00;00;01;27 - 00;00;20;14

Brexton Bennett

Hey, everyone. I'm Brexton Bennett, a 20 something year old college student and entrepreneur trying to figure out how to design a meaningful life. Thanks for joining me on the rise by looking at this podcast. This is where we set out together to figure out what it takes to live a life full of meaning and service. We do this by picking apart the details and stories of incredible people who have shown us the way.

00;00;20;28 - 00;00;23;15

Brexton Bennett

I'm really glad you're here.

00;00;23;26 - 00;00;46;10

Matt Smith

You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. And that will make all the difference, even if at all, your loss. And the reason we've been so wound and all the hopes of having it, it will have to pass and sit here on the of the great street sweep from this dump where.

00;00;46;23 - 00;00;52;07

Matt Smith

We're going to do whatever it takes to get somebody out to save their life. The others may live.

00;00;52;17 - 00;01;08;16

Matt Smith

Somewhere along the way. We must learn that that is nothing greater than to do something. This is the way I've decided to go the rest of my days. That's what I'm concerned about.

00;01;09;13 - 00;01;34;13

Brexton Bennett

Hey, guys. Awesome episode for you today. Oh, my gosh. Our guest today is Matt Smith, who is a 33 year old who's currently the co-founder and president of Project Solar, which is America's fastest growing solar provider. The cool thing about Matt, well, there's a million awesome things about Matt, but one of the things I think you'll find fascinating about this episode is how unconventional Matt's path has been to the world of tech startups.

00;01;34;24 - 00;01;55;18

Brexton Bennett

Matt's first job out of college was actually as a high school. English teacher. If I had to describe this interview with one word, it would be curiosity. The longer I talk to Matt, the more it became clear that the guy just has an insatiable curiosity, which is reflected in his wide variety of pursuits. There's loads market tell you about Matt just from his LinkedIn profile alone, but I think your best strategy to hear from him.

00;01;56;00 - 00;02;05;29

Brexton Bennett

So Matt Smith everybody will start by welcoming to the show. Matt Smith. Matt, thanks for being here, man. So excited to have you.

00;02;06;04 - 00;02;08;04

Matt Smith

Thanks for having me on here.

00;02;08;11 - 00;02;28;21

Brexton Bennett

Yeah, man, for sure. Jay So you'll have to forgive me if this. Well, I'm just going to. I'm just going to ask it. I think mostly because a lot of our listeners are going to be able to relate to this. But I went on, I found your LinkedIn and it says that you took eight years to finish your bachelor's degree.

00;02;29;03 - 00;02;29;18

Brexton Bennett

Is that right?

00;02;30;15 - 00;02;31;25

Matt Smith

Yeah, that's about right.

00;02;32;11 - 00;02;39;14

Brexton Bennett

Yeah. Jay, Matt, talk to me about what were you doing for eight years? Tell us a little bit about your undergrad. What took so long?

00;02;39;25 - 00;03;07;22

Matt Smith

Every Christmas, we get a new pair of pajamas and you know, after we go to Knott's Berry Farm with everybody, that that's on my dad's side, and then we get a new pair of pajamas and my mom likes to kind of make them for, you know, a specific to that child. And when I was going into college, my pajamas set on the on the side of the pants or whatever at the side of the sweater that said Undeclared Millionaire.

00;03;08;12 - 00;03;31;29

Matt Smith

And because I didn't know what I was going to do in college. And so I, I think, honestly, that I was like, I should be going into business. And so I started thinking, okay, well, I'm going to go into business and be an entrepreneur and I'm going to be extremely successful and I'm an overly confident person. I studied a couple of languages and Arabic is one of them.

00;03;31;29 - 00;03;50;02

Matt Smith

And when I was in the Middle East and realized that I didn't know Arabic as well as I should, I would still walk up to people as if I knew Arabic. And then just like in these conversations where I'm like, Matt, you have no idea what they're saying. You don't know how to express yourself, but that has led me into interesting places.

00;03;50;12 - 00;03;54;25

Matt Smith

But anyways, so I was pretty cool. That seems like an important entrepreneurial.

00;03;54;25 - 00;03;55;07

Brexton Bennett

Trait.

00;03;56;26 - 00;04;21;12

Matt Smith

To just go for it. Yeah, there's. There's. It's definitely a strength. Definitely can be a weakness. But yeah, that's kind of what my, my life and yeah, when I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, I had a few experiences where I kind of felt in my heart like I needed to become a high school English teacher.

