with that kind of similar to you, because I've just seen it happen over and over same in bali, people have gone. So the problem with my business is that people get on discovery calls and find out the strategy and everything and for the most part it's fine, but then, like, some guys will take the strategy and then fucking go build it and that's what happens in the process business, you know yeah just interesting competition is annoying, but, um well, when they're ripping you off, when it's just competition, it's just.

Matt Kelly: 54:36

There's always going to be, yeah, competition, but there's always going to be brands that were earlier in the space or bigger or better in the space, and just gotta try and be one of those yeah, what's your observation of like ag1 and shit people dive and try to build partnerships with for a long time, like do you think?

Darren Lee: 54:50

like what was their unique mechanism that really hit home?

Matt Kelly: 54:54

I think just being early, they were like the first all-in-one nutritional foundational supplement. I think it works. I think it works to an extent. I used to be subscribed to it. Then I just thought something else, that's that need. Yeah, um, I took a lot of inspiration from then. It's unheal, especially at ag1. To be fair, I love the idea of a single skew business. Yeah, so when I launched, I had this idea of only ever having one skew. I then, like I said, complicated things and launched new skews and actually it's. I want to come back to just having one skew and just doing it very well, or like one product with multiple flavors. So a few skews, but really just one product. Um, yeah, I think they've just done it for 15 years or whatever it is 15 something like that yeah it's not like a new brand have you seen that?

Darren Lee: 55:40

yeah, it's really old, it's different this is funny, though it's like fucking microsoft off like 2004, like so yeah it is.

Matt Kelly: 55:49

I do think people have a habit, though, just thinking, oh, they're big, let's try and copy them. But then by default and even me to some extent you take inspiration from bigger brands, but by default, if you're trying to do what they've done, it's not going to work for you. Yeah, to the same level, because they were first, they did it their way and timing just in general, like as in where the market is versus where it gets to.

Darren Lee: 56:13

Yeah, like, take a really stupid example it's a crypto right, like people who bought it at ten dollars versus sixty thousand dollars.

Matt Kelly: 56:19

Yeah, yes, it's a similar product, but you just were in the fucking wrong time zone yeah yeah yeah, I think timing's so important with a lot of things do you think that's impacted you positively or negatively, right? Now. I think I was quite early in the space. I think generally it's been good timing. Yeah, but they're brands in America that were in it five years ago.

Darren Lee: 56:42

How would you see like your industry or niche, like developing, Is it more like discretionary or do you think it's more coming into like? This is something that people are like. They're more interested in longevity, health, fitness.

Matt Kelly: 56:56

Yeah, I think like wellness on the whole has clearly had a boom like the past two, three years since covid. Yeah, like and I'm in the wellness category fundamentally, I think mushrooms. I think it's at risk of being a bit of a fucking hype, fad buzz, which which is why I'm trying to build the brand not to be a mushroom brand, I'm trying to build it more as a coffee upgrade functional beverage brand what about like longevity?

Darren Lee: 57:18

could you like spin it in that regard? It's a mud water, do right, or some shit, I don't know how.

Matt Kelly: 57:23

I tend not to with the current products. I just I really view it as a coffee upgrade, like that's fundamentally like our strongest marketing angle and it's also just simplifying it. When I launched the brand, I was talking about psilocybin and that's, that's what got me interested in the first place. I wanted to build a magic mushroom alternative and, like, long-term, build a microdosing brand. That was where I started. It's not really that anymore, because a is illegal, b investors don't like it, c is illegal, um, so now it's really I'm kind of just positioning it as a coffee upgrade, because even mushrooms themselves I think even just talking about mushrooms is still pretty new, pretty alienating to a lot of people.

Matt Kelly: 58:00

Yeah, other brands lean into mushrooms a lot more, whereas me it's like, yes, it's a mushroom based product, but we don't really talk about mushrooms that much. It's more about focus, energy, calm, flow, state kind of the outcome, rather than the ingredients. It just so happens to be mushrooms plus plus other stuff, um, but I'm still figuring that out, to be honest, because I just made this pink product in my kitchen two years ago and now we sell lots of it and so I don't really know how to position it, having a bit of a brand identity crisis like is it too pink? Is it too polarizing? Do I need to soften it to go? More mass market?

