The Journey: Stories Of Startup Success

June 2025, Talking points:

Keeping profitable whilst managing life stress

The ‘superman’ trap - trying to do it all yourself rather than with a system

Reframing the ideal employee pool and how to get the best from your staff and staffing process

The morality narrative around greed, manipulation, self promotion, advertising and the concept of money

The personality needed to handle crisis as they arise

Planning for the ‘unknown unknowns’ to ensure that unexpected crisis don’t cripple your personal or business life

Book recommendation: ‘Never Split The Difference’ - Chris Voss

Matt’s current focus: An active focus marketing (content creation on social) and potentially increasing awareness around catering. Hiring more staff and writing up the process- Follow @thebeardedpigau & thebeardedpig.com.au

Zac’s current focus: Find the balance of 1:1 work with other duties and life. Continue to build up content and website - Follow @zacpphillips & zachary-phillips.com

March 2025, Talking points:

Social media landscapes and TicTok success

Vanity metrics vs real sales

Reframing competition (other small businesses should be allies)

Scientific approach to testing changes vs feeling it

Picking a strategy

Authenticity and consistency as a marketing strategy

Matt’s current focus: Concerted effort around marketing to grow sales and stress test staff and process (then to fix what breaks) - Follow @thebeardedpigau & thebeardedpig.com.au

Zac’s current focus: Sort out level 2 blogs and website flow, upload counseling promotion video, start hot and cold outreach - Follow @zacpphillips & zachary-phillips.com

January 2025, Talking points:

Navigating life stress as an entrepreneur

The importance of diversification of online income streams

You (or your past self) as your avatar & further refinement

Hypothesis testing, data interpretation, and linked indicators of success

Clarification of avatar, value, and communication through marketing

Motivating employees beyond a paycheck

Matt’s current focus: Completing the webstore. Data driven review of operational efficacy - Follow @thebeardedpigau & thebeardedpig.com.au

Zac’s current focus: Gaining clarity around his avatar and the value on offer. Silent contemplation - Follow @zacpphillips & zachary-phillips.com

September 2024, Talking points:
- What does success even look like?
- Effective communication of expectations and roles to employees
- Leveraging the power of employees to scale businesses
- Outsourcing all tasks that can be more efficiently performed by others
- The meta skills of problem solving & skill attainment being more important than the skill itself
- A willingness to fail as a necessary process of learning the craft and producing quality
- The importance of mental health as a function of business growth
- Tripling down on what is working until that leverage point is maximised
- How to capitalise on viral success
- Knowing the soft and hard bottlenecks that are stopping growth
- 10x is easier than 2x thinking - book recommendation
- Focusing on success metrics (profit) over vanity metrics (social media numbers)
- Focusing on authenticity as a social media strategy

Matt’s current focus: Setting up and releasing a website and online store with SEO optimised
Follow: Matt @thebeardedpigau & thebeardedpig.com.au

Zac’s current focus: Building up the online shop, adding the collection of audio files and video files for purchase. Start promoting Hunt Your Own Shadow
Follow: Zac @zacpphillips & zachary-phillips.com

August 2024, Talking points:
- How to transition from employee to entrepreneurship
- Using mental reframes and mindset shifts to overcome business challenges
- Hiring your 1st employee profitably
- The importance of trust, consistency and self awareness
- Iterative learning, the ‘shotgun’ approach, and try/fail cycles as a method of improvement
- Matt’s ‘3 ways to get paid’ - money, assets, & learning
- What is the next boss and how will you beat it?

Matt’s current focus: Stepping out of service and into a managerial roll, with a look to being able to take time off
Follow: Matt @thebeardedpigau & thebeardedpig.com.au

Zac’s current focus: Transitioning Hunt Your Own Shadow from free to paid and tweaking the email grab
Follow: Zac @zacpphillips & zachary-phillips.com