00;04;21;27 - 00;04;41;14

Matt Smith

And it was that specific and that when really when you're serving a mission, you have a a man and a woman who are over the whole, you know, the whole mission in that area. And all the missionaries and I was meeting with him and was the man call the president of the mission. And I was like, President, I think I want to become a high school English teacher.

00;04;41;26 - 00;04;58;05

Matt Smith

And he was like, What? He was like, You can you can do so many things. You're very disciplined. You become a doctor, you become a lawyer. And, you know, you could be making a lot of money and doing a lot of good for the world, like, why do you want to become an English teacher? And I was like, I don't know.

00;04;58;14 - 00;05;17;01

Matt Smith

And I didn't have any reason. Besides, that's where my heart was. And I'm a very big advocate for for following your heart. I've gone against it a lot, and it has never gone well. And so I've gone against it enough that I've thought, okay, I need to be listening to my heart.

00;05;17;18 - 00;05;34;21

Brexton Bennett

And so Mack replies, We actually just had somebody else on the show who was talking about the way what that whether you call it revelation, inspiration, your heart. If it was as specific as I need to be a high school English teacher. Like, what is that? Can you give us a little more detail about what that looked like for you?

00;05;34;22 - 00;05;40;05

Brexton Bennett

Like, how how can you tell when, like, okay, this isn't just some random thought that popped in my head. This is like, from the heart.

00;05;40;24 - 00;06;05;10

Matt Smith

So I think that it's like your heart and your mind at the same time and everything is just aligned. I'm really big on like alignment. And if, you know, depending on who you are, if it's aligning with God or aligning with the universe or your destiny or whatever it is. But I could just feel like, yes. And, you know, I have that thought.

00;06;05;22 - 00;06;26;07

Matt Smith

It had very little to do. And a lot of times when I have those types of experiences as very little to do with with what's on my mind. So sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. This time I actually yeah, I kind of was sitting in a meeting and that, that thought had come and I was like, Wow, that, I don't think that that was for me.

00;06;26;07 - 00;06;39;12

Matt Smith

And so I want to take that and run with it. And you'll see as I tell this, this story, you know, post-college, how those types of thoughts have led me into where I'm at today. But yeah, that answer your question.

00;06;40;04 - 00;06;46;19

Brexton Bennett

Yeah, I totally. So you leave your mission deciding I need to be a high school English teacher?

00;06;46;29 - 00;07;09;14

Matt Smith

Yep. And so I came home and thought, that's the stupidest thing ever. And so I started taking all the prerequisite classes to get into the business school and was like, okay, fine, I'll take one intro to English class. I mean, it's important to know that I was horrible at English in high school. I told my mom that when I came home, she was like, What?

00;07;09;24 - 00;07;30;02

Matt Smith

Like you're a man. Like, I'm aced every math test. And I got, like, C's on all my papers in English and barely pulled off these because I was a hard worker. But I am not. I don't think I read one book while I was in high school. I legitimately I mean, Great Gatsby. I was like, I tell me what's happened in here because I'm not reading CliffsNotes.

00;07;30;16 - 00;07;51;07

Matt Smith

Yeah, I never read anything. So, you know, got by or whatever. And my dad, I had a conversation with him where he was just like, no, like you should not be an English teacher. Like, you're not going to live where you want to live. You're not going to you know, it's that's going to be really hard. I think he was worried about me moving out of California because we grew up in California anyway.

00;07;51;07 - 00;08;10;12

Matt Smith

So a lot of those things were going on and I just in my heart was going, I should be doing that. But I was not listening insight. I just started, you know, going to all these business classes. And then finally after I had taken that English class, the deadline was coming and I had already gotten into the business school and I was planning on the entrepreneurship track and all these things, the debt.

00;08;10;14 - 00;08;11;08

Brexton Bennett

The deadline for what.

00;08;11;20 - 00;08;52;22

Matt Smith

For applying to be able to go to the secondary English ed program at BYU. I can't it got it. And so I said, fine, I'll apply. So I applied and got in and you know, I applied at midnight and through Matt Fast and I'm always last minute. And anyway I got in and started down that route. I also I was in a a forum at BYU and love I love the forums at BYU, but Condoleezza Rice was speaking and she said two things that like set my trajectory.

