E71 | Matt Wan: Curiosity & Consequences: The Path to Building a Premium Product - Art Of Coaching™

Posted March 16, 2020

TRANSCRIPTION

Brett Bartholomew 0:46

Welcome back, everybody to another episode of The Art of coaching Podcast. I’m here today with Matt Wan, founder of Momentous, who if you guys have been listening to the podcast for a while now, you understand that Momentous is our partner. So Matt, thanks for coming. And I appreciate you being on the show, man and all your support.

Matt Wan 1:05

Thank you, Brett. Yeah, thanks for the warm intro. And thanks for letting us be a part of it. It goes without saying what big fans we are.

Brett Bartholomew 1:11

Yeah, man, I appreciate that. And likewise, there’s a lot of reasons to be a fan of your work as well, Matt, there’s a reason I partnered with you guys. And I think we’ve had some people that are really curious about momentous on, you know, not just the product side. But ultimately, the story, the vision and everything it took to get there. And you have a really unique background, man, I think, you know, like most people in your position, I know you’re kind of shrouded in an air of humility. But coming from somebody that has unique family background, being from Wyoming, dropping out of Harvard, which we’re going to talk about, where did this journey start for you? And how did you manage kind of all the reasons why you shouldn’t have maybe done what you’ve done in creating the larger brand of Momentous and the products in general?

Matt Wan 2:02

Yeah, a lot of ground to cover there.

Brett Bartholomew 2:04

Yeah, we’ll break it up for everybody. No worries.

Matt Wan 2:06

Yeah, I think that maybe the idea of humility, in this position is not necessarily so common, but I’ll do my best to stay there for you. I was really introduced to the space and the journey started, if you will, by by just being an athlete, being a user of the products and certainly not at the level that you’re used to training in working with directly but I was serious enough that I wanted every advantage I could get when it came to performing better. I was looking for foam rolling techniques, ice baths, compression socks, you know, II stem, whatever it was that I thought the best athletes in the world were using, or the smartest guys in the room were using whatever it was, I wanted to find ways to increase my own performance.

I was just a, you know, a bit of a training nerd, if you will. And so there are quite a few, I guess junctions in my life where I was fortunate to be exposed to some really interesting resources and performance training and nutrition in particular. But really, at the end of the day, what started us on this road in terms of the business was that I was fortunate enough to go inside an NFL locker room when I was pretty young, as you noted, and essentially what I noticed was that the products that I was used to seeing all over the sidelines, were not the products that the athletes were using in the locker room. These were products that the trainers and dietitians on the team had been recommending, but that didn’t necessarily have any sort of consumer penetration. They were certainly not products that I was used to seeing on Amazon or Whole Foods or GNC or Vitamin Shoppe or wherever you’re getting these products.

And so that really made us asked a bunch of questions, frankly. But most importantly, it made us ask why that is. Why do we have a huge group of what we feel generally are pretty educated consumers who are looking to do the best for their body and are generally buying premium and so many other categories of health and fitness, but are still gravitating towards, you know, whatever the guy at GNC recommends whatever the cheapest product per gram of protein is on Amazon. That’s just not how we buy anything else in health and fitness. It’s certainly not how we buy anything else that we put in our body. So we think there’s a real opportunity to create a brand that speaks to individuals who are looking to use products that the best in the world use.

Brett Bartholomew 4:40

And that here’s the thing when you said that you guys look at things as they are and you think Alright, why? Why is it this way? Why is it that way? That’s a little bit why Matt, I tried to ask that in such a broad way because here’s one thing I’ve learned and you didn’t disappoint on this front. Sometimes when you look broadly it really helps you kind of See more specifically and a more focused view, the problems, the issues or even the path. And so for example, I’ve noticed when sometimes I ask people that question, they discuss their past experience, which leaves clues, right? Like you, did you are an athlete. And it doesn’t matter what level the fact is, you are an athlete that had an appreciation for a certain lifestyle, and an affinity for performance.

And then there’s always this nexus and you use the word junction, right? Like you had several junctions in your life that kind of led you down this path of curiosity, you said, you’re able to go into the locker room, right, that feeds the curiosity, creation, and later collaboration. And so, hearing you having gone through some of those things, where, I mean, it’s one thing to experience these things, man, it’s another thing to say, You know what, I’m going to start a company. And you know what, it’s, it’s going to be a premium price point. And you know, what, I’m going to take on the big dogs in the field that have already gotten a strong foothold sponsorships, affiliations and endorsements. Now, where the hell do you even start doing that?

Matt Wan 6:04

Looking back on it, it’s honestly hard to tell you but as much as anything, I think you just start by asking questions, you start by asking why things are the way they are, I think as you framed it, and to be honest with you this is probably not a story that I’ve told in a lot of different ways, because it’s not something that necessarily fits with how we talk about the brand now, but when we really started looking into the opportunity in this market, and why are so many people going to a great gym, they’ve got a great personal trainer, they are eating well, and still buying whatever the cheapest product is at Costco and Amazon.

Why is the domination of low quality products still so prolific in this category? We looked at a whole bunch of reasons, right? And we can talk about what we ended up determining, but we looked at, you know, is it a convenience factor? You know, do we need to just offer a really great subscription model are these products not being or the good products not being sold online? Are the good products not being sold in shelves, are the products not packaged or branded the right ways that they appeal to people, we went through a whole bunch of different options to try to explain that. Yeah.

Brett Bartholomew 7:20

And the reason I’m curious about that, in particular is, to me, I felt like this was similar to the podcast, and some of the courses that I’ve created is, I looked at coaches. And I thought, all right, how come so many of the things coaches are discussing in many of the podcasts and other things that existed before these resources that I’ve tried to do with art of coaching, they’re discussing things that very rarely are the true core of the problem, right? They’re sitting there and it’s not that they’re not important at all. But it’s kind of like they continue to like go deep down in one area instead of shining light in the dimly lit areas. And that’s what fascinates me about human behavior. And so I’d like you to kind of expand on that when you were looking at this and the reasons was it access? Was it because they had affiliations with other companies or athletes? What was it that you thought kept people down this path of the same thing, the same thing, the same thing, even if it wasn’t the highest quality or the most relevant to their goals or needs?

