00:00:00"Most people try to hustle their way to making millions.
00:00:02"I spent the last 16 years learning
00:00:03"the five levels of business,
00:00:05"and now I can work where I want, when I want,
00:00:07"and my portfolio of online businesses
00:00:09"makes me $13 million a year.
00:00:11"Most people fail not because they're lazy,
00:00:13"but because they try to bring level one behaviors
00:00:15"into a level five business.
00:00:16"But the truth is, each level requires a death,
00:00:20"a death of old identity, old systems,
00:00:22"old habits that are keeping you back.
00:00:25"So in this video, I'm breaking down
00:00:26"the five levels of business,
00:00:27"what's going to break at each stage,
00:00:29"and what you need to implement to scale seamlessly.
00:00:32"Let's get into it."
00:00:33Level one, the scrapper.
00:00:34At this level, most people overthink everything
00:00:37and then never start.
00:00:38But the ones who make it, they master one skill
00:00:40that has nothing to do with strategy.
00:00:42When I started BitMaker at 20,
00:00:44I had no idea what I was doing.
00:00:47This was my first business.
00:00:48I was broke.
00:00:50I had hardly any experience, fresh out of business school,
00:00:54and I was delusional.
00:00:55While this was a strength,
00:00:57it also led me to a ton of mistakes.
00:01:01Marketing came down to me.
00:01:03Sales came down to me.
00:01:06Finance, me.
00:01:07Operations, me.
00:01:09Legal, me.
00:01:10And sleep, never.
00:01:13And that had a knock-on effect.
00:01:15You know, the amount of times I thought
00:01:17I just wanted to give up must have been 60, 70 times.
00:01:20I think we glorify the founder journey,
00:01:22but at this stage, you guys know it.
00:01:25Shit can get hard, like real hard.
00:01:29You know, at this stage, really, I think the key thing
00:01:32is to focus on just getting your first customers
00:01:35that love your product.
00:01:37Whether that means outreaching to a thousand people,
00:01:40whether that means creating my personal brand,
00:01:42putting organic content out there,
00:01:43going and hiring great people, whatever it takes,
00:01:46I'm gonna commit to making this idea a success.
00:01:49I'm saying this just to be real with you guys, right?
00:01:51For those of you guys going through this, I get it.
00:01:54One thing I also come back to is this essay from Paul Graham,
00:01:58which is do things that don't scale.
00:02:00You see all these businesses that are going
00:02:02and raising $100 billion or being valued
00:02:04at $500 million or whatever, right?
00:02:06But the reality is that a lot of these big businesses
00:02:08that you admire started off with humble beginnings.
00:02:11You know, Airbnb was just some random email
00:02:14from Joe Gebbia to Brian Chesky saying,
00:02:16"Hey, you know, maybe we should go and try putting a mattress
00:02:20"in the spare bedroom I have for South by Southwest
00:02:23"in Austin this weekend."
00:02:24You know, same thing with Shopify.
00:02:25Started as just an online store for snowboards,
00:02:28slapped together by Toby Lutke.
00:02:30Fast forward 15 years later, $100 billion company.
00:02:34Be okay with doing things that don't scale early on.
00:02:37Focus on building something that people genuinely love.
00:02:41So if you wanna master this level, sell a simple offer.
00:02:44Get outside the building and making sure
00:02:45you're talking to at least 30 customers.
00:02:48Incorporate their feedback in terms of their dreams,
00:02:51their desires back into the product to build something
00:02:54that is irresistible.
00:02:55I strongly suggest you also go
00:02:57and are building your personal brand,
00:02:59putting content out there because at the end of the day,
00:03:02distribution is your moat.
00:03:04Next level, the operator.
00:03:06Most people get stuck here for years.
00:03:08They're making money but dying inside
00:03:10and there's generally one thing they're doing wrong.
00:03:12I had earned my second company.
00:03:14We were making 30 to 50K per month
00:03:16but I was working like an absolute psychopath,
00:03:18really scaling something that at this point
00:03:21was starting to break.
