In this episode, Nick speaks with Matt Cavanaugh about what it’s like to start a business in college… during a pandemic and how to manage your mindset along the way.

About Matt Cavanaugh

Matt specializes in the tech industry and aspires to change the world through various entrepreneurial ventures. He is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Helpt, an on-demand freelance work service application that serves as a marketplace to connect freelancers and people alike.

Resources:

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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

00:00:08:21 – 00:00:31:24
Nick McGowan
Hello and welcome to The Mindset and Self-mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. And on this show, my guest and I unpack the stories that shape us and the lives we lead on our path to self-mastery. Today on the show, we have Matt Cavanaugh Matt’s the CEO of a service based company called Helped. That’s 80 LPT and its goal is to be the Amazon of Services.

00:00:31:29 – 00:00:54:28
Nick McGowan
And he’s doing it all while managing a full course load in college. He credits the pandemic as the catalyst for he and a buddy creating the company and shares the ups and downs of starting the company, doing a global pandemic and how to best manage your mindset through tough situations like that. So let’s not wait any longer. Let the games begin.

00:00:58:07 – 00:01:00:10
Nick McGowan
Hey, Matt, welcome to the show. How are you doing, man?

00:01:00:20 – 00:01:09:22
Matt Cavanaugh
I’m doing well. Thank you very much for having me on. I’ve watched a lot of your podcast in the past and all the time. I’m glad you reached out to me via LinkedIn.

00:01:10:19 – 00:01:26:25
Nick McGowan
I appreciate that, man. I think it was actually you who reached out to me about the show. Either way, you know, I’m constantly on LinkedIn. It seems like you might be one of those people. I think that’s a good way to be able to connect with people that are not only doing podcast, but people like yourself that are starting companies.

00:01:26:25 – 00:01:33:13
Nick McGowan
So. But why don’t we start here? Why don’t you tell us one thing you do for a living and maybe one thing that most people don’t know about you?

00:01:34:05 – 00:01:58:08
Matt Cavanaugh
Yeah. So currently I’m in college. I’m a college student at the University of Buffalo. I have an app which is a marketplace where freelancers can connect with people who need jobs and services completed. So to explain a little bit more, we have 15 different services that we offer, everything from landscaping to tutoring to electricians to plumbers you can find on the app.

00:01:58:27 – 00:02:17:21
Matt Cavanaugh
So I’ve been working on that for a little over two years. And, you know, we just launched the day before Thanksgiving. So we’ve been out for a very short period of time. We’re in our beta phase with that and that on the side to add to it, because that’s a startup tax. We earn income. I’m a waiter at a restaurant in Buffalo as well.

00:02:18:04 – 00:02:36:13
Matt Cavanaugh
And yeah, I mean, I just tore my ACL, my knee skiing. So I guess that could be, you know, the answer to know something. Not a lot of people know about me. I haven’t really told that many people just because I don’t know exactly if it’s an I’m out and an ACL or exactly how I’m going to be out.

00:02:36:13 – 00:02:57:01
Matt Cavanaugh
So I just kind of just play it by ear as I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow for that. But but yeah, the Cheesecake Factory is where I’m a waiter. You know, great tips there when when you’re able to walk around and then helped out. That’s my startup company. That’s my dream. That’s my vision, is to really grow that.

00:02:57:13 – 00:03:16:01
Nick McGowan
So we were talking before we actually hit record that everybody at some point has to work at a restaurant. You’ve got to be front of house because if you don’t know how to handle people, that’ll teach you. That’ll teach you how to work with those conversations where people are yelling at you about it. You’re like, But I. I can’t make your food for you.

00:03:16:03 – 00:03:36:02
Nick McGowan
Like, I can only give you the food or get your drinks. Stop yelling at me. But now you’re going to be stuck in the back. Just rolling everybody’s silverware. So I’m sure all those waiters, waitresses will appreciate. Like, just give Matt all the silverware. Let him do it. He’ll stay there then. I’ve never actually busted my ankle or ACL.

00:03:36:02 – 00:03:48:28
Nick McGowan
I’ve had a couple of friends that have done that. But how are you managing right now, knowing that you’re probably looking at 6 to 8 weeks of a boot and wander around and try to build your business and make money? How’s your mind doing?

00:03:50:03 – 00:04:14:02
Matt Cavanaugh
Yeah. So, I mean, when it first happened, you know, I was I was upset, obviously, just because I need money to go into my company and then we’re actually saving up to go to Silicon Valley this summer for our app. So obviously, Silicon Valley, that’s a very high cost of living, especially when, you know, come from Buffalo, where we’re at right now, where the cost of living is lower.

00:04:14:11 – 00:04:45:11
Matt Cavanaugh
And I mean, as soon as I tore it, I knew it was torn right away. I was just and as soon as I went down right away, I was thinking I was like Silicon Valley of the summer. Like, I’m not going to be able to do it. Like, the only way I thought I was going to be able to get there was if I waited tables, made enough money doing that, which is really good money would be the only way, like a normal minimum wage job would be very difficult to have and then be able to save up enough money to go to Silicon Valley this summer.

00:04:46:27 – 00:05:06:06
Matt Cavanaugh
So, you know, when I sat down, I kind of realized, well, you know, I don’t know exactly what it is yet. I the doctor does know it’s an MCO. It’s just the MCO. You know, you don’t always need to get surgery. It may not be that bad of an injury. If it’s an ACL, too, that’s a lot worse than injury.

00:05:06:06 – 00:05:30:04
Matt Cavanaugh
You know, you got to get the surgery. You’re out for, you know, six plus weeks, whatever it is. Exactly. So, you know, I don’t know exactly what it is yet. Like I said, my like find out and you know, we’ll go from there. But I am rolling silverware in the back of the restaurant. I am taking business calls from the back, talking to the other lady, Audra, who works next to me.

00:05:30:04 – 00:05:52:17
Matt Cavanaugh
And, you know, we’re making the best of the situation and that’s really all you can do. Right? But I don’t think it’ll stop me from going this summer. I still plan on going and figuring it out one way or another, you know, so there’s not some, you know, part a part of the show, honestly. And how this ties in mindset, you know, you’re going to have adversity.