Matt Wan 8:18

For us, I think it came down to education. And there are a number of ways to interpret the issue, I think. But we really believe that. Like I said, there are a huge group of consumers who really already want the best product, or the best methods mindsets for themselves, whatever it is, that’s going to help them perform better and feel better. We believe that desire already exists. We don’t believe there’s a reliable outlet for it. Meaning that you may have people who say, Man, I really want to be strength training regularly, because I’ve heard all these great things about it. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a great outlet for them to go and find the right information or resources.

We think the same thing is true in nutrition, that there’s a huge desire to be using the right products and doing the right things. But where the heck do you start? Where do you start? When really at the end of the day, if you had to kind of summarize what it is we’re fighting here, it’s that how many times have you heard a guy at the gym say, ah, all protein powders is same. All pre workouts is same, all multivitamins the same, whatever it is that you’re taking or recommending for your athletes.

That is just not what the experts think that is not how we treat like I said, anything else that we put in our body, you know, you shouldn’t just do squats to do squats just like you shouldn’t take protein just to take protein right? All these things have a really specific purpose. And the details matter when you approach them. It’s really that simple. That we need to be able to educate people, not on why you need a great product. We really think that desire already exists, but what creates a great product, what do you need to look for in this category.

Brett Bartholomew 10:02

And you’re right. It’s that simple in regards to looking at, you know, education, I think the issue is and what’s interesting, and I’m just curious at how you guys continue to fight this, because I think that this is just kind of society where we’re at now combined with a little bit of human nature. But it’s tricky, right? Because we assume that people will respond to a rational argument, hey, yeah, all protein isn’t the same, right? There’s a distinction between proteins that have certain kinds of ingredients that are sourced responsibly NSF certification, informed sport, all those kinds of things.

But so many people Matt, still make decisions with this kind of quick system one, yeah, but this is right here. And yeah, I see this. I mean, at what level does that frustrate you, as a founder and your team in terms of like, alright, we can’t just rely on education and experts, because we know that there’s still a lot of people that are going to poopoo on that research or not acknowledge the expert, what other paths? Have you learned that you have to take? At what point? Is it just like, Alright, try it for yourself. And let me know what you think, or what did you try? I’m

Matt Wan 11:10

actually going to disagree with you there. Because I think that’s part of what makes the opportunity for this business. So exciting for us. I think that’s what gets us up in the morning is that people continue to choose the wrong products, it wouldn’t be an opportunity, if they were already buying great products, we think our opportunity is to give access to the experts, you may think, and frankly, Brett, you know, I think you and I are probably not the best opinions, when it comes to how available resources are in this space. You know, you’ve got a really great set of resources when it comes to learning how to train better and eat better, right? I’m not quite on that level. But I feel like I’ve got a pretty good set of resources as well

The vast majority of people do not have access to the kind of experts that you do that, you know, we now do, by you know the benefit of having you in our network as well. We really feel it’s sort of part of our place in our opportunity to peel back the curtain on that if you will to make that level of information widely available, and popular make it digestible. And that’s when I start to think about you can’t just make the rational argument. So there’s two parts to it. For me, I think on one hand, I actually don’t think that the information, as you said, is necessarily widely available. I think for a small group of people it is, but part of our job is to make expert opinion, the methods mindsets, products, whether they can be put it in a bottle or not available to the public.

And then the other part of that is trying to make something that is interesting to people that you can lead a horse to water you can give somebody the right information, right? You can even give somebody the right programming, but if they’re not going to do it, they’re not going to take it they’re not going to use it or implement it, then what difference does it make? That’s when you have to start thinking past the idea of just a rational argument, right? Because, you know, let me give me an example. When we started making these products, I could not have cared less about what the products tasted like, couldn’t have cared less. Because when I grew up, my trainer at the time, Dave gave me products that were in his opinion, the highest quality on the market, I still think they’re great products. But they tasted terrible. They were horrible. They always tasted terrible. And I didn’t care because I wasn’t trying to have candy. I wasn’t trying to have a treat after my workout I was trying to get stronger.

And that’s the rational argument, right? That you are not taking this because it tastes good. You’re taking it because you’re trying to get stronger, therefore you should buy the best product by these measures. But to actually get people to take the best product. As it turns out, thank God, we had smarter people on our team that were able to convince me of this, you had to put a ton of effort into the flavor and the enormous amount of effort into flavor because literally what happens with so many of our clients across all the major leagues when we’re actually selling products, these teams is that the dieticians, the strength coaches, whatever sort of performance professional they have in house there, they get the product right away. They say, Okay, here’s why it’s better. We understand that. I’ve got to try it with my athletes, because if they’re not willing to use it, they don’t like it. They don’t want to use it every day, then it’s useless to me.

Brett Bartholomew 14:40

Sure, yeah. And and I think our wires got crossed there Matt. I was saying rational persuasion is often not the way to go because that’s what people make decisions emotionally. And then they tend to back them up with some element of either confirmation bias or past experience.

Matt Wan 14:57

Yeah, that’s right. They find a rational reason to justify it right?

Brett Bartholomew 15:01

I’m like, oh, cool iPhone, oh, you know what that could really help with my emails and this and that, let me pay $1,000 for it. And so that’s actually what I wanted to target is when you know that percent because people don’t have access to true experts. But people do have access to what they perceive to be experts, people think it’s very hard for an authentic message and a real product like yours, and like to get to its core audience because they’ve got to wade through all this other bullshit and people telling them, No, I’m the expert. No, look at me, because I’m ripped. And I take this and look at me, because I take that, and you touched on it a little bit with flavor. At some point, we have to concede that like, hey, even though and I’m with ya, and so I’ll just crush something. And what it tastes like is what it tastes like. I think I just, you know, the certain things are a means to an end, and you have to do what’s right for your body.

Matt Wan 15:52

Right. And so that’s the rational argument, I’m assuming the product right. But to sort of clarify my point as well, we had to concede that there was more to it than the rationale. And just that rational side, where we had to have the clear product benefits, as well as presenting it in a format that was, you know, no pun intended, very digestible.

