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Are you fed up with the corporate holding you back? Welcome to Invest In Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. The ultimate launchpad for those ready to seize control and unleash their creative genius as entrepreneurs. Hosted by Phil Better, the podcast Mogul, each episode he's sharing inspiring success stories from the digital entrepreneurs who took the risk and invested in themselves. This is your call to arms. Invest in yourself, break free from someone else's rules and build the empire you deserve. Now let's dive head first into today's explosive episode.

Welcome back to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. The show where professionals ditch the 9 to 5 grind and learn how to build profitable freedom first. Businesses that actually last. I'm your host, Phil Better, the podcast mogul and today's guest is a master at turning good businesses into revenue generating machines. With over three decades of entrepreneurial experience spanning concrete, retail, software and print on demand, he has seen what works, what doesn't and how to optimize every stage of the customer journey. As Managing Partner at Build Growth Scale, he's helped E commerce brands unlock hidden profits using his proven revenue optimization strategies, guiding hundreds of store owners to hit seven and even eight figure milestones, running multiple E commerce brands to hosting the largest E commerce optimization event in North America. His approach is grounded in experience, fueled by data and laser focused on results. If you ever wondered how to scale without just buying more traffic, this is the episode for you.

Stick around because in just a few seconds you'll meet the man behind Build Grow Scale. Make you sure. Matthew Stratford. And if you want to learn how to grow your podcast like a pro, enjoy my free growth webinar where the details are in the show notes. Let's dive into it. Matt, thank you for the coming to the show. And let's jump right into it. Why did you become a entrepreneur?

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation with you. Why did I become an entrepreneur? I think early on I was about 13 years old, I started selling newspapers and this will definitely age me, but it was a paper called True Grit and I think it started off there was like a quarter and eventually it was like 50 cents. And I had built it up to where I was making about $60 a week selling these papers in our little town. And so I early on learned that it was fun to go create something and then have money from it and use that to. I just felt like I had more control because I had the money to go ahead and buy things that I wanted at a young age.

Yeah. And when, when you started your entrepreneurial writing True grit. When you came to 60 a week. What age were you at at that point? Were you still in your early teens and your.

Yeah, I was about 13, 14 years old. And I saved my money so that when I was 15 years old, I actually bought a car that needed some work. And so over the year from 15 to 16, my neighbor and I. My neighbor had a garage and was a mechanic and we rebuilt the engine and did some things to it as a Pontiac Firebird. And so when I turned 16, I had a car and it was literally built off of me doing, you know, selling these papers and saving my money up. Wow.

Okay, that, that is impressive, especially for a 14 to 16 year old to save money and not go and play with it at the arcades or go on dates. Building. Okay, I, I need to ask, by building this car, what. What were some of the lessons that you learned that you feel impacted your career later on your entrepreneurial journey?

Yeah, that's a great question. I don't, I honestly don't think I've ever been asked that or thought that or thought about that. But the truth is probably delayed gratification because for sure I would have wanted to drive the car before I turned 16. And the fact that, you know, we tore it, we basically pulled the engine out and rebuilt it and did all of this and he taught me these things. It was just like. It wasn't easy, it was difficult, but the payoff at the end was so worth it because I had a car that I could drive to school and it basically gave me my freedom.