00:05:52:22 – 00:06:10:06
Matt Cavanaugh
I’ve had a lot of adversities with just starting the company, a lot more adversity this past two years with the company than I ever had in my entire life. And, you know, you just have to overcome those those things and literally just fight through them. And, you know, that’s that’s how you have a successful life.

00:06:10:25 – 00:06:32:04
Nick McGowan
I think there’s adversity and then there’s being a Buffalo Bills fan and having to deal with all of that, at least you guys are starting to look good now. And look, I’m originally from Philly, so I bleed green. And when I think of MCL and ACL, I think of Carson Wentz going down and how that changed everything for him and I wish I could say a better situation, but I don’t think he’s going to be on the Colts next year.

00:06:33:05 – 00:06:54:23
Nick McGowan
But the fact that you’ve been through some craziness over the past two years isn’t unlike most people, but it sounds like you’re craziness is a bit different where some people have gone through health issues and COVID type stuff. Let’s kind of recoil a little bit, though, and take a step back. How did you actually get to the point that you wanted to start the company?

00:06:54:26 – 00:07:02:28
Nick McGowan
Do you have entrepreneurs in your family like, was this just an idea that came up because you’re like, Look, I’m trying to help my neighbors and give us a little bit of background.

00:07:03:21 – 00:07:31:10
Matt Cavanaugh
Yeah. So my partner and I originally came up with the idea when we were DoorDash and pandemic hit and really all of the stars aligned for this company to be built. Like if COVID never happened, this company probably wouldn’t exist if I couldn’t of gotten the DoorDash app on my phone for some reason, they wouldn’t let me sign up as a DoorDash or I have no idea why it just wouldn’t let me do it.

00:07:31:19 – 00:07:51:19
Matt Cavanaugh
So I was like, I got my body. I was like, We need to DoorDash. Like, I want kind of want a DoorDash. Like, I know you have the app. Like, I’ll drive my car. He didn’t have a car, right? So all these stars are aligning for us to be DoorDash in together. I mean, I’m great buddies with the guy, but it was all for money because we split everything.

00:07:51:19 – 00:08:08:13
Matt Cavanaugh
So I. What were you really making? Like, there’s no way you make more than $20 an hour DoorDash thing, and let’s say you made $22 an hour. We’re splitting that. So it’s a love in a piece, you know what I mean? And then I’m paying for the gas. So, I mean, it really made no sense for me to be doing that.

00:08:08:13 – 00:08:30:09
Matt Cavanaugh
But COVID just had we were like kind of bored, honestly. We’re like, you know, we’re going to mess around on DoorDash, try to make some money. We’re doing it. We were like, Wow, you know, this kind of way the first day it was fun. Then the second day we did in a row, we were kind of like, All right, this kind of sucks in a matter of what it is doing the same thing the entire time and doesn’t pay like really all that.

00:08:30:09 – 00:08:48:04
Matt Cavanaugh
God, you know, it’s, it’s damn near minimum wage. What you’re making on DoorDash. And we were like, I wish there was a way that, like, we could use our talents, you know? And we were like, I would test we have. So, you know, I played hockey and he played Blue Cross and I this was at the time as well.

00:08:48:04 – 00:09:11:13
Matt Cavanaugh
So this is my freshman year of college and he did a post-graduate year. So he was going to be a freshman and we were like, you know, Hocking Lacrosse. Can we teach these sports through like an app? Like what if there’s an app where we could go to like a middle schoolers house and like train them in, like, hockey or lacrosse and like, not like we couldn’t find anything like that, first of all.

00:09:11:26 – 00:09:31:20
Matt Cavanaugh
So we thought we had this, like, original idea. And then we said, Why stop at just hockey lacrosse? We said, like, let’s just do like there’s way bigger markets, right? Like people need services and you know, personal trainers, anything all the time. So we said, all right, we’re going to open it up and be like an Amazon of services.

00:09:31:21 – 00:09:49:21
Matt Cavanaugh
They just literally like the term we use, like Amazon services. And we thought we had this like super original idea and turns out it wasn’t all that original. You know, there are other companies out there that that kind of do what we did, but we kind of saw it as an opportunity. We said, you know, no one’s ever hurt.

00:09:49:21 – 00:10:10:06
Matt Cavanaugh
Like we’ve never heard of these companies. None of our friends of it never used the really not in our area or that problem. Let’s go for it. Like let’s try and actually create this. And we’ve at the beginning we were I mean, we were so like new in the business and like everything we sat down and we made a list.

00:10:10:18 – 00:10:36:28
Matt Cavanaugh
We spent a long time on this list like ours on this list. And it was every possible service that you could ever imagine. Like to like a handicap bookie or a handicap play oddsmaker, like to help you with sports betting like that was one of the they were so specific like that consulting of everything under the sun. There was literally thousands of different services.

00:10:37:15 – 00:10:58:18
Matt Cavanaugh
And then, you know, when we were creating the app, we outsourced it originally and we went to the people and they were like, You guys can’t do all these these different things. Like who’s like, how are you going to sell? Like, even like 20 of these different services? And we’re like, okay, so we scaled it down and then that sort of came to 16.

00:10:58:28 – 00:11:22:08
Matt Cavanaugh
But, but, yeah, that’s really where it came from. Just literally DoorDash and my buddy looked at me and said, Why don’t we use our talents? You know, I said, Was it to be an app? And then from that, that point forward, you know, we stopped DoorDash and we started working on this company and trying to really create something, something, something out of it.

00:11:23:05 – 00:11:46:01
Nick McGowan
I’m sure there was also a lot more than just like, oh, well, you know, I’m into hockey. You’re in a lacrosse shit. Let’s make a list of fouls, dozens of different things we can do. So how did you jump from like, well, we’re going to teach people the sports that we know to what are the other things and the overall 15 list you came up with.