Brett Bartholomew 16:16

Yeah. For me, that’s what’s so fascinating about these things I feel like is, no matter what, and when you create something, you’re like, you know, what this should speak for itself, look at kind of this State of Union, so to speak. And it’s like, man, so much of it still comes down to understanding human nature and like the most basic level of it, and getting creative with your marketing and then letting the product speak for itself. And that brings me to the kind of collaboration element of it Matt, like, how did you go about Steve Jobs said it wasn’t hard to create, right? The iPhone and stuff like that it was hard to create a really great team. How have you manage that given you know, your background? And I’m sure you had your own circumstances where people maybe thought, Hey, dude, like, who are you? And what have you started? And how old are you? How did you manage perception on that end as well?

Matt Wan 17:07

I don’t think making the product was necessarily easy. I think we were really fortunate to have, as you said, the right people behind us, I don’t pretend to be the nutritional expert here, right. We’ve got people thankfully in house, who really know what to look for when it comes to these products, and not just the ingredients themselves, but how to source them, how to process them, even what we should be looking for in terms of third party certifications, what sort of packaging they should be in, we were really fortunate to be able to bring in a really tremendous group of experts to, frankly, lead the product formulation processes for us.

So that part was, I’d say, easier. But but not the easiest, right? The more difficult part, I guess, to your point was was probably finding those individuals to begin with. And then the rest of the team is woof. It’s wide now wide reaching, and I guess our approach there was? Well, it’s evolved, frankly, you know, let’s start here, right, like the first person who I hired for this business was actually, he’s still our operations director here has been just been phenomenal with us. I’m sure he’ll be with us forever. was, at the time my high school track coach.

Brett Bartholomew 18:33

Track coach,

Matt Wan 18:35

yes.

Brett Bartholomew 18:36

Tell me this more.

Matt Wan 18:39

Well, that was how I knew him. And he’s obviously, as I said, been phenomenal. And we’re just so lucky to have him on the team wouldn’t be here without him. And it was I mean, it was just us for, you know, 6 8 9 months, almost a year, probably not quite. But I hired him because he was my best option. And he wouldn’t take offense if I said this. But if I had a quarter million or, you know, $10 million to go spend, I could have just gone and hired some CEO if I had all the money in the world. But that’s not what I wanted to do. Right? What could I do, I needed to get somebody that I really trusted, I needed to get somebody that I knew I could work well with that I was going to get along with.

I needed to get somebody that I knew was going to work hard. Those were the requirements at the time, right. And as the company evolves, you grow into looking for more specific roles. Because at the time, how could I have possibly known what I was going to need? How would I have known what I was even going to need to be looking for in somebody who’s going to need to manage partnerships, how would I have known what to look for in a sales director? There’s no way I would have known I was 18. All I knew at the time was that There is going to be a whole lot of challenges ahead of us. So I need somebody, as I said that I’m excited to work with, and is going to show up every day. And so , I picked the guy that I was sort of most excited to work with every day.

Brett Bartholomew 20:14

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. And this is kind of why I think, Matt, that it’s so unique is, you mentioned it, right, you’re 18 you’re trying to build a team. And right now you don’t know what, even who you need. And I think that again, it was serendipitous, because a year ago, I found myself in the same position. And you know what, people do this all the time. I mean, like, it’s funny, I argue that most sports perform, most I would argue that most professional teams, and I’ve worked with a good deal of them in some capacity or another. They don’t even know what they’re looking for. We live in a market of relative confusion because everybody’s inundated with all these issues and information in this person’s best fit. So when you say that this has evolved now and what’s this gentleman’s name, by the way, your former high school track coach,

Matt Wan 21:03

his name is also Matt Funny enough,

Brett Bartholomew 21:04

Perfect. So like, once you got mad on your team? Can we just talk about that the dynamics of it and I promise, I wouldn’t ask you this if people couldn’t relate to it. But you’re 18 Now granted pretty have rapport and and some level of buy in or trust with this individual. Talk to me about that moment where you’re like, Hey, I got this idea. We’re doing this. And then after you had that first follower, where did it go from there? And how has it evolved, just because people need to know how to build teams. And you’ve done that. So talk us through this a little bit more, if you would?

Matt Wan 21:36

Honestly, it was, I think more than anything, we were bought into the idea of moving the chains as opposed to trying to throw Hail Marys, meaning that we were highly ignorant. We did not know what we were going to need a year later, we didn’t know what we were going to need six months later. But we were enthusiastic. And we moved forward with the idea that every day we were going to move closer to our goals, right? We’re very rarely going to be faced with opportunities, or even have the visibility towards huge opportunities in addressing our goals or moving the business forward. Those came later really what it was about was like just moving the chains every day, making progress, getting things done. I guess I’ve said it before, but I think really the single biggest difference between somebody that starts a company and somebody that’s just got a great idea is the willingness to get off your ass.

Brett Bartholomew 22:40

Yeah, no, I agree, I think. And that was something I remember looking back at an article when I was first discovering you guys. And it was talking about how, you know, your company decided to come out of a self described stealth mode. And you had mentioned that you had been selling products to professional and collegiate teams. For a while now. I think it was about a year. And then you had sort of go and do you know, direct to consumer. And you know, for you to make an announcement like that and come out of stealth mode and all that. Like there’s real consequences. Like you said, if you don’t get off your ass, like, Curiosity is not enough. And I know people love to say passion. And that’s all well and good. But the real shit is that there has to be consequences, right? Like, what were the consequences. At this point of your life, if Momentous didn’t work, and you hadn’t got off your ass?

Matt Wan 23:32

The consequences would have been. I mean, very wide ranging, frankly, we’d taken money from professional investors. We take in money, you know, in the form of investment from friends, from people that we really respected that people that place a lot of trust in us. We placed a lot of trust in ourselves. And we’ve taken a bet on ourselves that this was something that was going to be worthwhile for community that we cared about. And for ourselves. The consequences to not giving up were to disappoint all of those things, to do something that I guess I just wasn’t willing to do, frankly. And that I really think if you’re going to take somebody’s money in particular, you can’t have facet. You can’t say, oh, but I had this going on in my wife at the same time. Oh it just wasn’t a good time for me to be running a business. Oh, it wasn’t a good time for me to be training hard. It wasn’t a good time for me to do XYZ.