Darren Lee: 58:35

probably to some extent I want to get your thoughts on this. Like you know, supplement space is like fucking booming and the reason why is because it's like you know, it's influencer brand, crazy high margins, all this kind of shit, right, uh, you see, like every you know longevity guy or carnivore guy will come in with his health supplement.

Matt Kelly: 58:52

Biohackers and shit.

Darren Lee: 58:53

Yeah, because it's obviously just like ridiculous high margin, right, they make it for like a fucking cent or whatever and it's easy to sell. Have you done much research on your product to be like, oh, this is the data that comes back, that it actually improves performance and stuff? Because I think a lot of these other supplements are just fucking pissing in the wind, right, they a lot of them have uh, uh like health warnings on them. Like you're like oh, don't take this as like full health advice. You know they never tested testosterone products is a perfect example. Yeah, like that stuff is. It's funny because in isolation, the supplement might help testosterone, for example, but if you take drugs all the time, drink, smoke, stay up all night, it's not gonna have any effect yeah, the honest answer is I haven't published any of that yet.

Matt Kelly: 59:35

We are working on some of that, I guess. To start with, the only research we went off is kind of third-party studies on the individual ingredients. We haven't done anything that's clinically sound on the product itself. What we have done is obviously interviewed customers, got stats etc, etc. I've done mass surveys on like 100 000 people that the product works. That's objectively true.

Matt Kelly: 59:56

But I do think to go from where we're at now to being like a huge scale eventually and I think the whole space, like the market as a whole, like mushrooms and these sort of blends, it does need more credibility. So I'm trying to figure out how to pivot the brand slightly to be more credible, basically because I think we've done really well at being a challenger brand, early adopters it's pink, polarizing, different, stands out really well, the margins make sense, all that. But to go mass market which the mushroom space definitely isn't mass market yet I think it needs to be more objectively scientifically sound and that would just be mainly in the us you think uk, I mean we're mainly uk now, but obviously america is a fucking massive market way bigger, objectively, scientifically sound and that would just be mainly in the US, you think UK.

Matt Kelly: 1:00:34

I mean we're mainly UK now, but obviously America is a fucking massive market. Way bigger Stuff tends to start in America in a wellness sense, like trends, supplements et cetera. Like mushroom coffee was over there five, six years ago. It's still relatively new in the UK and even more new in like Europe, germany. So we've launched in Germany now, so we've got warehouse there. So I'm pretty bullish. On europe, there's less brands in there as well. Um, tends to be america, uk, europe in terms of like supplement trends, so it's a purchase there too.

Matt Kelly: 1:01:02

Right like americans drop cash, they've just got a lot more money. Yeah, like even gdp per capita is way higher incomes higher and it's just just better buyers and stuff.

Darren Lee: 1:01:11

I think american minds uh, you know some of us kind of cringing stuff at times but they're interested in advancement no matter what it is like tech, software, health care.

Darren Lee: 1:01:20

They're looking to just like do shit, like you know, 10x health, like I don't know how much it is, the blood panel stuff, like gary bracker yeah, I don't know how much the actual blood panel thing is. I imagine it's a lot because there's 68 blood markers and they do the post-analysis stuff. But I remember someone it was frankie lee actually he's interviewing uh, fuck, I forget who it was, but they were saying, like, what are the equivalent in the uk, europe? And no one can name it, which is all I want to know. Right, no one knew what the big name was. I was doing a 68 blood panel guys because, like it might cost a couple thousand dollars.

Matt Kelly: 1:01:53

Um, and europeans are kind of stingy, right, you know, they don't view it the same way definitely higher purchasing power in america, but it's a lot more expensive to advertise, for example. Okay, so there's pros and cons to every market, but that's why you have investors right yeah, because you couldn't fucking do that yourself.

Darren Lee: 1:02:08

You're gonna put it. You know, we're not actually in america I know, but when you, when you plan that and roll it out. That's an interesting observation to see where that is yeah, definitely why do you think, uh, you started in the uk versus america, though. Would it not have?

Matt Kelly: 1:02:23

been a bit better. Yeah, it's a good question. A lot of people have said to me, like I don't know many people just in the uk, doing the revenue we're doing just in the uk because it's a very small market relatively. Doing the revenue we're doing just in the uk because it's a very small market relatively and you know we're in a recession, arguably, like I think consumer sentiment's pretty low, like purchasing power is low. Launched in the uk because it was less competitive and I was in the uk, didn't really think too much about it. It was like fuck, it just launched in the uk and that's what happened. Maybe in hindsight I should have tried to launch in America from day one, but that just wasn't the route I took.