00:11:46:09 – 00:11:47:25
Nick McGowan
What what’s the importance of that.

00:11:48:21 – 00:12:11:11
Matt Cavanaugh
Yeah. So what really happened was, you know, how it transitioned from hockey and lacrosse to like the Amazon of services. We kind of sat down where you said like, okay, like hockey and lacrosse. Those are pretty popular sports in our area. But we said, you know, are people going to want to download a singular app just to do those different things?

00:12:11:11 – 00:12:34:26
Matt Cavanaugh
Like, we kind of thought that was too niche. And then we said, you know, people don’t need those things every day. So to say. So we said like, let’s just let’s do different categories. Like we’ll have a personal training, but like why don’t we do like, like landscapers and things of that sort? Because we had done mathematics, we did landscaping together over the one summer.

00:12:34:26 – 00:13:02:21
Matt Cavanaugh
I think it was like two summers before that. We, we found this guy Craigslist hired us for the whole summer to be landscapers with him. But we kind of thought, you know, we’ve done a lot of this stuff. I had I posted on Home Advisor that I could move parts. So me and him went to this guy’s house the one day, and I think he gave us like five or $600 and we just scraped the popcorn students off of this kitchen.

00:13:02:21 – 00:13:32:27
Matt Cavanaugh
And we were kind of like, All right, we can do this sort of stuff. Why wasn’t the app open up to more categories? And then that’s where the Amazon, the services kind of came from. And we didn’t realize that like, oh, like how are we ever going to be able to sell these these different they are so early on and then once they started kind of thinking about creating the app, the developers, you know, they obviously came back to us and said, well, first of all, there would be a ton of work to like type all of these in here.

00:13:33:18 – 00:13:54:11
Matt Cavanaugh
Second of all, like you guys, like the business model wouldn’t make sense if you guys did that. And yet we’re so early on in the business, like we really weren’t thinking things through what we do now. Like now if we want to add something and you know, there’s certain questions that have to be checkmarks off, everything is way more strategic.

00:13:55:08 – 00:14:24:03
Matt Cavanaugh
You know, there’s more systems put in the place just because we’ve been doing it longer. But at the start, a lot of things were just very sporadic. But that was good because that’s what was able to get us to kind of actually get moving on the company because one of the things that I really believe is when you’re first starting out with anything, you know, your early momentum is key because like you come up with this idea and then it’s like, all right, like how fast can you just like get moving on it?

00:14:25:01 – 00:14:43:04
Matt Cavanaugh
And then you just want to like attack, attack, attack. Because once you lose that early momentum, then you’re kind of like, okay, I like this company’s strategy. Non, you know, you, you get on motivated. It’s hard to me with like other ideas I’ve had in the past. I could just swarm like, oh, like, this is the next big idea.

00:14:43:05 – 00:15:02:03
Matt Cavanaugh
Go tell my mom, you know, I go and tell her like I even told her about the outfit and she was kind of like, all right, like this is another one of your ideas where to see if you go out and do something with that. And that got that early momentum part, partly due to COVID, partly due to us kind of like isolating ourselves away from everything.

00:15:02:03 – 00:15:07:11
Matt Cavanaugh
And we came in and we kind of said, you know, we’re just going to attack this company. And then it went on from there.

00:15:08:03 – 00:15:29:17
Nick McGowan
I think you had a couple key things that a lot of people miss out on as you go through and you figure out ideas of stuff that you want to do. Just fucking do something, just do something, start moving on something. A lot of people forget that there’s such power in the momentum and they don’t even start it because then they think, Well, there’s all this other stuff and you know, what about these things?

00:15:29:17 – 00:15:46:26
Nick McGowan
So at one end, now that you know, you know, you’ll know that going into the next situation, like, oh, you know what? We should really think about production. How are we going to produce this stuff? What are we going to do? How are we going to fulfill this and actually service all of this? And that’s something you kind of have to learn.

00:15:46:26 – 00:16:05:14
Nick McGowan
But the fact that you actually took that step and were like, let’s just do it. Let’s just start moving and start doing things with it. There’s a lot of power within just taking those steps. So how was your partner with that and understanding that you guys just need to act upon something and kind of keep that momentum going?

00:16:06:14 – 00:16:24:14
Matt Cavanaugh
Yeah. So he was the one to really instill this like crazy mindset in that the company, like he was the first one to like, I don’t know where he came up with that. I don’t know if you stumbled upon a YouTube video and all of a sudden like he just kind of said, like, this is what we have to do.

00:16:24:24 – 00:16:49:06
Matt Cavanaugh
I think part of it was due to the fact he went away to prep school and views on here. He would tell you guys all about it. He’s actually working right now to earn money so we can, you know, help our company have to be one of the days he got scheduled, but he went to Loomis Chaffee Prep School and did a post-graduate year there.

00:16:49:06 – 00:17:12:26
Matt Cavanaugh
And I think he was surrounded his prep school dorm. They’re pretty strict and that really changed his mindset. And then when we started the company, I think he saw kind of what it would take for this to to go where we wanted to go. Right. Like how is this company even going to so like we can’t act or operate or, you know, do things the way we used to do things, right?

00:17:13:18 – 00:17:38:11
Matt Cavanaugh
We almost got to, you know, reinvent ourselves as as individuals. And, you know, like I keep saying, COVID hit. And that was the perfect excuse for us to tell people we can’t go out, you know, where we’re working on stuff and then I kind of sat, I looked and I go, can’t wait. Any going out, any anything that’s going on in the world right now is pretty much put to a halt.

00:17:38:11 – 00:18:01:06
Matt Cavanaugh
You know, we’re not missing anything by just spending Friday and Saturday nights working on this app because there’s nothing really going on anyway, you know, and you know that that was really key because we were able to get ahead on those Friday and Saturday nights by, you know, staying in and working on the company. So now we’re working seven days a week just trying to get this thing, you know, to something that can be launched.