00:03:22Now the issue was that our product, it was not repeatable,
00:03:26it was not scalable and we weren't able
00:03:28to deliver it on time each month.
00:03:30And so what started to happen was that the cash flows
00:03:33of the company got super clunky.
00:03:35What I realized I needed to do was start getting super serious
00:03:37about the people that I had on board
00:03:39and about our product as well.
00:03:41You know, it was important that anything that we sold
00:03:44was scalable, repeatable and can be delivered on time.
00:03:47Now beyond just the product, there was also issues
00:03:49in how I was hiring, right?
00:03:51At this stage, my hiring processes were anything but rigorous.
00:03:55Google's product Oxygen found that the number one trade
00:03:58of high-performing managers isn't charisma, it's systems.
00:04:01This means that the right decisions matters more
00:04:03than just being liked.
00:04:05Now when you think about going
00:04:06and actually scaling your business,
00:04:07I think the things that start to really matter
00:04:09are things like your systems, your taste, your team
00:04:13and the overall culture of the company.
00:04:15You mix that as well with having your own founder-led brands
00:04:18that you're owning your distribution long-term
00:04:20and you've got the system set up for success.
00:04:22So if you wanna move on to the next level,
00:04:24go and document five recurring tasks
00:04:26that you have on your plate.
00:04:27Document them in a Google doc,
00:04:28go and film yourself doing them in a loom,
00:04:31go and determine the person on your team
00:04:33that can then take that off your plate
00:04:35and make sure that they are owning it now going forward.
00:04:38Now you're ready to go and move on to the next level.
00:04:40Your job at level two is to stop being the bottleneck.
00:04:43And if you want my scaling roadmap
00:04:44that breaks down each of these levels
00:04:46and the core checklists that are required
00:04:48to scale seamlessly to the next stage,
00:04:50go and check it out via the link in the description.
00:04:52Level three is one of the most exciting, the CEO.
00:04:54You've built something real, but now you have a new problem.
00:04:57Something that's either gonna make you
00:04:59or break you over the next 12 months.
00:05:00When my second business ERB started crossing 150K per month,
00:05:03I had to go from doing everything to building a machine.
00:05:06I think at this stage, right,
00:05:08you start to become a chief detail officer,
00:05:10trying to work more on the business than in the business
00:05:13by having the right people in place,
00:05:15the right systems in place,
00:05:16so it doesn't all come down to you.
00:05:18Making sure that you're pushing
00:05:19the decisions in your company down
00:05:21so that they don't need to all go and get bubbled up to you
00:05:24by saying, you know, what do you think we should do?
00:05:26And then gradually coaching people
00:05:28and empowering them to go and use their judgment,
00:05:31their intuition and data to make those decisions
00:05:34so that you can focus on the decisions that only you can make.
00:05:38So you're probably wondering as a CEO,
00:05:40with so many things going on,
00:05:42what do you need to focus on?
00:05:44Well, I think it comes down to three things,
00:05:46numbers, people and culture.
00:05:49Getting into the first, numbers.
00:05:51This is where I see 97% of founders completely fail.
00:05:55I'll ask them things like, you know,
00:05:56what's your profit margin, your cash collected?
00:05:59You know, what was your profit last month?
00:06:01What's the total cost of your team in a given month?
00:06:03And they stare at me blankly
00:06:05almost as if their eyes are glazing over, right?
00:06:08That is your first mistake if you're looking to be CEO
00:06:11because you need to have an intricate understanding
00:06:12of how every decision you make impacts the numbers.
00:06:15The second aspect obviously is your people.
00:06:17You know, no matter what company you're building,
00:06:20you are in the people business,
00:06:21the business of going and bringing on A players
00:06:24that believe in a vision
00:06:25and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there.
00:06:27And the third aspect is your culture.
00:06:29Your culture eats strategy for breakfast.