There’s never a good time. There’s always a million reasons why you shouldn’t be doing it. But at the end of the day, we were just not prepared to accept that consequence if you will, of not giving it 110% effort. I think starting a company starting at Any sort of project needs to have an acceptance of failure and awareness that that is an is, you know, a possibility, still a possibility, of course, it’s still a possibility. It’s always a possibility. But you, you can’t not, cannot do everything you can to fight it. You know, that’s just the mentality that we come at it with when we’re faced with. When we’re faced with challenges, I think our instinct in this company is not to shy away from them, it’s to attack.

Brett Bartholomew 25:35

And when you attack, because and you mentioned it, right, like the importance of having a pre mortem, again, it’s great to have effort, it’s excellent to have tremendous focus. It’s incredible to have great vision. But finding that balance that yin and yang, so to speak, between attacking, but being aware of that pre mortem, and for anybody listening just right, this is all the things that could go wrong, and oh, shit, what if this fails? And how did that stuff keep you up at night? I mean, it had to, and even if it didn’t, I mean, to a degree, does it now because I know ignorance is bliss to a degree and not to assume like you’re not ignorant, right? But just sometimes, like, you don’t know what you don’t know, at the time. You don’t know it. Do you think that helped at all? Or had you guys just already gone through? Or did you have somebody guiding you through this at this point?

Matt Wan 26:26

I’ve got really, really great resources at the company. I think we all benefit from that. But to be honest with you, I was completely ignorant. And I actually think this is probably the one inherent advantage I had being a young entrepreneur was that I was completely ignorant. Meaning that I could not possibly have known ahead of time, how challenging it would be how stressful it would be all the challenges that would come up all the roadblocks I couldn’t have possibly known. And that may have been in my opinion, I think one of my very few natural advantages, and that ignorance made for just a naturally greater appetite for risk.

I did truly didn’t know what I didn’t know, right? I, I made this comment the other day to one of our investors, right that when I started the company, I felt like I knew 1% of what I needed too to be successful. Or I’m sorry, I had that backwards. When I started the company, I felt like I probably knew, you know, maybe 20 or 25% of what I needed to be successful. So I was feeling like I was being modest, right? Okay, I’ve got I’ve got a pretty good grasp on this. If I can learn how to address these these key areas, then I think I think we’re going to be on a good path. But as the circle of your knowledge grows, right, so too does the perimeter of your ignorance. Right? I did not know what I didn’t know. And so now, three years later, I know, however many 1000 times more than I did, you know, when I had no experience? And I feel like I know probably, you know, a fraction of 1% of what I need to?

Brett Bartholomew 28:22

Well, I mean, that’s a big reason Matt, they say Right, like, it’s experience isn’t something you get till just after you needed it. I remember to touch on and this relates to some excellent points you made one of my favorite quotes was by a guy named David Greyson and, and he said, you know, do you think you could have the good without the evil? Like, do you really think you could have the joy without the sorrow? And, you know, it’s better in your circumstance? You said, you know, like, Yeah, I had to be modest in some respects. And I always argue it’s better to be modest than to engage in, in microwave thinking, because it’s amazing to me, how many people still think, oh, yeah, I got an idea.

And I know one or two people, and I figure I can raise money for it. And we can go from there. And again, I just think we’ve been blinded by terms like passion and vision and whatever. And really, there’s competency, curiosity and consequences that probably get us the majority of the way there. And they only get bigger as you guys grow, right? Because now here you are, and the company has continued to expand its role and its foothold. So do you with your mention of risk, Matt? Do you like is the risk now greater than ever? Or do you feel like no, we’ve, of course, the risk is there but we’ve used it as a fuel source. And now it’s attack mode. It’s our time.

Matt Wan 29:38

I think it depends how you define risk. I feel like the wind is at our back. And I think that’s always how we should look at it that we have so many great opportunities in this market. Now. We have so many great products in the pipeline. Just came out with sleep earlier in the fall coming out with college and really shortly here A huge number of product partnerships that are coming out in 2020, as well. And even when you look past sort of the rational arguments for why I think the company is in a great position. Now, I just think that’s always the perspective you should have that, you know, you shouldn’t worry about bad luck, you shouldn’t worry about the change in the economy, a change in the market, these things you can’t control

The company is not going to succeed or fail because of those things, the company is going to succeed or fail because of the people involved, the decisions we make. And I think we’ve got the right team to do those things. So I don’t think that this is the riskiest time for the business. I think it’s clearly measurably the lowest risk time for the business. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean we’re not still setting the bar high.

Brett Bartholomew 30:52

Sure. And within that, you mentioned the product, right, coming out with sleep. And we had mentioned that on a previous podcast, and you’re doing collagen, which that actually brings about my next question, being selective is an important part. Right? Have I heard you on a previous podcast, Matt, and you talked about, you know, find reasons to say no, for you, how did you determine and discern what you guys are going to create, and what you firmly believe, at least at this juncture, you’re going to say no to we’re not engaging in that.

Matt Wan 31:25

So I think the analogy I was using there was that discipline for us is a willingness to say no to good opportunities. And that good opportunities, they come and go. So two bad ones. And so many of these things look good and look like something that you can’t pass up. But there’s going to be another train coming. And so we need to be really hyper focused on creating the products and services that deliver value for our customers, right for our core customers in particular that meet and exceed the standards and create the greatest impact for us and supporting our mission and vision here.

I think the analogy specifically I was using was that my dad’s been an investor for a long time. And so that was really my sort of first introduction, I think to business was looking at companies from an investment perspective. And maybe he wouldn’t like the way I characterize this necessarily, but he wants described to me when he was looking through, basically a company’s deck, right, that asked for my opinion, right on it. And I said, Well, here’s all the things that I think are good about it, here’s where I think they could improve. And if they just worked on this thing, I think it’d be really successful like, Oh, it’s so close. What if they just fix this? Oh, I went, what if they just brought in a different leader in this position, whatever it is. And he sort of stopped me and said, when you’re looking at these things, you don’t need to look for a reason to say yes, you need to look for a reason to say no, because if you’re going to do this job, you’re going to get 35 of these a day, you are going to see so many opportunities.

