"Let's just launch a SaaS company and become super successful in 6 months!" they said. "This will be soooo easy!" they said. Well, not so much. Matt and Andrew talk about the launch of their SaaS product Lasso earlier this year, their audacious goal of reaching $15,000 MRR in just half a year and why they're only 10% of the way there. But they're still pretty optimistic. They discuss why they've faced such big hurdles along the way, like not truly understanding their ideal customer, and how they...
Nov 04, 2019•51 min•Season 2Ep. 103
Welcome to another listener question epsiode! Matt and Andrew respond to all the Qs from Twitter and email (keep them coming!). From negative SEO and Google penalties to what metrics to look for when you're picking a website niche. And how do you let go of total control in your business and hire out the tasks you shouldn't be doing? They cover it all, including Matt and Andrew's sordid past with blackhat SEO and how they've learned to trust themselves with their business choices. P.S. As always,...
Oct 28, 2019•49 min•Season 2Ep. 102
Come on baby, light my business fire! (The Doors. Nailed it). Matt and Andrew are joined by Brandon from MadFientist.com to talk about staying motivated in their online businesses. Brandon shares his journey of growing his own successful site (including the mental breakdown that motivated him to launch it) and chats about his newest online business, including the challenge of mixing business with a hobby. The three of them debate what truly motivates them in their work (hint: it's not money, but...
Oct 21, 2019•1 hr 21 min•Season 2Ep. 101
It's all about who you know. And you should really know your audience. Mojca Zove, the founder of SuperSpicyMedia.com and TheScienceOfFacebookAds.com , joins the show to talk all about strategies for understanding your audience, especially when it comes to social media campaigns. She also dives into her transition from running a successful Facebook ads consultancy to running a product-based business. So how do you convert eyeballs into sales? How do you validate a new product with your audience ...
Oct 14, 2019•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 100
You can't say the wrong thing to the right person -- but saying the right thing sure helps with sales! Brennan Dunn, the founder of RightMessage.com, joins the show to chat about personalized messaging and how to create a highly tailored sales funnel for your audience. Matt and Brennan discuss the nitty gritty of how to segment website visitors and email subscribers. How do you figure out who's coming to your site and optimize your message for those people? And what kind of data should you be me...
Oct 07, 2019•1 hr 29 min•Season 1Ep. 99
Hot links, coming through! Matt and Andrew make most of their income through affiliate marketing, so it makes sense to give their links a little love once and awhile. They discuss how they're optimizing, testing and tracking their affiliate links. What do you do when you start to look at your click data? How do you manage your affiliate link inventory and clean up what's not working and double down on what does? Every link counts, and this episode explores how to make each one count more. Enjoy!...
Sep 30, 2019•49 min•Season 1Ep. 98
How do you launch, market and sell a new product without going totally crazy? Corbett Barr, the founder of Fizzle.co and Palapa.co, joins the show to chat about his new SaaS business and how he approaches sustainable and sane business growth. Matt and Corbett discuss how to find new customers, how to close sales in the software world and how to gather initial feedback while you’re still iterating on a product. Whether you’re a software developer or an entrepreneur thinking of launching something...
Sep 23, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Matt's been running an experiment to increase his YouTube ad revenue and sell more of his digital products through his videos. And guess what? It totally worked! In this episode, Matt and Andrew dive into all the techniques Matt's using to increase YouTube views, watch time and subscribers and explore why this new YouTube content strategy is paying off (literally -- Matt's made over $12K because of this optimization experiment). If you want a deep-n-nerdy dive into YouTube SEO, thumbnail designs...
Sep 16, 2019•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 96
Being weird pays off. Jason Zook, the King of Weird Business Models, joins the show today to talk about all of the crazy businesses he’s started over the years and to celebrate his new book, Own Your Weird. Jason has sold his last name (twice) for a total of $100,000, created a business where he wore other people’s t-shirts for money, and sold his entire “future” to his audience. Jason and Matt explore how being weird in their businesses pays off and debate how to keep the weird stunts going wit...
Sep 09, 2019•1 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 95
The ultimate dream: spend a dollar in your business, earn ten dollars on the other side. But calculating business ROI isn't such simple math. Matt and Andrew discuss how they justify making big business purchases and figure out whether or not their large recurring expenses are worth it. How do they know if hired contract work will pay off? How do you put a price tag on things like mental health? And how do you make sure your business can handle a new monthly expense? It's simple, really: Phase 1...