00:06:32If you have a great culture of people
00:06:34that are willing to do what it takes,
00:06:35they're hungry, they're coachable,
00:06:37they obsess around quality and the customer experience,
00:06:40you know, you've likely built something
00:06:42that's set up for success.
00:06:43Here's how you finally become the CEO of your business
00:06:46and your life.
00:06:47First, you're gonna wanna go and build an org chart
00:06:49for your next 12 months
00:06:50and start to figure out where your gaps are right now
00:06:53and start to fill those with A players.
00:06:55Second is you probably wanna start building a dashboard
00:06:58and even something simple like Google Sheets
00:07:00that has like the 12 core metrics across your business
00:07:02on a week by week basis
00:07:04so you can make sure that you're tracking these things
00:07:06and growing them every single month.
00:07:08From there, you wanna make sure
00:07:09that you have the right meeting rhythm in place
00:07:11inside of your company,
00:07:12likely running leadership meetings every single week
00:07:15and then core department meetings as well
00:07:17at the same cadence.
00:07:19This meeting rhythm essentially becomes the heartbeat
00:07:21of your company and will ensure you have continuous momentum
00:07:24into the future.
00:07:25Your job at level three is to become a real CEO.
00:07:28Level four, the empire builder.
00:07:30At 250K per month, you've won,
00:07:32but there's a ceiling that most people hit
00:07:33that stops them from reaching seven figures monthly.
00:07:35You know, I remember going and talking
00:07:37to a mentor named Justin
00:07:39and I wanted to grow the audience as big as possible.
00:07:41And just a few words from Justin,
00:07:43you know, it transformed my thinking.
00:07:45He said, "Matt, if you're looking to do that,
00:07:47"you need to set your audience on fire."
00:07:50And so sure enough, I started to go and analyze our presence
00:07:53on platforms like X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram
00:07:56and go and try to think about, you know,
00:07:57what was every piece of content we were putting out
00:07:59and how could we go and make it a hundred times better?
00:08:02You know, it was from looking at the details in our videos,
00:08:05the sound, the script, the lighting,
00:08:07the overall kind of concepts that we were putting forth,
00:08:09the titles, the thumbnails, the team, the workflows, right?
00:08:12It was looking on the writing side
00:08:14about the subjects we were putting out.
00:08:15How could we transform all of this
00:08:17to make the most exceptional founder content in the world?
00:08:20It's important to know your math,
00:08:21not just so that you're building
00:08:22a hyper profitable business long-term,
00:08:24but also so that you have what I believe
00:08:26is the most valuable metric, peace of mind.
00:08:28You know, we want to make sure
00:08:29that you're able to sleep at night
00:08:30knowing that you have a business
00:08:31that's continuing to compound cash flows
00:08:34and not compound stress.
00:08:36So your action steps here are to make sure
00:08:39that you have an unbelievable CFO in place.
00:08:42And from there, I like to make sure
00:08:43I'm getting a CEO scorecard every single Friday,
00:08:46which show me the 12 core metrics across my entire business.
00:08:49The next thing then is you want to make sure
00:08:50that you have an amazing leadership team in place
00:08:53because at this level,
00:08:54you can't be making all the decisions, right?
00:08:56You need to empower leaders around you
00:08:58that can hire other amazing leaders, right?
00:09:01And can push your business forward in your absence.
00:09:04And at this stage too,
00:09:05you want to make sure that you're really dialed into
00:09:06what is your zone of brilliance?
00:09:08Your job at level four is to scale
00:09:10without losing your soul.
00:09:12Level five is the icon.
00:09:13Most people will never get here,
00:09:15but the ones who do make this one small shift.
00:09:19When George Lucas was building the Star Wars saga
00:09:21back in the 1970s,
00:09:22before he had even released the first movie,
00:09:24he had already made the scripts for all three.
00:09:27He had planned out the universes, the planets,
00:09:29the galaxies, the actors, had it all lined up.