Darren Lee: 1:02:55

Is there any other health trends and shit you might want to go after, like the drinks or something you were considering?

Matt Kelly: 1:03:00

I think hydration is an interesting category. I know a lot of brands are popping up there. Iman obviously did an electrolyte drink with GenFlow, I think it was electrolytes. There's not many brands in that space, I think are doing really cool stuff. So this is something I thought about the brand.

Matt Kelly: 1:03:14

Do I stay doing largely just mushroom coffee, basically, and be a mushroom brand, or do we become a functional beverage brand and do hydration potentially, protein, potentially fucking something else? Um, maybe it becomes a bit diluted and random at that point, because then you just become nothing to anybody rather than something to some people. Um, but I don't have the answer to that so I'm trying to figure out. But I do think there's a lot of categories that I think it's quite easy to do something unique because almost every, and maybe everyone, knows something I don't. But like just going to holland and barrett or boots, where we're in retail in the uk, and it's a fucking sea of brown and then a pink packet just being pink makes you stand out 10 times more than anyone else. So has everyone got the same graphic design or something? I don't get it. Every brand looks the same like literally some in america are quite cool, but in the uk.

Matt Kelly: 1:04:05

Like every brand looks the same yeah I'm not saying my brand's the coolest thing ever, but it's definitely more unique and you did all the logos yourself and shit. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, maybe being brown, green, black and white is how you scale, but maybe it's like the approved, like health care.

Darren Lee: 1:04:21

Look, you know like, oh, like we're certified or some shit it's definitely controversial to be pink and purple and yeah but do you find yourself like? Stuck with like a lot of like laws and uh legislation of how you can market.

Matt Kelly: 1:04:33

Obviously yeah, we've had a few run-ins with like trading standards and the asa and shit. I think every supplement brand that's scaling has, but it's. It's a real gray area, like all that I've had like professional advice on it and the advice generally is it's a gray area like how risky do you want to be?

Darren Lee: 1:04:49

yeah. So you know, like influencer marketing or whatever the fuck you want to call it, we do the sponsorships with some big podcasts and I contacted a healthcare company in the us recently and they did a very, very big brand deal with, like a huge influencer and I mentioned it to them, being like, oh, like I saw you sponsored them, do you want to sponsor our podcast? And she comes, she came back with all this legislation, shit but like, oh, it's illegal to do this, legal to do this. But they had done it with somebody else and I was like, am I fucking blind over here because you literally did this here? She said no, no, that's not like fully endorsed and all this bollocks. So they're obviously like under a lot of scrutiny with it, because what would be the repercussions there?

Matt Kelly: 1:05:27

um without the asa. Like we got a warning because one ad mentioned adhd and I've tweeted about this because, like the most passionate subset of customers for me is people that have adhd. Interesting, and I've definitely got adhd, even though I fucking hate jumping on the bandwagon because everyone says they do these days but I definitely do um and it really helps with that. It genuinely does, but we can't say it because it's like claiming to cure a medical condition and that's fair enough. I get that, but it also does objectively work and a lot of our trust pilot reviews say it fucking helps. So so, like the first step is a warning. The next step is you'll get like a mark or something published like some of our competitors have had, that we haven't had that yet. The worst case they could stop your advertising, which I don't know if that's going to happen, but you don't really want that because they could kill your business, jesus christ.

Matt Kelly: 1:06:13

So it's just managing that risk, yeah, and also like it's a new space, so you can't be expected to know everything, yeah, definitive terms when you're marketing, though, right I'm just not gonna get people with your way of thinking.

Darren Lee: 1:06:26

Selling the course, yeah, selling the program, right. That's the problem with fucking marketing.

Matt Kelly: 1:06:30

Right is split the audience, create the enemy, trust all the enemy yeah which will happen to all these brands so it's hard because you know certain claims will obviously convert better, but you can't say it yeah so where's the line between like financial benefit and also just not saying anything about your product?

Darren Lee: 1:06:50

that fucking chad scaling ad you had yeah, with kylie jenner yeah, do you have, uh, did you sell like a lot like ptsd from young beach?