00:18:01:06 – 00:18:32:28
Matt Cavanaugh
We’re talking with everyone we can possibly talk to on LinkedIn. You know, we’re doing crazy mindset things where, you know, we’re we’re meeting up with each other and we’re saying you can only talk business professionally for the next 8 hours straight. You know, we’ve done when the semester starts for school, most kids do. How or most kids do like it’s called like syllabus week at college, right where you can go out with the class.

00:18:32:28 – 00:18:52:15
Matt Cavanaugh
They’re super easy. Everyone goes out. Parties not knocking that, but, you know, in order to build a company, you know, we’re trying to build, we said, you know, we have to be way different than we’re going to forgo our college experience, you know, to to make this happen right now, you know, so and we were totally willing to do it.

00:18:53:21 – 00:19:13:07
Matt Cavanaugh
And, you know, I do remember he was the first one to really come up with that that crazy mindset. And then he kind of put that mindset on me. And then now it’s just we we push each other. It’s almost like it’s almost like a competition. And like parents, it’s like, all right, who poo does more work? You know what I mean?

00:19:13:07 – 00:19:29:14
Matt Cavanaugh
We’re constantly competing. Like, if you’re going to hop on and, you know, after a long day at work school and everything, you’re going to hop on a call at 1230 at night. You know, I’m going to get on and we’re both going to work, you know, and we and we do work on the company. It’s an every day.

00:19:29:14 – 00:19:57:18
Matt Cavanaugh
So at this point, it’s an everyday thing, totally. But back to the syllabus week three, the start of each semester, we call it a hell week and it’s kind of like a nice reset in the matter of, you know, we wake up at 6 a.m. in the morning, the first thing you do in the day, you want a three mile run, and then the rest of the day for a whole week, we have everything mapped out to I get t you know, there’s no nap during the day.

00:19:57:18 – 00:20:19:10
Matt Cavanaugh
There’s no there’s no going out. There’s no like it’s a straight grind mode thing. And because it’s that first week of school, you know, most of the time helped or it’s like working an actual job. But, you know, that’s that that kind of gets us in the right mindset to say, all right, you know, we’re going to have a semester of all other school.

00:20:19:10 – 00:20:43:27
Matt Cavanaugh
The school gets, you know, gets in the way of things. So, you know, this is going to be a nice reset. This is you know, we’re walking in on a great foot going forward every semester when we do that. So that’s just another one of those little mindset things that that we do just just to reset, to say, all right, let’s make we’re going to attack this semester and then and move forward with that.

00:20:44:13 – 00:21:01:26
Nick McGowan
That’s cool that you can play like little games with yourself. It depends on how people work. Some people enjoy the game, some people don’t. They get frustrated even with themselves. Like you said, you were going to do this, damn it. I don’t want to do it, though. And then they fight with themselves and it does run away. But that accountability is huge.

00:21:01:26 – 00:21:34:04
Nick McGowan
So to have somebody else there, to go, yo, we said we would do this thing. We said we’d be on a call. I can. I can tell some of the competition’s there. It’s easy to be in competition with a friend and especially a partner as you guys are building something. The image in my head is almost like it’s not as much competition as it is climbing up like an alley where you’re you got two buildings that are five, six feet across and you have both of you back to back being able to walk up if one of you tries to get up, you’re not Spider-Man.

00:21:34:09 – 00:21:51:15
Nick McGowan
You’re not able to climb the wall. So to be able to have that other person there is huge. But I want to touch on what you said quickly and then kind of like bounce away from it that it’s you and him and it’s the stuff that you guys are working through. You as a person need to be different than you were.

00:21:51:15 – 00:22:11:13
Nick McGowan
And most people when they go to college, especially the first couple of years, they typically major and the other sex and alcohol. And the fact that you’re like, we need to calm down a little bit on that to be able to focus on this stuff. How are you actually working on yourself? What are you doing right now to to manage that mindset and grow.

00:22:11:27 – 00:22:33:27
Matt Cavanaugh
Just like any other college student? We both entered college, you know, we’re the same way. You know, we used to go out all the time, you know, not saying and I’m not knocking anyone who does do this right. A good thing that that someone once told me a good friend of mine told me, you know, he he had his own business.

00:22:35:13 – 00:22:59:21
Matt Cavanaugh
He was actually watching Windows at the time and he turned into a power washing company like you’re very successful. And he told me, he said, you know, we actually lived together. And he kind of looked at me, goes, you know, once you’re ready, dove in and take the step kind of out of this lifestyle, like when you want to dove in on your business.

00:22:59:21 – 00:23:19:22
Matt Cavanaugh
Because I would always say, like, oh, you know, I want to start a business. I want to do this one too. That is like, wait till you’re ready to go in and actually take that stuff works. And you have bags that there’s no point. You might as well just keep messing around, you know, until you’re actually serious where you want to dove head first and you know totally go for it.

00:23:19:22 – 00:23:37:24
Matt Cavanaugh
And so, you know, ever since he told me that, I always kind of took that forward. And then when we finally did start the company, it was kind of like, all right, I’m going to dove in. I’m we’re going to go all in on this. Like, we’re going to stop partying. We’re going to cut the bullshit. We’re not going to act like normal kids, you know?

00:23:37:24 – 00:23:54:10
Matt Cavanaugh
I mean, we’re not going to act like, you know, what these hooligans almost, you know, like we’re going to go hard with this company and we’re not going to look back and we’re going to attack in anything that gets in our way. We’re going to run through that barrier and we’re never going to give up no matter what.

00:23:54:10 – 00:24:15:17
Matt Cavanaugh
There are so many times when, you know, we could have given up and me and my partner, swear to God, look at each other. And we said this would become $1,000,000,000 company. And in the beginning it was almost like we were just kind of saying that to each other. But now there’s a true belief that both of us do believe that it will get there.

00:24:15:29 – 00:24:48:07
Matt Cavanaugh
And the only the literally the only thing that’s stopping us is ourselves. Right? That’s literally the only thing that could ever get in the way of this. Becoming $1,000,000,000 company is something that we personally do ourselves, which could be, you know, like getting a girlfriend that distracts you. Right? We both had girlfriends at the time and decided, all right, we have like we’re cutting these out because they don’t align with where we want to go, with what our dreams are.