00:09:32Sure enough, he released the first movie
00:09:35and it was a box office success
00:09:36and he already had the next two lined up.
00:09:39And it's not just George Lucas,
00:09:40you rewind to even Walt Disney.
00:09:42In the early days of Disney,
00:09:43he went and drew out the entire universe he was building.
00:09:47It wasn't just the characters,
00:09:48but it was the animation studio, it was the theme parks.
00:09:51It was the, you know, merchandise and the figurines.
00:09:54He had it all planned out.
00:09:56And this is the same pattern
00:09:57that I've taken to my last three businesses
00:09:59that has made them a success, right?
00:10:01It's having this master plan,
00:10:03having this universe that you're building out, right?
00:10:06For me, it's making sure that I'm serving founders
00:10:08through epic retreats,
00:10:09not just the ones we've done in Bali, Sedona and Mexico City,
00:10:12but going and actually buying a retreat center
00:10:14in the Dolomites where I can have peak experiences
00:10:17with the best founders in the world.
00:10:18It's going and taking these YouTube videos to Netflix,
00:10:21traveling the world, giving back,
00:10:23helping famous founders across the world
00:10:25go and scale to new levels,
00:10:27helping creators become better business people,
00:10:29helping amazing business folks become founder-led brands,
00:10:32and really sitting at that intersection of business
00:10:36and the creator economy.
00:10:37People don't buy what you do,
00:10:39they buy who they become by doing it.
00:10:41They're not buying a program,
00:10:43they're buying the transformation that you're providing them
00:10:45by actually going and giving the service you do.
00:10:48You know, oftentimes we forget
00:10:50that when we're building a brand,
00:10:51a brand is more of an emotional experience than anything,
00:10:55right?
00:10:56It's a feeling you get when you think of a certain logo
00:10:58or think of a certain person.
00:10:59For Apple, it's creativity.
00:11:01For Nike, it's victory.
00:11:03For founder OS, it's freedom.
00:11:05Oftentimes it's making sure that you're communicating
00:11:07that aspirational identity and vision for the brand
00:11:10because inevitably that's what people are really buying into.
00:11:13So refine your vision into a 10-year roadmap.
00:11:16Think about your brand
00:11:17and all the areas you want it to exist.
00:11:19What's the big vision there?
00:11:20You know, when you think about your team and your org chart,
00:11:22how's that gonna need to evolve over the next 10 years?
00:11:25How does your offer and your product suite need to evolve?
00:11:28If you have troubles thinking big in this department,
00:11:30leverage AI to help you think 10X bigger.
00:11:33It's by charting out this vision
00:11:35and then making sure that you put it
00:11:36into a visual presentation for your team,
00:11:39include it in all your onboarding materials,
00:11:41and make sure that you go and upload it
00:11:43to a given 10X project inside of Chat GBT
00:11:47that's gonna help you go and continue to march
00:11:49towards this ambitious vision every single day.
00:11:53Your job at Level 5 is to create a business
00:11:54that becomes a household name.
00:11:56If you wanna go and get my five levels of scaling roadmap,
00:11:59you can go and check it out via the link in the description.
00:12:01All right, so as you can see, these five levels,
00:12:03they're a bit complicated, right?
00:12:05And I understand, this shit ain't easy.
00:12:07So if you're scaling your business
00:12:08and you're trying to go from one level to the next
00:12:10and you want support, you want systems,
00:12:13and you want access to me so that I'm literally
00:12:15in your corner helping you move
00:12:16through these levels seamlessly,
00:12:18you should go and apply to founderOS
00:12:20via the link in the description.
00:12:21Go and book a call, we'll understand what level you're at
00:12:23and understand where you're really trying to go
00:12:25and we'll see if we can help.
00:12:26And if you wanna learn the psychology
00:12:28behind creating a magnetic brand,
00:12:30go and check out this video right now
00:12:32and we'll get into the details there.
00:12:34Be sure to like and subscribe
00:12:35and welcome to the founder freedom movement.