Ever since a young age, I've been obsessed with growth and achieving excellence.
This ambitious mindset led me to obsessively study high-achieving brands, like Apple.
In 2006, Apple was worth $72.98 billion and #159 on the Fortune 500.
15 years later, Apple became the first publicly traded company to reach a $3 trillion valuation.
So how did they go from #159 on the Fortune 500 to the world’s most valuable company?
In hindsight, it’s obvious.
Apple hit an inflection point in 2007 by releasing the iPhone.
While growth took time, the iPhone was a breakthrough moment that paved the way for Apple to become a behemoth.
This massive turning point inspired me to reflect and ask myself:
What is my crucial moment?
The answer is clear.
My "iPhone moment" was discovering the Founder Flywheel.
This is my “holy grail” system that allowed me to multiply momentum and growth by linking efforts.
I first leveraged flywheels to rapidly scale Herb, which became the world's largest cannabis community.
The core of the Herb flywheel was our audience growth.
As more cannabis enthusiasts engaged with Herb, we were able to get more dispensaries and brands listed on our site.
More listings generated higher revenue through our marketing services.
We reinvested this into content and SEO, further expanding our audience.
This self-propelling loop compounded growth — with each rotation, our momentum accelerated.
And within a couple of years, we grew an audience of over 14 million cannabis lovers.
I knew I needed to apply this flywheel system to all my future brands, like Founder OS.
It automated growth by compounding progress through leverage.
When launching Founder OS, I asked myself:
What's the one domino that will cause everything else to fall into place seamlessly?
The flywheel was the answer.
It worked just like with Herb, where we again used audience expansion to fuel flywheel momentum.
My hope is that the Founder Flywheel will be your very own "iPhone moment".
The breakthrough that unlocks exponential growth.
In today’s newsletter, I want to share my proven Founder Flywheel system with you.
Implementing a flywheel into your business allows you to multiply momentum and growth through the power of leverage.
I’ll walk you through how to design your own Founder Flywheel, using my framework as a model.
Follow this system, and you’ll be shocked by how much you can accomplish with minimal effort.
The flywheel will take care of the heavy lifting.
Introducing:
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The first step to crafting your flywheel is gaining absolute clarity on what you're building.
When I started the process, I asked myself:
What is the dream future I'm working towards?
Then I wrote out a vivid vision statement detailing this future.
Likewise, get crystal clear on the mission and purpose behind your business.
This crystallized vision will act as the guiding force for your flywheel.
Once your central goal is defined, make a list of the 3-5 core assets or activities that will drive momentum toward achieving it.
These are the crucial business functions that will propel growth.
Arrange your key activities into a loop that feeds into itself and propels the next element forward.
My flywheel flows like this:
The goal is to identify activities that feed into each other, compounding your growth loop.
With the flywheel structure in place, systemize each element.
Develop processes to consistently grow your audience, create viral content, build offers, etc.
The leverage is in the systems!
For example, for content creation, implement a batching system and leverage tools like AI to accelerate ideation and drafting.
The more you can codify and streamline each component, the easier the flywheel will spin.
Treat your flywheel like a living organism.
Track metrics for each component and be obsessive about improving them.
Small optimizations compound over each rotation.
Ask yourself regularly:
How can I make the flywheel spin faster?
Identify bottlenecks limiting momentum and fix them.
Iteration is key.
Once you have results from your flywheel, replicate it.
Build additional flywheels around other offerings, audience niches, or revenue streams.
Leverage what you've learned to accelerate the process.
With each new flywheel, your business growth compounds dramatically.
Soon your efforts will reach an inflection point — your "iPhone moment" — where your momentum becomes unstoppable.
Ask yourself these 3 questions to aid in your flywheel-building process:
There you have it — a complete walkthrough of my Founder Flywheel system that takes the guesswork out of exponential growth.
To help you design your own Founder Flywheel for runaway momentum in your business, I’ve created a plug-and-play template for you.
Click here to access the Founder Flywheel Template.
Fill it out and get your flywheel spinning!
I can't wait to see your business take off.
Once it's up and running, don't hesitate to share your flywheels with me on Twitter.
And one last thing before I go -
I'm hiring a General Manager for Founder OS.
The General Manager will serve as the leader of our internal operations and manage a team of 14 people, ensuring smooth execution and growth.
The ideal candidate has run a successful business to $10M+ a year similar to Founder OS.
If you're interested in joining the Founder OS team and have the relevant qualifications - send your resume and a 4-minute Loom video of why you are the best candidate for the role to matt@founderos.com.
Let's win together 🥇
Matt Gray
P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
#1: Ready to grow your personal brand to $5 million or more? Let's chat. >>> Click here to apply for your Founder Clarity Call with my team
#2: Have you seen my YouTube Channel? I'm putting a ton of energy into creating heaps of valuable content that I think you'll like. Come check out my latest stuff, and give me a like and subscribe.
#3: Promote your brand to over 65,000 subscribers by sponsoring this newsletter (booking into January 2024).
#4: Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn for more operating systems, marketing tips, and community-building systems.
I recently had the pleasure of having a great conversation with the legend, Dan Martell.
Dan Martell is an author, entrepreneur, angel investor, thought leader, and highly sought-after coach in the SaaS (software as a service) industry.
He founded, scaled, and successfully exited three technology companies within a ten-year period.
In our one-hour conversation, we discuss:
I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and I hope you will too.
Check it out here:
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The proof is in the pudding. Matt's approach has helped grow Herb into a major media company with a massive community, and his personal brand continues to grow impressively.
Investor | Entrepreneur | Creator
Matt’s advice is super on point because it’s practical. He’s gone through and done everything that he preaches. If you don’t want to spend hours digging up frameworks on content, growth, marketing, and general startup advice - talk to Matt, read his newsletter, or sign up for his course.
Founder, Zarta
Matt is an absolute beast when it comes to audience and community growth. He goes above and beyond to help founders - you can tell he genuinely cares. Would highly recommend working with him.
Founder, Figure, Archer, Vettery