00;08;52;22 - 00;09;15;15

Matt Smith

I mean, one, she said, the education system in the United States is a mess. And I had never heard that before. I had a pretty good education in Southern California, grew up in Orange County, and loved the school I went to. And I was like, It's a mess. Why? Why is it a mess? And then the second thing, she said is, I don't remember how she led up to it, but basically it's embarrassing that not more, you know, that more Americans don't know more than one language.

00;09;15;23 - 00;09;33;00

Matt Smith

And so she said, learn a language. And that just like hit me hard. And I was in sign language at the time. And I have a deaf friend that I that I knew growing up. But I and and, you know, hats off to that community. I love the deaf community, but I was like, I'm not in the right language right now.

00;09;33;00 - 00;09;51;19

Matt Smith

So I was like, really? These these intuitions, these thoughts are making my life really hard right now. And so anyway, I started crafting my my college career around. Okay, well, now I'm going to go to the Eagles teaching and Arabic. My mom is from the Middle East. My brother was in Arabic at the time, so I said, I'm going to start taking Arabic.

00;09;52;00 - 00;10;08;16

Matt Smith

And so I started down that path and I remember when I was around, I mean, I probably was around like 160 credits or something like that. She was a graduate. It was like 120 and I'm.

00;10;08;27 - 00;10;09;29

Brexton Bennett

Like four years in.

00;10;10;01 - 00;10;29;19

Matt Smith

Yeah, probably. I mean, so you said eight years, right? Two of those years was was spent serving mission O Church and then got it. You know, now this is probably I've done a little more than four years collectively in college and I sat down with my counselor and I said, I want to go study in the Middle East.

00;10;29;28 - 00;10;49;12

Matt Smith

And she said, Well, you don't need that to graduate. And I said, I don't care about graduating. I want to learn Arabic. And so I went and lived in the Middle East and loved that. I mean, I think for for college students, like go explore the world like you don't you don't know what you want. A lot of a lot.

00;10;49;16 - 00;11;10;20

Matt Smith

I mean, sure, there's there's like the 10% that do, but it's like go have cool experiences and I mean, for me, I applied for scholarships and stuff and got that paid for through the College of Humanities because it figured out through some research that nobody was even applying for those scholarships. And then, you know, that was a huge blessing that that funded me to go there.

00;11;11;05 - 00;11;28;04

Matt Smith

I did another study abroad in Asia through the business school when I was in the business school at the time. And so those were big, impactful things that I still take with me in terms of understanding other cultures and being able to see from other people's perspectives, you know, a little bit better.

00;11;28;12 - 00;11;50;12

Brexton Bennett

That's so cool. So when you're I'm just trying to vision your say for five years in and you've switched majors now and you've already fulfilled the requirements, but you're still taking classes that you really don't need to get done. And thinking about people that I know who might find themselves in a similar situation, and I think that they would do that.

00;11;50;12 - 00;12;08;12

Brexton Bennett

But there's this this pressure to the graduates, like move on to the next step, whether it's like from parents or friends or people around them, maybe from like a counselor. Like in your case, do you remember feeling that pressure? Like, Man, I just got to get done and move on to the next thing. Or you just seemed like you were so able to be content learning however long it took.

00;12;08;17 - 00;12;30;24

Matt Smith

Yeah, I yeah, I'm just a people person. I loved college, never burned a bridge before and I just I loved it. I mean, I did get to a point where all of my friends started graduating and stuff, and I was kind of like, okay, but I kind of started finding a new and new group of friends that I loved and, you know, you know, obviously needed to graduate in something.

00;12;30;24 - 00;12;53;05

Matt Smith

What she was saying is, just finish up your your education degree. And, you know, I had to do student teaching all these things. But I mean, yeah, I mean, I was probably whatever it was in 2015, I think I was like 23 or 24 years old. And as that didn't matter to me, I was just wanted to I wanted to learn and kind of have the experience that I want it.

00;12;53;13 - 00;13;03;19

Brexton Bennett

You're there to learn. And by this time, this year's going now to like the Middle East, you pretty much decided by that point you had finally convinced yourself, I am, in fact going to do English teaching.

00;13;03;19 - 00;13;04;00

Matt Smith

Nope.

00;13;05;25 - 00;13;07;20

Brexton Bennett

When was it that you finally made the.