00:24:48:07 – 00:24:48:16
Matt Cavanaugh
Right.

00:24:50:16 – 00:25:18:27
Matt Cavanaugh
Another thing could be, you know, the partying, the going out, all the bullshit, you know, you cut out that out, you’re going to have so much more time and it’ll always be there. Two partying girls going out, hanging out. We’ll always be there for the rest of your life. It’s not going anywhere, you know? And one of my things is that I think of like, oh, like everyone’s going out, you know, that’s not something you think about.

00:25:18:27 – 00:25:35:25
Matt Cavanaugh
This is like the mindset part of it too. I This is just like a way of thinking is, you know, no one’s going to talk about that one specific time. Everyone went out a year from now, you know what I mean? Like there’s so many opportunities for it to happen and there will be for the rest of your life.

00:25:36:18 – 00:25:57:14
Matt Cavanaugh
So that’s one of the things, you know, for the viewers, that’s one of the things that is kind of like distracting you or you’re wasting your time on, you know, cut it out, you know, grind for a couple of years. And then when you come back to it, you know, you’re not going to be partying in a basement or wherever you’re going to be, you know, out at sea on a fricking yacht.

00:25:57:27 – 00:26:02:10
Matt Cavanaugh
You know, that’s that’s the type of way we’re we’re thinking over here with that.

00:26:02:25 – 00:26:20:08
Nick McGowan
I think there’s a balance that needs to be had no matter what you do. You know, if you just lock yourself in a room and just keep working and working and working. Yeah, dude, honestly, that’ll work for a bit and you can keep it going, but at some point you’re going to be driven mad. You’ve got to be able to have some sort of balance.

00:26:20:12 – 00:26:44:21
Nick McGowan
I mean, shit, when you think about we need to be able to actually sleep. If you can’t just work throughout the day and throughout the night, maybe vampires. But you know, I don’t really know any of those actual vampires. Some people just seem that way. But when you think of like you have to take those little eight hour or six hour just jaunts away, how are you balancing right now to understand like, yeah, I get it, you’re not going to go out.

00:26:44:21 – 00:27:01:00
Nick McGowan
You’re not going to party, you ditch the girl. And like all of that, that’s appreciated for the journey. But how are you actually managing balancing life where you have some you time where you go ah, it seemed to relax for a minute, get my shit together and then I get fired up and go back into it.

00:27:02:12 – 00:27:24:12
Matt Cavanaugh
Yeah, for sure. One good away is you combine them so you know, some downtime maybe, you know, you do go out, right? So I go out, you know, I like to do 13 days on, one day off, take every other Saturday and go do something for it, you know what I mean? But I like to combine that with, all right, like we’re going to go out.

00:27:24:27 – 00:27:46:04
Matt Cavanaugh
I, I mean, go out with people who also own their own companies. You know, our entrepreneurial mindset. And what ends up happening is, you know, all these people want to grow, you know, in or drink in. We’re out, we’re getting food, mean we’re even out at the club. But, you know, a lot of the talk is still centered towards business at the end of the day.

00:27:46:13 – 00:28:09:08
Matt Cavanaugh
And you’re still you’re relaxing or you’re having a great time with your with your friends, but you’re also learning at the same time and you’re and you’re saying and it’s not to the level that it is when you’re, you know, sitting, it’s different, right? It’s a different perspective. But, you know, a lot of the really high, high level successful people, you know, we just kind of started doing this.

00:28:09:08 – 00:28:30:03
Matt Cavanaugh
But a lot of the really high level successful people say like they’ve combined their work and their, you know, normal life and it’s just kind of merged into one because like, this is what I want to do, this is what I enjoy doing. I enjoy talking about business. And, you know, all of our friends are the same way, you know, right there in the business.

00:28:30:03 – 00:28:50:09
Matt Cavanaugh
They’re starting their own companies, you know, one of them starting a saw company. Right now he’s out in California. So when we talk on the phone, like, I’m relaxing, like that’s my time off. But, you know, we’re still talking about the business gets worked into it, you know, so we’re kind of living this lifestyle where, you know, we’re grinding our asses off.

00:28:50:09 – 00:29:04:08
Matt Cavanaugh
But then when we’re not, we’re hanging out. We’re having a good time, obviously, but that business is still worked into it as well, which is pretty nice being able to have that kind of set up that we do where it’s like that.

00:29:04:26 – 00:29:23:22
Nick McGowan
Some people have this fantasy about work life balance and that has been the thing probably since the fifties or sixties when they wanted to be able to do work and then go home and have the nuclear family and all that stuff. And I think what you hit on is a big thing that people are now starting to realize that, no, it’s just a life balance.

00:29:24:05 – 00:29:41:18
Nick McGowan
You’ve got to be balanced within life and you got to do the thing that fucking matters to you. If you don’t, the fuck are you doing? And I know when I have those times where I need to just step away and I have conversations with friends that’s similar where we’ll get into things because that’s the echelon of people that I choose to have around me.

00:29:41:26 – 00:29:59:03
Nick McGowan
It sounds like you’re in that spot now where you’re starting to choose those people, and that gets back to you where, you know, if you said it, you’re like, I like to have these conversations, but I just go out and get fucking blackout drunk and whatever happens happens. You’re not really able to have those conversations that you want to have.

00:29:59:11 – 00:30:14:26
Nick McGowan
So it’s interesting that you’ve hit on systems where, you know, you have your 13, one, 13 days on one day I’ll go off, I’ll go do these different things. I think there’s there’s something in there that some people don’t realize. Are you familiar with the habit stacking?

00:30:15:21 – 00:30:16:24
Matt Cavanaugh
Habit stacking?

00:30:17:03 – 00:30:43:04
Nick McGowan
What’s kind of where where you put yourself into a situation to do something that’s habitual and then add in another habit? I’ll give you an example. So every morning I meditate, I journal, and I do a handful of other things that are like part of my morning, my miracle morning, in a sense. But every single day when I meditate, I know that I’m journaling next or I’m journaling first and then meditating because I’ve stacked those two together.