Matt Kelly: 1:07:00

yeah, probably I think so, but it's like fuck, it just hardens you up really yeah, is there any more repercussions from that?

Darren Lee: 1:07:07

or, like you just move on finished. No, it's like three and a half years ago. Yeah, you can just kind of move on from it.

Matt Kelly: 1:07:12

Basically, what would you say is like you, one thing you're doing differently, though not doing a custom 300 pound product because the supply chain was just a fucking nightmare. So I still think there's a massive opportunity to put a great brand in that space and I think it's a great. I still got the original product. It's a great product from five years ago, still works, still looks cool. Yeah, I think just also having like a good finance person and not not chad scaling, like actually scaling with a plan like chad scaling is fine until it breaks what's your thoughts on a like fucking high ticket um drop shipping thing?

Matt Kelly: 1:07:45

it works well yeah, I know a guy drop shipping like thousand pound ice baths yeah, the reason I'm asking is brooke hitting on the podcast shortly, oh right, yeah, I've seen him um brooks, ruin this guy.

Darren Lee: 1:07:56

He's based in dubai, um, but yeah, he's selling saunas, saunas like full-on wood saunas, wood saunas five times. So it's uh ten thousand to buy roughly five thousand uh the ship and then five thousand fucking intermediary he's making, but it's so funny.

Darren Lee: 1:08:14

He has like a tweet that's like you know what you see? It's like, oh, home sauna, it's like what I see, like 10k for the sauna, 5k for fulfillment, basically yeah. But, um, yeah, like he has like crushed it over the past couple years doing that, and now, yeah, he's still fucking growing brands, you know, but he's doing that like very much behind closed doors, uh, but it was saunas. Uh, iron stoves, you know, like fucking it's like barbecue stoves or some shit, but the huge cast iron ones that are like 10k product. Um, ice baths, yeah, all that kind of shit. I know a guy here as well is actually doing that ice baths too. Um, how do you think about that, though, in comparison to what you're doing, is that longevity or is that just kind of well, I think?

Matt Kelly: 1:08:59

I think in e-commerce now, whether it's dropshipping or not, it either needs to have a great subscription LTV, like my sort of product or it needs to be really high ticket, so there's so much margin you don't need a subscription. The things that won't work now generally stuff for the AOV is too low to be really high ticket, so there's so much margin you don't need a subscription. The things that won't work now generally, stuff for the AV is too low, ie probably below 50 quid, and it doesn't have a subscription or consumable element. So I just don't think you can make the CAC work on that. To be honest. Or it's high ticket but it's shit quality, and then people are going to want refunds and so on.

Matt Kelly: 1:09:32

Um, yeah, like neon signs was great back in the day, cause it was a 350 quid RV, which is not as high ticket as a sauna, but still pretty high ticket. But the challenge was obviously the supply chain. So that was what broke that. Um, I know a guy crushing with ice bath. Now it's kind of the sweet spot, but it was like 500 quid.

Matt Kelly: 1:09:52

The product quality is really good. It's cheap for an ice bath. It was like an inflatable one.

Darren Lee: 1:09:57

Yeah, just something basic.

Matt Kelly: 1:09:58

Yeah.

Darren Lee: 1:09:59

Cause you could go, you could go up that 10 K, right, that 10. K for a sauna. Send it to a few fucking millionaires in the States, yeah, but yeah, like there seems to be a lot of demand for it. It's obviously like things that are super trending because, like human and stuff, the health space is a super interesting to observe, right?

Darren Lee: 1:10:12

yeah because it's it's always the hacks that almost sell the most stuff versus like get your sleep, eat well and train right yeah, it's like whatever's like fucking trending on twitter can be sold at like high ticket or whatever yeah which is at odds to what you're doing 10k dropship.

Matt Kelly: 1:10:28

Yeah, it's fucking cool. I've never had anyone doing that high ticket yeah, it's awesome, man, maybe I should launch a side project a new SKU.

Darren Lee: 1:10:35

Yeah, be like fucking the entire mushroom like develop a pink sauna.

Matt Kelly: 1:10:39

20k. I'll take our IOV like 20x.

Kickoff Sessions

#223 Matt Kelly - Brutally Honest Advice on Building an 8 Figure Business

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