00;13;07;20 - 00;13;31;14

Matt Smith

So it's funny when you told me the the theme of your of your podcast, I was like, I'm the perfect person. I was podcast because know in terms of being able to choose, I remember walking Braxton, I know exactly where I was on voice campus and there were these 260 year olds. There's two guys that were talking to each other and I almost just like broke down emotionally.

00;13;31;14 - 00;13;54;09

Matt Smith

I wasn't like crying or anything, but I just looked at them and I thought, How the heck did you make the decisions for, you know, who to marry and what to study? And I just it was just so shocking to me. And, I mean, the story goes on that I actually was about to do my student teaching, went to the head of my department and I said, I'm out, I'm going back to business.

00;13;54;16 - 00;14;01;00

Matt Smith

So I went and I sat in the business school because I'm like, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. I have to do business. I don't part of my whole life.

00;14;01;05 - 00;14;03;14

Brexton Bennett

This is after you had been accepted into the English part.

00;14;03;14 - 00;14;23;05

Matt Smith

I had done the whole English program and this was the very end and they all love me and all this stuff. And I went and I sat in the business school and I did you not? The professor pauses before. It is my first class in the business. Going goes. You know, I really love teaching. I was like, Oh, this is the first thing he's saying at my first class.

00;14;23;20 - 00;14;41;15

Matt Smith

And then. And then he goes, Because this is exactly where my heart is. And I think that God or some higher power knows this, he said. And if anybody is going to disrupt any industry, it won't be someone from the business school. All right. I'm going to start my lesson. And I was like, boss, where did that come from?

00;14;41;15 - 00;15;02;20

Matt Smith

Like what? So I left. I didn't even finish that two hour session after long. That class was I walked, I got up and I said, All right, I will do student teaching. I submit. I'm sorry. So like I said, I've not followed my heart many, many, many times. And I've had a lot of experiences where I'm like, This is the wrong decision, even though it doesn't look like you know the right way.

00;15;02;20 - 00;15;09;16

Matt Smith

I need to just follow. So anyway, then, due to my student teaching and graduated, that was the eight years. I apologize that took so long.

00;15;09;16 - 00;15;36;18

Brexton Bennett

But yeah, I find it it almost feels like I find that struggle so incredibly relatable. The I don't know. It's hard to describe because I've batted around in my head so many times, but I feel very as you're describing this pull between business versus teaching, I had a teacher who tried to convince me to continue. And there's a program to become I'm currently teaching high school as a seminary teacher and the program to become a seminary teacher.

00;15;37;05 - 00;15;53;21

Brexton Bennett

There is a few different rounds of you go in and you teach, you get evaluated. And I had one of the instructors, I'd made it very clear to him that I wasn't interested in doing this full time. I just wanted to like learn about teaching a little bit, just like become to become a better teacher and the exact same thing.

00;15;53;21 - 00;16;13;12

Brexton Bennett

Just like in my mind, I was like, Oh, I love teaching. It sounds so cool, but I'm not going make any money. It's I would never want to do that long term. That's never been the goal. I've always wanted to do business and it just seemed like time after time after time I'd have someone make a comment like, Are you sure you could just give this a shot?

00;16;13;12 - 00;16;25;13

Brexton Bennett

Like, you don't want to close the door on this just yet. Like, are you sure you want to give this a try? It it's just like, yeah, like, like it gets to a point where you just can't deny all of the different arrows pointing in that direction.

00;16;25;13 - 00;16;41;26

Matt Smith

It might be our subconscious looking for them. I don't know. I remember a guy in a class once raised his hand and he said, You know, my dad was a teacher and I never knew we had any financial struggles. And we had I can't remember. It was like 11 kids and I was like, Whoa, okay. Yeah, I think that were affecting me.

00;16;41;26 - 00;16;45;16

Matt Smith

But just anyway, you see have that I can do that.

00;16;45;16 - 00;16;56;10

Brexton Bennett

So so you went back and you sat down and you said, all right, I'm going to finish teaching or I'm going to finish in English. And you finally did. You graduated with a degree in English. And there's.

00;16;56;22 - 00;16;56;27

Matt Smith

One.

00;16;56;27 - 00;16;57;20

Brexton Bennett

Thing is that was.