00:30:43:15 – 00:31:00:10
Nick McGowan
That sounds like you’ve kind of put yourself in that spot without even realizing it, which is great to be able to go off. I’m going to do these things. I’m going to do these other things as well. And I want to take a little bit of a step back because I don’t think that’s maybe consistently an innate trait.

00:31:00:14 – 00:31:09:05
Nick McGowan
I think people have to get that from somewhere. So did you grow up in an entrepreneurial household? Do you have family members that are entrepreneurs? Like where did the bug come from?

00:31:09:28 – 00:31:34:06
Matt Cavanaugh
Yeah. So I would say my mother, she didn’t own her own business, but she was marketing. She was sales like commission based sales. So she was almost like her own boss, you know, like in order to get food on the table, she had to sell the product. And if you saw the product, there was a flood, which she did very well at selling the product.

00:31:35:08 – 00:32:02:07
Matt Cavanaugh
You know, there would even become points where she’d say, know her boss or the company owner, you know, would cut her below her commission rate because she was just earning so much, you know, often that number to him, it just seemed absurd that a sales person at the company could be amazing, you know? So she would always be, you know, on the phone, you know, when I was little, I would see her on the phone by taking these, like, business calls, you know, where I have to be quiet.

00:32:02:07 – 00:32:26:12
Matt Cavanaugh
And then she’d talk and like it’s almost like project managing the staff to ensure that it gets out to the customer because she’d sell stuff that the company couldn’t even offer, but she’d say they would, and then she’d outsource it and do that whole thing as well. So she was almost acting as like a product manager, almost seemed like she was like running the company the way she was sending out orders to all these other people.

00:32:26:28 – 00:32:42:10
Matt Cavanaugh
And then I was, you know, I always just knew like even at kindergarten, like, you would write, what do you want to be when you’re older? And I would write a business man. I’m like, That’s what I want to do. I wanted to own a business and I didn’t know what. I didn’t know what it was going to be, but I wanted it to be big.

00:32:42:25 – 00:32:55:05
Matt Cavanaugh
I wanted to be like, you know, that sort of like dream that you have when you own your own company. Like it’s a big company. And that was always my that was always my dream growing up.

00:32:55:07 – 00:33:16:10
Nick McGowan
Yeah. And it sounds like you you learned that from your parents. You know, some people learned how to be shitty from their parents. Some people also learn how to how to start a business or run a business. The image in my head as you’re talking about that is you just kind of witnessing your mom do what she was doing and you just absorbing that then through osmosis.

00:33:16:10 – 00:33:39:20
Nick McGowan
I’m sure that’s translated in some of your conversations, even resourcefulness to be like, How do I figure this out? What do I need to do? You you you’re going to help me? Can you help me? Can you help me? You know, to be in that sort of spot, I think has to come from somebody that’s been there. I grew up in an entrepreneurial household, one half of the house, the other half not the same house, but different house wasn’t entrepreneurial all.

00:33:39:20 – 00:34:02:03
Nick McGowan
So I was able to see kind of the contrast between them and being able to see that and have that almost initial balance can be key. So you and your partner right now are trying to figure out how to grow this thing, want to take it a little bit of a sidestep to where you’re at right now and where your head’s at and what you’re going through and all.

00:34:02:09 – 00:34:11:04
Nick McGowan
Are there any major moments or episodes that you’ve been through in life that you can look at and say, That was one of those times it changed me. It’s actually been a benefit to where you’re at now.

00:34:11:24 – 00:34:38:21
Matt Cavanaugh
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly, you know, one instance where, like, we were at like a point where, you know, like things just like magically snapped or like I look back, be like I learned like something at this specific moment with the company. I feel like, you know, every day is like a little learning experience. And like Norbit, it’s a slow moving voice.

00:34:38:21 – 00:35:01:09
Matt Cavanaugh
None of it happens overnight. Like, you don’t just wake up and that you have all these users using your product or you don’t. One day you know, it come down to one decision where, you know, it’s like, Oh, that’s what made this company, you know? It’s like there’s so many small little facets that we had to go through and like, we made mistakes.

00:35:01:21 – 00:35:26:28
Matt Cavanaugh
Like we made a lot of mistakes, you know, from, you know, I would say one of them, I mean, you look at it like it’s hard, though, because I look at these mistakes. I say, like, if we were to make like we had to make that mistake, you know what I mean? Like we outsourced our company, you know, we paid tens of thousands of dollars to get in that belt when we probably shouldn’t have did that.

00:35:26:28 – 00:35:45:10
Matt Cavanaugh
But, you know, who would have believed us to what developed or what would we have been able to convince that early on that we wouldn’t have had to pay, that we could just pay them in equity, you know what I mean? Like we had to like those are just things that like we had to make mistakes and we had to do those certain things.

00:35:45:21 – 00:36:11:12
Matt Cavanaugh
And then you come out of it, you were, you know, now I know you want your team fully in-house. That’s like rule number one. And I’m not knocking the outsourcing agency that we that we use. I’m just saying, you know from a startup experience, you want to generally as much as you possibly can have everything done in-house just because you’re able to oversee it way more, you’re able to watch it way more.

00:36:11:12 – 00:36:37:20
Matt Cavanaugh
And again, that’s that’s what we learned by outsourcing our original product. I could say probably one of the toughest things to do was just the whole mindset thing behind that, right? Like becoming that different at the end of the day. Like I’m still the same guy that I was before I start the like deep down, like same values.

00:36:37:20 – 00:37:06:26
Matt Cavanaugh
Like it’s not like you drastically change, you start to change your behavior. So I’d say so, you know, now I have a calendar with everything is written down throughout the day. You know, there’s, there’s more focus. But what I’m doing, there’s, there’s these little things that we do, you know, how we do the, how we do the 13 days on one day off because because we have to and because we enjoy it too.