And even if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re going to see so many opportunities every single day, you’re going to feel like you see him everywhere. So you can’t rely on finding a reason to justify doing a deal making a move or signing something, whatever it is, right? Sometimes you need to be able to look at it from the lens of finding a reason that it won’t work, right. So you can move on. That was what I was taught and that perspective. And frankly, I don’t think that’s relevant for every project. I think in some cases, particularly on the entrepreneurial side, you need to be able to move past the reasons that something might not work and accept risk. But on the flip side to that, it is a really valuable tool, I think in assessing opportunities.

And I think as well, it’s valuable for us as we look at the variety of opportunities that face us, particularly when it comes to what sort of products and services can this company provide over time. That there are I think, as you said, a ton of great different directions we can go. But we need to make sure that what we’re doing is not just a good solution, but it’s the right solution. To say that something makes sense on paper to say there are all these reasons that you should do it is not necessarily enough, because you’ve also got to think about, you know, you’ve also got to think about the opportunity cost we have this discussion when it comes to creating new products all the time because you know, the company’s still small, we have relatively limited resources and so, sometimes to create one product means we need to wait on creating another or we need to push it down the road meaningfully right to hire one position means We can’t hire another.

Brett Bartholomew 35:04

I’m trying to think about you, you totally took the piece that I was going to ask you next. But I want to give you no, no, no, it’s perfect. This is why we do unscripted podcast because I want to give you context of why I was going to ask it but you gave me a great lead in opportunity costs is something that is hurting coaches in strength and conditioning and performance. And I’d say even fitness, but most in strength and conditioning and in the performance realm, more than ever before, Matt, there’s an issue where coaches are dealing with, you know, everything from burnout to low wages. I mean, data came out that showed coaches right now that I’ve been in certain domains have spent, you know, around 10 years in the field are still averaging a little bit more only than $30,000 inn the United States alone, we have all these issues.

And what I try to tell people is you need to assess your opportunity costs. And this is a big reason why I price certain things the way that I do, whether I’m training athletes, whether I’m speaking or what have you, because and I think most people don’t consider that. And as somebody who has created not only a very unique, high quality product, but a premium priced one, what goal or what role did kind of just the knowledge of opportunity costs, both professionally, and personally as it pertains to your health and everything like that role. What did that play in terms of you guys determining who is our customer, and it’s a premium customer, we’re not trying to be for you want to be for everybody. But ultimately, you know, it’s not going to be like, just expand on the opportunity cost within that, because I don’t think people consider that enough. I don’t think they know how this role and how real and how corrosive that can be if you ignore those things.

Matt Wan 36:48

That’s a great point. The worst thing that we could do as a brand is try to make everyone happy. The worst thing you can do is any influential person brand organization is generally to try to make everybody happy, because it’s clearly impossible. So we needed to focus on some of the obvious things, right, which are, what are the most valuable customers for us? Where is our product going to resonate? Where is the educational resources going to resonate? Where are we going to be able to make a footprint because I guess, as you said, we needed to be able to leave pennies on the table. In order to make dollars, we needed to be able to say that we’re okay, if this product doesn’t appeal to everyone, we’re okay if this product or this brand, doesn’t do it for some customers doesn’t convince them to leave their gold standard or sell your core or whatever it is, they’re using from GNC, we’re okay with that.

Because at the end of the day, our goal is not to own 100% of the market. That’s not what we’re trying to achieve here. It’s not what any brands trying to achieve here. It’s not realistic. We’re trying to create a brand and a product that appeals to the right set of people. And for us, those are people that have, as I’ve said, for here, already have the desire to buy the best products to do the best for themselves to eat the best to train the best to be the best version of themselves. We couldn’t feign to think of the company spending resources, convincing people that they need to do those things.

Brett Bartholomew 38:37

And it shouldn’t really take at the end of the day, a whole lot of convincing, right? Like you look at some of the people and people do their due diligence, right? Like just looking at some of the names that you guys are able to support and the people affiliated with the brand, right the Hadley hammers, the Alex, Donald’s everybody that from a variety of different domains, right. And it’s like, I think that’s the thing, right? If you want to make everybody happy, go sell ice cream. And I don’t even think that would work today, because people are lactose intolerant. You know,

Matt Wan 39:07

oh my god, that’s so true. That analogy is outdated now. Oh, that’s terrible.

Brett Bartholomew 39:11

It’s outdated. And that’s how, you know what, that’s a sign of the times. Right? That’s an element of like, holy shit. We know when analogies and Maxim’s and things that we kind of thought were timeless, are no longer timeless. Not just because it’s like people don’t even know what they want half the time and they talk themselves into these realities and you brought up market share, and I just want to touch on this. I remember hearing an interview with Herb Kelleher who was the co founder and CEO of Southwest, right.

And I remember somebody had said to him, they were kind of laughing at what Southwest had done. And they laughed, Oh, you don’t have a market share and this and that, but they were profitable. And he said, Listen, if we have 4% of the market and are profitable, that’s better than having 90% of the market and being unprofitable and it goes hand in hand with like You can’t change the world. If you’re on this tight budget all the time, and you’ve got to push, you got to have a quality product, and you can’t be scared to charge for that. Because at the end of the day you stand behind it. And that’s the ultimate skin in the game, right? Like, being able to say I stand by this through and through.

Matt Wan 40:17

And you got to get used to hearing no to. I think that was probably the biggest learning we had in assembling our team and bringing those individuals into the fold is that if you look at what we feel, is a phenomenal group of individuals that stand behind the product and the brand. Now, for every one of those people, we had 10 people of that caliber say no, or 20. You know, it really, at a very basic level did not appeal to everyone. And we knew that that was going to be the case.

Brett Bartholomew 40:58

Is that hard for you?