Sep 02, 2019•55 min•Season 1Ep. 94
Should you try turning a hobby you love into a money-making website? Sean Ogle, founder of BreakingEighty.com and LocationRebel.com, joins the show to talk about turning a hobby into an online business. Both Sean and Matt run websites based on hobbies they love: Sean runs a golf site and Matt runs a homebrewing website, BrewCabin.com. So how do they approach monetizing their hobbies? What does it take to create a paid community around something you love? And how do you make sure you keep the pas...
Aug 26, 2019•52 min•Season 1Ep. 93
It's listener question time! Matt and Andrew answer everything from how to keep on top of the changes to the Google algorithm, how to treat nofollow vs. dofollow links and how site performance affects for SEO. Oh, and what happens to your website when you die? Matt and Andrew answer all your questions about optimizing your site for speed and prepping your website for the day you kick the bucket. Enjoy! P.S. Want to organize your business as if you were a ghost? Check out Matt's Asana for Blogger...
Aug 19, 2019•51 min•Season 1Ep. 92
Good news: SEO isn't as complicated as you think. Digital content editor and writer Michelle Lowery joins the show to share her best practices for SEO writing and editing. Matt and Michelle chat about how they approach creating content that ranks on Swim University, including clever ways to incorporate keywords and how to optimize text for both robots and humans. Michelle also shares some of her favorite strategies for researching keywords and how she weaves a human-centered approach into her wo...
Aug 12, 2019•1 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 91
Why is it so dang hard to ask for help? Matt and Andrew debate why they have so much trouble reaching out to their network and asking for favors -- even though they both have entrepreneur friends who would gladly help. How can they start leveraging their networks without coming across as fake or needy? They discuss everything from how to craft emails and how to stop procrastinating with pitching their work. Enjoy! P.S. Have you seen the new Lasso sales page? Matt and Andrew are pretty proud of h...
Aug 05, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 90
Earning thousands more a month with just a flip of the switch? It's possible. Small changes can pay off in big ways in the online business world. Matt and Andrew talk about the tiny tweaks they've made that have lead to more money. And we're talking really tiny tweaks, like moving around existing links, adding new featured images and making minor updates to existing products. It can take lots of tracking to figure out what changes work, but it makes for a better business in the long run. Maybe i...
Jul 29, 2019•52 min•Season 1Ep. 89
How do you hack the YouTube algorithm? Tom Martin joins the show to teach us everything he knows about YouTube SEO and do a live teardown of Matt's Swim University YouTube channel. Tom is the YouTube mastermind behind several multi-million subscriber YouTube channels, including BBC's Mr. Bean. He shares strategies for getting viewers to binge watch your videos, designing thumbnails with great click through rates and increasing the total watch time on your channel. If you're looking for a step-by...
Jul 22, 2019•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 88
There's money to be made in the advertising world. But is it the right business model for everyone? Both Matt and Andrew have made a living selling sponsorships and advertising through their online businesses. But over the years, they've both realized that it's not the right fit for their businesses or the way they like to work. Why did they abandon that business model? And what is the right business set up for making money through ads? Spoiler: it may just be peddling your own wares. Enjoy! P.S...
Jul 15, 2019•55 min•Season 1Ep. 87
Ooh, piece of candy! As entrepreneurs, we're constantly being sold on new ideas. And some of us end up "impulse buying" those new ideas. It's classic Shiny Object Syndrome. Like an excited little puppy running after a bouncing tennis ball, it's super tempting to chase after new and exciting business ideas, tools and projects. Matt and Andrew talk about how they've fallen victim to Shiny Object Syndrome and how they avoid running after every idea that comes their way. Enjoy! P.S. If you're lookin...
Jul 08, 2019•56 min•Season 1Ep. 86
YouTube is soooo hot right now. Matt's noticing an uptick in sales, traffic and ad revenue from the new YouTube videos he's produced and published for SwimU. So he's running an experiment to see if he can make more money through the 'Tube on both of his affiliate websites. Will producing YouTube videos again pay off in the long run? How the heck does YouTube SEO work? And how can you measure if it's working? If you're YouTube curious, this episode is for you. Enjoy! P.S. Check out Matt's sweet n...
Jul 01, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 85
FOCUS, PEOPLE! Both Matt and Andrew have historically sucked at setting boundaries with their businesses and focusing on what they actually need to do. But all that's about to change! And Andrew's about to start a family, so he's got extra incentive to figure how to manage his time. They both love working on their businesses, but it means it's easy to get lost in their work or go down a rabbit hole with tasks that aren’t actually that important. So what are the critical areas they need to focus ...