00:37:06:26 – 00:37:27:29
Matt Cavanaugh
You know, there’s the company wouldn’t work if we didn’t do that. Right. And oh, once it is going to pay off, that’s that’s another thing. It’s like it’s like what a doctor starting a company is pretty much the same thing is like a doctor going to med school, like using they’re sitting in med school saying like, oh my God, this is like so much fun.

00:37:27:29 – 00:37:50:16
Matt Cavanaugh
Like, I love med school. I know they’re probably like, this is a lot of work, you know, like any logical person wouldn’t do it if the end goal wasn’t, you know, this great feeling of accomplishment, which is kind of what we’re chasing, is that just, you know, feeling of like, wow, like I did. I had this crazy high goal and I went out there and accomplished that.

00:37:50:16 – 00:38:06:15
Matt Cavanaugh
And, you know, you see so many people out there are like those type of people where they want to do that, like support of climbing Mount Everest. You know what I mean? Like you get to you put in all this hard work and you finally get to the top and it’s like, oh, my, you know, you get that really good feeling.

00:38:06:24 – 00:38:29:06
Matt Cavanaugh
And it’s just like your brain producing like crazy most dope men, but you’re like, Wow, this is like a really good experience. You can look back and you can say, You know, I’ve worked super hard for a prolonged period of time to be able to to accomplish this. And, you know, it taught me this, this and that. And, you know, and you take all the positives away from it and learn from all the negatives.

00:38:30:12 – 00:38:52:04
Matt Cavanaugh
You know, that’s essentially kind of what we’re doing. And, you know, you’ve definitely I feel like everyone’s experienced this, but you know, yourself with the podcast, you know, there was definitely hard work, you know, that had to be put in to to get to where you’re at right now to get people hitting you up and asking you to come on and to where you have a selective process now.

00:38:52:15 – 00:39:05:03
Matt Cavanaugh
So but you know, and that the earlier days, it was probably, you know, a little bit easier to get on than it is nowadays where you have options, you have different routes that you’re able to go on, do partially.

00:39:05:05 – 00:39:27:15
Nick McGowan
Some of that even came back from, look, we’re we’re different in age. I have started companies, the first company I started was right around how old you are. So I’ve learned so much since then to by the time I’ve jumped into the podcast, this was another part of my business. I’m a coach outside of this, so this is an extension of the business.

00:39:27:27 – 00:39:46:15
Nick McGowan
But I’ve learned a lot through the years and years to go. What do I really want to deal with? How much fucking aggravation do I want to deal with? What do I want this thing to be? And I think understanding, like where you align and what this thing is about, even how we first connected, I told you I didn’t mean to come off just like I’m deflecting.

00:39:46:15 – 00:40:13:23
Nick McGowan
But there’s a purpose to what we’re doing. There’s an aligned purpose to it. And I think when you’re clear on that, you can then go, Huh, what don’t I want? What do I want? And how do I want to go about this? Some of that still trial and error, even as you go like you’re learning, you know, I think you try different things and you’re like, that sucked, but we learned this and if you didn’t do that thing, something else would have sucked and you wouldn’t have learned that.

00:40:14:03 – 00:40:38:03
Nick McGowan
So you have to kind of go through that stuff to be able to understand and learn what you want, what you don’t want. I think one of the biggest things that a lot of people have problems with is themselves. They look at all the shit outside, like even when you’re saying, I want to be able to get to the top of that mountain, I know people that have reached the top of the mountain and they’ve been fucking depressed because they’re like, I did everything I could to get to the top of this mountain.

00:40:38:12 – 00:41:06:09
Nick McGowan
Now I just want to jump off it and there are other people that will hit different mountain tops and they go, All right, well, this is great. Now I can help others or I can do other things, but you’ve got to experience that as you go. Then. That’s why I’ve touched on balance a couple of times, because I think it really boils down to you, you know, like if you’re in that spot where you’re like, I want to do all this, I want to get after this thing, then you can get to a flow state where next thing you know, it’s 1230 at night and you’re on a call with somebody and you’re still rocking

00:41:06:09 – 00:41:24:18
Nick McGowan
and rolling. It’s a beautiful thing, but when you’re grinding yourself to the bone and you’re just literally working the machine into the ground without maintaining it and making sure that it’s oiled and good to go because there are certain times you need to get oiled, go have a couple of drinks, not promoting alcohol, but you know what I mean?

00:41:24:18 – 00:41:44:16
Nick McGowan
Like go out and let loose, be free. Sometimes you got to deal with some of that shit and honestly, man, I actually really appreciate being able to get in a conversation with people. I call them beer conversations because if I can get into a conversation with somebody, we’re having drinks and they go, Look, if you can help me with this, I’m in that.

00:41:44:17 – 00:42:01:03
Nick McGowan
It’s not going to come from a normal like boardroom meeting or some Zoom call where we’re trying to discover all the shit that you’re trying to figure out. There’s depth to that and being able to open up and show some of that underbelly. So showing some of your underbelly here, you’ve been doing this for a couple of years now.

00:42:01:29 – 00:42:16:17
Nick McGowan
Think about somebody who’s just about to start, maybe a buddy or two friends that are sitting there going, you know, we like hockey and we like lacrosse. What do we do? What sort of advice would you give them? Not specifically business, but for their minds, for their mindsets?

00:42:17:00 – 00:42:45:27
Matt Cavanaugh
I would say, you know, literally just attack it with every resource you possibly have. Nothing’s off the table. Go use every resource that you have at your disposal. Be as hungry, untamed as possible, and you’ll learn how to, like, tame the beast and kind of like throw it in and, you know, become like focused on like a really like straight line boy in the beginning.

00:42:45:27 – 00:43:20:02
Matt Cavanaugh
Just like, just go after it, you know, think as hard as you possibly can. You just do everything at 190%, you know, especially the beginning, you know, that’s that’s sustainable to to do that for forever, like you said, like you’re going to bury yourself right into the ground. Like, you know, it’s just not realistic. But in the beginning especially, you get like just attack it hard and then get that early momentum so that you’re able to, you know, keep going because, you know, when you’re starting out, you’re on your own.

