9 Lessons learned from making $6.2M in 6 months

Over the past 6 months, I :

• Grew Founder OS to $620,000+ in MRR
• Grew my audience from 1.8M to 2.4M founders
• Invested 1,000+ hours into the creative direction of Founder OS
• Spent only 223 minutes running my other 8-figure business, Herb

Today, I want to take you behind the scenes of how I did all the above.

Here are the 9 biggest lessons I learned during this time:

Lesson 1: Tell the world about your compelling vision because it will help you achieve it

For many years, I thought creating a vision was productive procrastination. Sure, having a 5-year vision is cool, but it felt like it made no difference in my day-to-day. Now, I've changed my mind.

What I've learned is:

Put your vision out there, because the world will listen. Put your vision out there, because you might get lucky. Put your vision out there, because people will want to help you.

I dream of building a Founder Potential Center in the Dolomites.

I dream of a center in where:

• Founders gather not only to grow their businesses but to grow as human beings
• We push founders beyond mental and emotional boundaries
• We create lasting bonds of trust among each other

(yes, I realize this sounds EXACTLY like I'm building a cult. But to be fair, it's gonna be a cool cult)

I shared this vision with the founders in Sedona.

While it'll take a year or two until we build the center, I invite you to join me at our next in-person mastermind in Austin. Opening the waitlist next week.

(and if you or anyone you know can help me realize the Dolomite center, reply to this email!)

Anyway, onto the next lesson...

Lesson 2: Become a Chief Detail Officer

Quality is the ultimate pattern interrupt.

If your quality is above everyone else, you will succeed.

I spent the last few months unbundling a simple question:

"What is quality?"

To me, holistic quality is the sum of 1000s of small details. So obsess over details.

Brian Chesky calls this becoming the "Chief Detail Officer" of your company. The best CEOs, from Jensen Huang to Elon Musk, obsess over small details. They stayed hands-on.

I don't have to be in day-to-day operations. But I choose to.

How I'm becoming a Chief Detail Officer:

• I review content for all platforms once a month in-depth
• I create checklists into the smallest detail for processes
• I help my team becoming 5% better every week

Show rigor to get rigor.

Lesson 3: My biggest regret of 2024

My biggest regret in 2024 was not hiring a great Founder Success Director sooner.

I'm obsessing over Founder Success myself now. But I want to hire an expert director. That's because a positive customer experience is a flywheel.

The more our founders win, the more Founder OS wins.

Lesson 4: Brand positioning

Most companies have weak branding because their message is either:

a) Inconsistent

b) Too complex

To avoid this, I crafted a 3-part brand positioning formula.

1) Your thesis in one sentence

Example: "The best way to build an online business is a personal brand."

2) What 2-3 things deliver on your thesis?

Example: "You need to be creating content that is beautiful, systemized, and hyper-profitable."

3) Your core mechanism (the best way to achieve your thesis)

Example: "The only way to build a hyper-profitable personal brand is a Content GPS System with Founder OS"

If you want to create your brand positioning in 3 minutes, use my free Brand Positioning Writer OS.

Lesson 5: Become a Content DJ

Think about creating content like a DJ:

Remix the greatest hits with new bangers.

The best DJs slap a Latin house remix on a Travis Scott song. They mash up 80s hits with melodic techno beats. They overlap 2012 Rihanna vocals with a 2024 afrobeat instrumental.

The audience loves it because you give them something they love in a new way.

Do the same for your content.

Find your 1 great idea, and then find 1000 ways to say it.

Lesson 6: The best inspiration comes from non-obvious places

Founder OS is a digital education company.

But I don't look at other education companies for inspiration.

Instead, I learned to draw inspiration from non-obvious places:

• 1990s Range Rover ads
• Louis Vuitton
• Pixar Studios

Become unique by combining ideas that haven't been combined before.

Find the 1 thing you want to be known for. Then, go all in on it.

Don't compete, have an edge.

I love Alex Hormozi's YouTube videos. Both of us talk about business advice. But I don't make videos in his style because I don't want to compete with him. He's in his zone of genius, so I'd never win. Instead, I've created my own category by doubling down on my cinematic style.

Dazzle founders. Create art, not content.

Lesson 7: If you want exceptional results, fractional beats full-time

I work with 38 people. Only 11 of them are full-time. Only 2 of the full-timers are exclusive to me.

Why do I hire fractionally?

Well, many founders make the mistake of hiring generalists to do specialist work.

They think it's cheaper to hire 1 writer to do all the writing for them than to hire specialist writers. In reality, it's more expensive. They end up having one person writing for 5 different channels, only to get no results on any of them.

I hire specialists who are world-class at one thing.

That's why I have seven different writers.

Now, you might think:

"Matt, that sounds cool, but I can only afford to hire one writer"

In that case, hire 1 writer to nail 1 platform (like LinkedIn), make money from it, and then hire more with your new revenue.

Lesson 8: Delegate creation so you can focus on ideation

A few months ago, I heard MrBeast say something that surprised me:

"90% of a YouTube video's success comes from its idea."

Today, I know that's true.

A great idea with sh*t execution beats a sh*t idea with great execution. To me, that means that I delegate the creation so I can focus on the ideation.

I give my writers a list of 100 ideas I want to write about.

I save songs I want to use in my YouTube videos in a playlist.

I collect hundreds of screenshots of videos I like in an idea swipe file.

By obsessing over ideas, I 10X: ed my output while still controlling the content system.

Lesson 9: Take mentorships from those 1 step ahead of you

Last year, my personal board of advisors consisted of legendary entrepreneurs like Sam Ovens and Tobi Lütke.

Now, I realized it’s more helpful to take advice from people 1 step ahead of me. My team are my advisors. Masterminds of people 1 level ahead of me. It’s a funny cycle, because I in turn mentor people in how they can build hyper-profitable personal brands on autopilot.

If you want me and my team to mentor you and grow your business from $30,000 a month to $5M per year, apply to Founder OS+ here.

We’ve had some incredible successes lately. Like Mark, who closed $500k ARR in 30 days after coming off his non-solicit, or Michelle who doubled her LinkedIn in 30 days.

Let’s win together,

Matt

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

#1: If you want to learn more about howI break down the 7 core hires that helped me scale my online businesses to over $13M/year, check out my YouTube video on How I Make $13M/Year With 7 Insane Hires​

#2: I’ll pay you $1,000 for each founder you refer to Founder OS. Just copy this link and send it to 5 founder friends: https://www.founderos.com/claim?referred_by=