Matt Wan 41:01

It was, it was. But I don’t know, if you get used to it, or I think more than anything. We’ve built a vision for this company that we really believe in. And it’s not really specific, or tied to one product or one person. And so if that product or person or opportunity is no longer available, or falls through work, or blows up even then, you know, it’s just not what defines the company. It’s not what defines the opportunity or what we’re working on here. So it doesn’t really feel like that much of a blow when you’ve convinced yourself or I should say rationally convinced yourself that what you’re working on is right and make sense in is the right thing to be doing.

Brett Bartholomew 42:06

And you’ve been doing that for a long time, right? I know I heard a story and I love this story. I laughed out loud. My wife thought I was nuts. You and I probably am gonna botch this. But I remember you saying that your grandma had asked you what you wanted to be when you were around five years old and venture capitalists and don’t bullshit me, man. There’s no way you knew what that meant. And you said that in the interview, right? But like when you said you wanted to do this at that age, right? There’s a nature and nurture element like, how did you even know that word exists? And I know you said your dad as a unique background as well was this through the things you were exposed to through your father? Or like, how did you eve, why was that word in your lexicon?

Matt Wan 42:45

Well, first of all, like, I promise I didn’t make the story up, right? Like I obviously don’t even remember. It’s just something that’s been told to me over and over again. I clearly had no idea what a venture capitalist was, but I knew what I knew it was what my dad did. Right. And I guess it just ended up being a continued point of interest for me, however, many years later.

Brett Bartholomew 43:11

Do you think that having? And I know the answer can seem obvious here, but this is for the audience, right? Like do you think that having that kind of guidance that at a relatively young age is something that kind of calloused your risk tolerance, callus your ability to hear no calloused any kind of reticence you may have had to interact with people at a high level or pressure packed situations because I asked this because there’s this question constantly. Man, I was just somebody asked it a few months ago at a workshop I went to, people are fascinated with this idea are great leaders, and you can put that contextually however you want, born or made? And the answer is clearly both but what role did that play consciously or subconsciously in your development? Do you think?

Matt Wan 43:57

I think it played an enormous role. I feel like I’m incredibly lucky that I’ve been able to, you know, basically have dinner table conversations that, you know, a lot of kids would find boring, but I found incredibly engaging. I used to be able to basically identify different members of boards, from companies that my dad was on because he’d be on calls on speaker phone in the car. This was long before the time of AirPods of course, but he’d be on speakerphone in the car driving us to, you know, soccer practice or whatever. And so I’d actually learned the different board members voices I’d heard them so many times.

Brett Bartholomew 44:44

Like, so let’s reverse engineer this right humor me and like Matt, how old are you right now?

Matt Wan 44:49

21.

Brett Bartholomew 44:51

Okay, so let’s imagine you’re a parent someday or let’s just imagine somebody listen to this right? Who doesn’t have that upbringing and they just heard you say how How fortunate you were to have these dinnertime conversations, right? So a parent says, well, listen, I want to get my kid interested in this shit. So we’re gonna have some, you know, now all of a sudden, this person is trying to sit there and talk to their child about debt financing, convertible debt disruption, right? Just all these different terms. What I’m getting at here is this for somebody that didn’t have that background, but they want to inculcate these qualities in their son or daughter, how can they possibly hope to get somebody engage like that?

Clearly, you’re abnormal. And I mean that in a great way. But not every kid is going to consider those kinds of conversations. fascinating and interesting. So when you’re a parent, or for somebody else, that’s a parent that wants to try to engage your kid in this kind of big picture thinking, how can they create buy in? And how can they get engagement to teach them to think like that?

Matt Wan 45:50

Well, I think I’m clearly exceptionally unqualified as a parent, but I certainly have had to deal with creating buy in and, you know, employees and investors and people associated with the brand at this point. I think for me, personally, when I was young, the folks that my dad was working with, they were rock stars to me. When, he talked about them, it was oftentimes in a way that just really connected with me, that these people, particularly when he spoke about, you know, the CEOs of these companies, these were just people that I really looked up to, even when I didn’t, for the ones even for the ones I didn’t know personally or have too much interaction with, I really grew up to look, look up to these people. And so I just had this, I guess, longtime desire to find a way to replicate that right to find a way to imitate that as much as anything, and that I had folks in my life that were leading by example.

And so I think, when you try to just force it on someone, it doesn’t work, you’ve got to make it exciting, right? You can’t just sit down and talk the kid into it. Because that’s not what happened for me either. None of this was forced on me. Right? It was interesting to me, how could it not be interesting to me, first of all, this is what your dad is doing? Right? And if you’re seven, then of course, you’re interested in it. But beyond that, I think the idea of really just trying to create an environment where you can engage with that excitement is really, really valuable.

You know, it was always so great to me when I could ask him questions about when he would be looking like, the example I gave earlier, right? When he’d be looking at a deck for a company. And he just asked me what I thought of it, asked me to look at it when he be on the conference call for the first however many minutes of car ride, and then he’s off of it. We talked about it. And I get to ask just simple stuff, right? Like, who was that? What are you guys talking about? Why are you talking about that? Why is that an issue? What is convertible debt? Right? That’s, how you learn all those things.

Brett Bartholomew 48:29

Yeah, and what you mentioned in there, and you brought a hallmark part that I hope the audience is going to listen to, is like you said, you can’t force it on somebody, those kinds of hard influence tactics generally don’t work. And that’s kind of what they’re referred to in the literature. He won by inclusion. And you won by inclusion as well. He brought he made you a part of a process through these kinds of consultation and collaborative tactics of saying, Hey, Matt, what do you think of this, or hey, come take a look at this, that piques your interest. And as a young man or young woman, you start thinking like, wow, like, this is a unique bonding opportunity with dad. And even if it’s not something that you know, that you’re interested in at the time, what you are interested in is bonding with dad.

And then those things become coincide or they coincide with one another. And that’s an experience that envelops everything that you do within that domain later on. I mean, to give you a counter example, right, like I’m not a handy guy, man, like I could be. Probably if I focused on it and learned it. I’m a lifelong learner. I love that whatever. But doing DIY shit doesn’t and I don’t enjoy it. And here’s here’s part of that reason one, I’m OCD. There’s a hole in my wall, because I messed something up. It’s gonna drive me nuts to when I was a kid, my dad taught me a lot of great lessons. But one thing he never wanted, like I tried to help him in the garage and he’d be like, get the hell out of here.