00:43:20:17 – 00:43:38:14
Matt Cavanaugh
You know what I mean? It’s not like it’s not like you’re going to work for someone and like you show up and like they’re really, like, holding you through the whole process. Like, you know, you’re on your own now. And if this doesn’t work, you know, you’re probably you’re going to have wasted a lot of time, possibly a lot of money, whatever.

00:43:38:14 – 00:44:04:05
Matt Cavanaugh
You’ll have a good learning experience behind that, for sure. No matter what happens, you’re going to learn a lot. But you obviously want more than that. Just to learn. Everyone wants to create something that’s more. So I would say in the beginning, you know, just literally attack it as hard as you possibly can. Don’t give up. And those are really and think really hard about, you know, everything that’s going on like put focus units towards.

00:44:04:05 – 00:44:27:14
Matt Cavanaugh
That is what I like to say. You spend a lot of time at something, but like if your focus units aren’t there, you know what should have taken 4 hours could take you 8 hours. Right. And and yeah that really my main, main thing that anyone who’s who’s starting out and then as you go along, like I said, you know, you tame it and you maintain the balance.

00:44:28:02 – 00:44:47:12
Matt Cavanaugh
You know, another thing that I’ve ever talked about that has helped me a lot is, you know, I’ve always loved to work out. I mean, if I’m working out every day like I can, I can keep I don’t know, I’m not getting bored of working out how I can just keep going. And then, you know, you take those nights off, go have a great time.

00:44:47:13 – 00:45:07:06
Matt Cavanaugh
Every time I go out now I have an absolute blast during I mean, I’m not sitting there like, you know, this sucks right now? I go out, you know, it’s a great, good group of guys that were going with a group of girls. And, you know, we’re going out, we’re having a great time. And, you know, that’s really what it’s all about, you know?

00:45:07:29 – 00:45:26:06
Nick McGowan
Yeah. I mean, I had had a guest on recently that said a shortened version of what you were talking about. And I think this might be something you might be able to take along with you, but sail fast. Being able to sail fast and just quickly, just fuck up, just keep fucking up. Just fuck up, figure it out.

00:45:26:25 – 00:45:44:22
Nick McGowan
But if you don’t mess it up and you don’t do anything about it, then you won’t ever get past that. Where even then those focus units of being able to say, okay, I’m going to block out, time to be able to do these things and kind of burn the boats in a sense, and make sure that you have to sit there and kind of do that stuff.

00:45:45:00 – 00:46:13:18
Nick McGowan
You’re able to fail over and over and over and work through that, and especially if you’ve got somebody else you’re working with. So you’ve got a cool little recipe going where you have accountability with your partner. You guys are fired up and you’re working through stuff, but the fact that you understand that your mindset is a crucial portion of this is something that I think a lot of people that are in their twenties or even people that are just starting a brand new business that don’t matter of in your sixties or seventies, if you’ve worked for somebody else forever, you start your own company.

00:46:13:18 – 00:46:31:19
Nick McGowan
They’re shit. You’re going to learn it. You just wouldn’t have known going into it. And I know there are certain people that are the thinkers of the world, but they think about all these things. You know, let me just think about it and let me just brainstorm it and put it down on paper. Then there other people are like, fuck that, fuck your paper, move, and they’re moving along.

00:46:31:28 – 00:46:48:02
Nick McGowan
I think there’s a bit of a balance to it, so it’s great to hear that you’re you’re working through what that balance looks like because it looks different for everybody else. I mean, I appreciate you being on. I appreciate you being open and honest and talking through this stuff. I’m excited to hear how the company continues to grow.

00:46:48:09 – 00:47:04:06
Nick McGowan
Keep me in the loop. It would be awesome to hear that at some point you are $1,000,000,000 company and I of course want to know how the summer goes. But I also got to hear in a couple of weeks what what happens with your leg there? So as we wrap things up, where can people find you? Where where can they connect with you?

00:47:04:20 – 00:47:31:11
Matt Cavanaugh
Oh, yeah. So, you know, professionally, obviously, like then that’s where, you know, we’re posting all of our company updates, new hires, everything of that sort, you know. So I think if you just search my name, Matthew CAVANAUGH, it’ll come up on there. My LinkedIn, my Instagram matt cavity for that’s more like personal but you know, give me a follow on there as well incorporate the company into that as well.

00:47:31:26 – 00:47:53:02
Matt Cavanaugh
And and yeah, you know, I’ll be around more and more, you know, I want to get in there. I want to get in all social media is heavy eventually. But you know, I think first, in order for you to really grow on those, you got to you got to do something. So I’m making this app successful and then I want to be present more as social media.

00:47:53:02 – 00:48:09:06
Matt Cavanaugh
But later in Instagram give me a follow on LinkedIn is just my name, Instagram Matt Cav 84 and yeah God bless. Thank you very much. Next for having on really appreciate it and yeah God bless stay you’ve.

00:48:09:24 – 00:48:43:08
Nick McGowan
Been a pleasure man. Thank you. Another great conversation on today’s episode of The Mindset and Self-mastery Show. I know some listeners have started companies while in college. Wow. I’m sure there are others who just thought, Man, that would have been such a mess. But I’m sure we can all take note that being overall positive and believing in yourself and your mission is sometimes all you need to build an empire.

00:48:43:17 – 00:49:08:24
Nick McGowan
So what did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the conversation today and if you enjoyed the episode, please jump over to iTunes and subscribe right and leave a five star review. And if you really enjoyed the show, please go ahead and share it with your friends and family and check out the show notes for more info, contact info for Matt and check out other episodes on the Mindset and Self-mastery Show account as well as our YouTube channel.

00:49:09:00 – 00:49:25:10
Nick McGowan
Just go to YouTube and search the Mindset and Self-mastery show. And thank you again, Matt, for being on the show, for being honest, for all real with us. And thank you to you for joining us today. Remember, your mindset matters and so do you.