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From $25K Debt to $1.2M Freedom: Startup Resilience

Just a few weeks before this video, which was shot 12 years ago, I was $25K in debt because of my past failed startup. It was called "Tell It In 10", and it went absolutely nowhere. Most nights I'd stare at the ceiling of my moms unfinished basement wondering if I was completely delusional for chasing this startup dream while my friends were climbing corporate ladders. But in this video, I'm working on Glider. We were building something that felt different. The product was working, users were engaging, and for the first time in years I wasn't questioning whether I was wasting my life. That focus you see in the video paid off. Glider sold for $3M in 2014. The VC world would call that a failure, but when you go from sleeping in your moms basement (it would flood every winter) with negative $25k to walking away with $1.2M cash, it changes everything. Suddenly I was a 24 year old kid who could take real risks without the crushing weight of immediate financial stress. I tried ecommerce with KTM Twins. Bought it for $750K, spent 4 years learning that ecommerce wasn't my thing, and sold it for basically what I paid. Then there was Waggle Foods, a keto dog food company that lasted exactly long enough to sell 1 unit. But those experiments taught me what I actually wanted to build. 2019 was when Matter Made launched. B2B demand generation for agencies and SaaS companies. Everything I'd learned about sales, marketing, and running a business finally clicked. That business has generated over $9M in lifetime profit. NoBoringDesign followed in 2023 as my second agency, focused purely on design. Together the two agencies have pushed passed the $10M lifetime profit number. Now there's @Profit Labs. It's where everything from the last 15 years comes together. I'm helping other agency owners build the profitable, sustainable businesses I wished I had access to when I was that guy sleeping in my moms basement. The distance between that video and today still surprises me. That focused kid hustling away had no idea where this path would lead, but he kept building anyway.