Because I just like I didn’t have that attention span for that I end up throwing the hammer somewhere or doing whatever and that cultivate now on the other hand, my father is pretty similar to your dad in some ways. I don’t know your father. So I don’t want to be presumptuous. But he would include me on some things. Or I remember he would talk to me about his financial upbringing, because he grew up dirt poor and and had to manage money. But the point is, is he included you? And there’s emotions tied into that? I mean, looking back, do you think that played a part in it? Do you guys still have a collaborative type relationship like that, that extends beyond just normal father and son stuff? Or where does that lie?

Matt Wan 50:24

I’ll be honest with you. It’s really extensive. And sometimes it’s actually like, it goes the other way, where we’ll be like, trying to go out for a bike ride or something like that, or just a dinner. And, you know, maybe we haven’t seen each other the whole day, or he’s been traveling for the week or whatever. And I’ll get like four or five questions in a row about the business. And 99% of the time, right, it’s great. And we have this really great dynamic, where I feel like I can ask him anything, I always feel like I have somebody that’s in my corner, I have somebody whose opinion I can trust, that’s never going to be dishonest with me. At the same time, you know, sometimes I just want to have dinner. Come home from a long day. And it’s like, bam, bam, bam, did you email these guys? Did you ping these guys? Have you set a time to talk to these as Eddie sent us a new model yet? Whatever it is.

Brett Bartholomew 51:29

But like when he asked you those questions, and I understand the dichotomy there, but like, let’s just let’s focus on when he asked you these questions. At first, like, was there a time where you felt like holy shit like dad, like, it’s not just a respect thing? Like he’s not asking me just to make me feel good, right? It’s not like you had a father that didn’t just have your hand he had your back. And when you realize that, for the first time, how did that make you feel? Because there’s so much that ties into building a great company. It’s a feeling it’s a relationship, it’s a bonding experience around a common mission? Like how did that make you feel when you recognize because not everybody gets that Matt

Matt Wan 52:08

Yeah, I’m sure that’s probably true. Other than incredibly fortunate, as I said, I think it made me feel like even stronger, that I didn’t want to give this anything less than my best. Like, I think that’s probably the most acute junction, I guess, to use. The word I used earlier. Right for that, as you mentioned, was that when we started working on the company, however, many years ago, I guess this was like, two and a half years ago, we probably had to have this conversation. We’d started making some real progress. There was really clearly a substantial idea here, something that we could work behind, but also something that was going to need capital.

And he had already been supportive of me was always willing to talk about my ideas, was always willing to help me look at things or introduce me to folks in his network that I could, you know, also bounce ideas off of, but they’re basically came to this point of inflection where, you know, I don’t know if we were in the car or at dinner, or where we were, but he basically said, you kind of have a choice here, you can work on this with your resources, and have a good experience with it. And probably still go to college and have a normal experience there. Or, if you want to take this seriously, you’re going to need to raise money.

And if you’re going to need to raise money, and you’re going to take other people’s money, and you’re going to take my friend’s money, then you’re going to take it seriously. Because you can’t take other people’s money and not take this seriously. Right. And that was the point of inflection. It’s like you could just go have a good experience with this have a bit of a, you know, fun time working on a little business have a you know, interesting project that you can talk about is experienced later on, or you can really go for this thing, but if you’re gonna go for it, you better not half assing it.

And that was like that, I mean, that to me was like, one of the most exciting moments in my life, where it’s like, oh, okay, you know, I can go for it. Right? He wouldn’t because it just because I knew he wouldn’t put it to me like that. If he wasn’t going to be supportive of it. Right. And so, and it’s one thing I think, for him to offer his voice or his ideas and feedback. It’s another thing for him To offer, you know, his friends, it’s another thing for him to offer a friend’s voice to ask a friend to do a favor. Right? And so that felt to me, like he placed a lot of trust in me. Right?

Brett Bartholomew 55:17

Without a doubt. And that’s it’s a lot of trust not only in what he did for you, it’s a lot of trust to be honest, Matt, in putting himself in a position where he was going to be okay, watching you fall or fail. Because it’s, I mean, that’s just the reality, right? Like, because that, like, if you need, listen, I have a family member in the hospital right now. And it’s a situation they got themselves in, and it’s a situation they’re gonna get themselves out of. And I think that that’s something that people don’t embrace enough is sometimes letting people deal with their own demons, their own failures.

And that’s, I think, this is why this took us a unique spin. But something I want to discuss about your father, as you look at these things, right, what individual what leader father or otherwise, you know, would tell anybody anything different other than be purpose driven, commit, nurture an idea, you know, be great, but you’re not ever going to be perfect. And learn to you know, basically love your scars. It sounds like he taught you these in both direct and indirect methods. And that led to a lot of the DNA of what’s made Momentous, great.

Matt Wan 56:27

Yeah, I think the love the scars were ones was not so explicit, but just learned over time. He was obviously tremendously supportive. Both my parents were throughout my whole life, but I specifically remember thinking about playing sports growing up. And I think the only time I ever really felt like, you know, he was disappointed, if you will, or even, you know, sort of felt like I hadn’t done as well as I could have, was not when I screwed up, not when I didn’t play well, not what I didn’t do whatever it is, the coach said, I was supposed to do not when I didn’t show up on time, whatever it was, you know what it was, it was when the ref made a call I didn’t like, and I got upset about it.

It was when I missed a shot, and I got upset about it. It was when one of my teammates did something dumb, and three plays later, I’m clearly still thinking about it. That, like bothered him to no end. And now it bothers me to no end. And that was I think the biggest learning for me, frankly, from possibly from my entire sporting experience, as a kid was just learning to deal with those things that you can’t control learning to deal with failures, and really more than anything, just turning the page, just learning to turn the page.

Brett Bartholomew 58:08

Not always easy, right? And

Matt Wan 58:10

Oh, so I was the worst at it. I was the worst at it. I actually, like, genuinely considered only doing sports that didn’t have referees, and I was so bad.