Jun 24, 2019•46 min•Season 1Ep. 84
You've got business questions, we've got business answers! Matt and Andrew bring all the A's to your Q's, including a deep dive into measuring click-through rates and why goals might be more distracting than helpful. How do you improve affiliate marketing conversions on your website? How do you protect yourself from getting your ideas stolen on the internet? And how do you deal with running a niche website with traffic that dries up in the winter? Keep the questions coming and we'll keep the ans...
Jun 17, 2019•45 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Matt needs money! He's already trimmed his costs down to the bone in his business and now he wants to focus on efficient ways to ratchet up his revenue. So how can he increase the flow of his existing income streams on his websites? Should he focus on micro changes, like optimizing click through rates? Or is it something bigger, like monetizing his video content on his YouTube channel? In this conversation, Matt and Andrew debate ways to increase their revenue without adding additional costs and...
Jun 10, 2019•59 min•Season 1Ep. 82
Getting to $15,000 monthly recurring revenue in 6 months... piece of cake, right? Matt and Andrew have challenged themselves to get their product Lasso into the hands of 300 customers by the end of November. It's a time crunch, which means not relying on long-term SEO and focusing on strategies that'll get more customers in the first few months. What tactics will get them the quickest and most impactful results? And how can they leverage their personal superpowers to get to that 6 month finish l...
Jun 03, 2019•49 min•Season 1Ep. 81
You know you should have processes in place for your business. So why does every entrepreneur avoid this? At what point is it time to create better processes versus always fixing things as you go? Matt and Andrew break down the process of creating processes, including how to trick yourself into doing the really un-sexy work of building a business operating system. Matt has a literal gasping ah-ha moment in this one and maybe even solves the reason why Andrew has avoided this work. Enjoy! P.S. Ne...
May 27, 2019•50 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Spoiler: classic email marketing tactics don't work for every online business. Can complex marketing funnels, slow drip campaigns and content upgrades actually hurt sales? Matt and Andrew dive into the details of Matt's multi-month experiment trying to optimize his sales funnel at Swim University. They pick through Matt's sales stats, walk through his elaborate email set up for converting readers to customers and debate why a complicated funnel wasn't the right move for his website. Get ready to...
May 20, 2019•52 min•Season 1Ep. 79
WWMD (What Would Matt Do)? Travis Sherry of Extra Pack of Peanuts joins the show as Matt plays business consultant and dives into what's working and what's not on Travis' website. Travis shares all the juicy details (revenue, traffic, subscribers) and Matt unloads his advice on how he thinks Travis can start to rank for some meaty keywords and pull in more revenue. Buckle up: this episode is like a live mini course/case study in auditing an online business. Enjoy! P.S. You can find Travis at Ext...
May 13, 2019•1 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 78
It's listener question time again! Matt and Andrew unpack all of your burning questions. How do you save an article that flopped in the SEO rankings? What should you focus on if you're only one person trying to build an affiliate site? And how much does Matt LOVE banner ads? (Hint: 0%). Thank you everyone for sending in your questions. Enjoy! P.S. The Affiliate Marketing Video Course is on sale for $149! Check it out here: Moneylab.co/affiliate AND since you're a beautiful listener of the show, ...
May 06, 2019•42 min•Season 1Ep. 77
Move, please! Get out the way! Like any good entrepreneur that cares too much, Matt and Andrew are prone to self-sabotaging the very same business that they love so dearly. So how do you stop yourself from derailing the growth and success of your online business? In this episode, Matt and Andrew discuss how to stop micromanaging and create business processes that last. Their little business babies grow up so fast - time to finally set them free! Enjoy! P.S. Have you checked out Matt's Affiliate ...
Apr 29, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 76
It's the one year anniversary of the Money Lab Podcast! Steph Halligan joins the show today to celebrate with Matt and take a behind-the-scenes look at everything that goes into an episode of Money Lab. From the work flow that makes podcasting easier to Matt's crazy tech setup in his new office-turned-podcast-studio, we explore each piece that make for an entertaining podcast. Enjoy! P.S. You can find Steph hanging out on Twitter @StephHalligan P.P.S. Matt documented his super profesh podcast se...
Apr 22, 2019•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 75
Time to wrap it up? Matt and Andrew debate how to know when it's stop growing a revenue-generating website. Is there a moment when an online business is “done” and it’s time to move on to other projects? Or should they always double down on the work if a website is making money? I don't think there was ever an episode where Matt and Andrew disagreed more ;-) Enjoy! P.S. The Affiliate Marketing Video Course is here! And it's 10% off for listeners with the promo code PODCAST. Check it out at www.M...
Apr 15, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 74