Brett Bartholomew 58:24

We, you know, listen, we have a lot in common in that respect. When I competed in boxing later in my life. I mean, you’re inherently in a talk about assessing value, right of a product or performance. I mean, I’ll never forget, I won my first fight by knockout and there is no subjectivity there, the guys asked us on the round, the second fight, it was so annoying how they did US Olympic amateur scoring. Because basically, you could fight somebody that just pitter patter you, you barely even feel like you’re in a fight. And even if you land a bigger blows, they can win the match. And I remember that too. Like I didn’t get in the ring for another three months when I lost my second fight by decision. Because I was so pissed.

I felt like you know, when I hit this guy hit the heck out of him. He’d come in and just kind of Patty Cake me and this guy won. And I couldn’t turn you would have thought that metaphorical page was made out of lead the heaviest lead in the world and stuff. Like you know, and yeah, man, it’s interesting, but the past teaches us so much about the future. And that’s kind of how I you know, where do you see aside from obviously growing and supporting, you know, more and more people around the world, whether it’s in the performance space, while performance is pretty wide ranging, right? But what we traditionally look at as a performance space, let’s just call it collegiate professional high school sports, tactical military business. Where do you see Momentous ultimately, you know, going in the future, if you have your way. What do you say to extending its branches into and being able to serve?

Matt Wan 59:56

I think the really short answer is more people. And so really it becomes a question of how do you serve more people? How do you convince more people to train smarter to eat smarter to really pursue the best versions of themselves? And how do you support that vision. And when I think about what the next phase of mMomentous looks like, there’s a pretty obvious component, which is, you know, the next 20, some products, right? There are however many categories and performance nutrition and vitamins, supplements and in functional foods that we feel we can create a best in class product, and that we feel we can create a product that serves the needs of professional and aspiring athletes better than anyone.

That’s the obvious thing. But when I think about what the next phase is, for momentous, I think we need to be really looking to serve the needs of, of those individuals that can’t be put in a bottle. How do we capture the things? The methods, the mindsets of elite performers that can help so many people around the world that the vast majority of individuals just don’t have access to? How do we share those things that, like I said, cannot be put in a bottle?

Brett Bartholomew 1:01:15

And that is probably the reason you just touched on right there, Matt, that, and I’ll be honest, and I don’t think I’ve ever disclosed this to a member of your team. I don’t think I’ve disclosed it to a member of my team or the audience. When we were talking about finding reasons to say no, when we had first started having the discussions we had and about the unique partnership we have today, I look for a lot of reasons to say no to you guys. And I’m sure you did the same for me. But here’s why. Right? Like because, and you mentioned it early on, like we’re inundated with with messaging and companies that claim to do this.

And then like, let me be clear, everybody. When you look at what people say about Momentous I mean, they’ve been voted the number one whey protein by Men’s Journal. Like they’re called the Ferrari of supplements, even Muscle and Fitness. So it’s funny, right? Because you talked about like, how you guys have to compete against quote unquote, bodybuilding supplements. Even they called you that the cleanest grass fed whey protein on the market. But ultimately, like, what I thought about is like, yeah, that stuff will get there. And I’m sure you guys have a great product.

But I’m just at a point in my life, Matt being 33. And like really going on 78 Because I’ve been through some unique shit, where I just needed to be around people who were sweet, generally who are honest, who wanted to kind of just like keep their head in their clouds, but their hands at the grindstone. And that’s ultimately man, what made you guys stand out for me, and it’s been a decision I’ve never regretted man. And, you know, I’m so appreciative of that. Because you do have a really unique team, you do have a really unique vision. And all of that is representative of your leadership and all the lessons and things that you’ve shared within this podcast.

Matt Wan 1:02:57

Yeah, well, I really appreciate you sharing that Brett. That obviously means a lot. And I guess likewise, on our side, why, or part of why we were decided to be supportive of content like this is that it’s the things that can’t be bottled. Right, that we thought it is actually our place to support getting your voice out there more to support, getting the voice out of the other people who are on the show, you know, I’m clearly not the most interesting one that’s going to be on here this month, I know you’ve got a ridiculously long queue of just insanely interesting people to share stories from but that was really just so perfectly in line with how we thought about our opportunity to value that this market is to support the right voices.

Brett Bartholomew 1:03:55

Well, this is just the beginning of it, man. So you know, I appreciate you. And guys, I want to make sure again, if you’re listening to this, you’ve heard me talk about them a lot. Let me be very clear. Momentus and people like Matt and his team are the reason I’m able to bring you this podcast every single week. This is the stuff behind the scenes, like he said, it’s the things that can’t be bottled. And ultimately that to me, is what I think you know, when people reach out and they say, Hey, how can I separate myself? How can I do this, it’s captured the things that can’t be bottled.

It’s appreciate the things that have a unique cost, but more importantly, a unique effect on the individuals around you. And so make sure you guys support them. Make sure you go to livemomentous.com Make sure you’re reading the show notes. Make sure you’re doing the research about what you are putting in your bodies. Everybody in my family nearly has died of heart disease and or cancer. To me it’s a no brainer. My diet is not perfect, but the things that I use to supplement that diet and and the things that I try to build my lifestyle around are all the things that Momentous embodies. So You understand the importance here. Matt, is there anything I missed? Any final thoughts? You want to leave them with man?

Matt Wan 1:05:05

I think you nailed it. I think you nailed it. Brett. I think that’s why you’re one of our customers, I think it’s why you’re, you know, so clearly precisely part of our core audience is, that doesn’t matter. If you’re not eating perfectly, it doesn’t matter if you’re training perfectly. We can work on those things. We can help you with those things, right? What we can’t spend time on and what we can’t convince you of is that you should be eating well, that you should be training well, that you should be taking care of yourself. If you’re not there already, then that’s a real challenge.

Brett Bartholomew 1:05:38

Yeah, without a doubt. Well, thanks again, Matt, for your time. I know you have a lot of things pulling at you and you have a lot of things going on. So for you to take the time means a lot and guys as always, make sure to support the show support Momentum. share this episode with a friend and make sure to leave a review and rating on iTunes. We appreciate all your support. And Matt, thanks once again.

Matt Wan 1:05:59

Thanks so much Brett.

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