00;16;58;08 - 00;17;26;03

Matt Smith

Its second grade education with an emphasis in English, I think is technically how it is. I think one thing that I learned looking back from that or that I would say is to not shy away from hard things. I sat down in a different class where I remember the teacher lays out the curriculum. It was a history class I needed to graduate and we had to read six books that same semester and I was like, I'm out six books like that.

00;17;26;15 - 00;17;51;06

Matt Smith

A loved one. And I went, dropped the class and I, you know, was sitting there going, okay, well, with that time, I'm going to start my first business and I start gone and my heart's like, No, you're not. And I'm like, Yes, this is what I'm doing. And I am just struggling against it. I went and kind of had another one of those experiences where I had the thought, You need to get back into that class.

00;17;51;06 - 00;18;07;14

Matt Smith

And I was like, No, no. Anyway, I went back into that class and that is the best, probably one of the best decisions I have ever made, which seems so small. But I remember the first time I finished the first book was The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, and it was a 400 page book of 393 or some of that.

00;18;07;23 - 00;18;45;29

Matt Smith

And when I finished it, I felt like I could do anything. I called my mom. I was like, Mom, I just finished a 400 page book and she sitting there, she kind of laughed. But I really felt like, Wow, I can do anything. And then I read those and then that that translated later into for one semester we had to read 30 books in English, you know, in the English major and that class, you know, I read 30 books in one semester, two books a week, and kind of those decisions of I am going to do hard things has definitely translated into, you know, skills I've taken into my career.

00;18;46;22 - 00;18;47;03

Brexton Bennett

Okay.

00;18;47;03 - 00;18;48;02

Matt Smith

Before we leave.

00;18;48;02 - 00;18;52;28

Brexton Bennett

The experience in your undergrad, why did you want to learn Arabic?

00;18;53;07 - 00;19;10;14

Matt Smith

My mom is your mom's from the Midwest families, and she doesn't speak any Arabic except for a few cuss words here and there. And my yeah, my brother was already studying it. And so I kind of started down that path and he was actually, you know, after you go to the Middle East, you can come back, you know, and do this abroad.

00;19;10;14 - 00;19;17;16

Matt Smith

You can come back and be a teacher. And so he taught like the one or two class. And then I took the class from him.

00;19;18;00 - 00;19;19;02

Brexton Bennett

Oh, at the university.

00;19;19;22 - 00;19;40;21

Matt Smith

And I am just in love with my brother. I've always thought he is kind of the coolest person ever. So we were actually taking Spanish together. I ended up taking Spanish as well. I think I graduated with like 80 language credits or something like that, but so we were taking Spanish one together in the morning and then he would teach me Arabic at an Arabic one or two in the afternoon.

00;19;40;27 - 00;19;44;25

Matt Smith

And that was one of my favorite semesters, just being with my brother all the time. I just love him.

00;19;44;28 - 00;19;50;16

Brexton Bennett

Like Did you foresee any potential need to be able to speak these languages or are you just fascinated by the idea.

00;19;50;16 - 00;20;16;00

Matt Smith

Of learning to live in the Middle East? I told my wife, probably my my heart is is in Jerusalem. I love Jerusalem. And so I said, babe, I really I think we should go live in Jerusalem at some point or in Syria. It would be awesome, but there's just a lot of need over there. And so knowing that language and you know, with, you know, so my, my thought, to be clear here, I've always thought I want to do education and I want to do it well.

00;20;16;05 - 00;20;38;02

Matt Smith

And then I wanted to go into business and I want to do business and then end in politics. So there's more of how I got to that. But essentially that has been the plan. And I thought, you know, if I know Arabic, maybe it will help for me to be able to serve that community not in a political way or anything, but just be able to go help because it's a very torn area, obviously.

00;20;38;02 - 00;20;56;03

Brexton Bennett

That's so cool, man. Okay, that seems like a really good segue way then. So you finished your undergrad, you finally committed to English. Was it did it help to be able to commit with the plan in mind that I'm not going to be doing this for forever? This isn't like until the day I retire one day. Yeah, I was constantly.

00;20;56;03 - 00;20;57;10

Brexton Bennett

Did you go into it with that plan?

00;20;57;16 - 00;21;13;20

Matt Smith

Was constantly asking myself, Well, how long do I want to do this? And I thought, okay, minimum of two years and maybe maximum of five. And does that feel right? And kind of checking in with my head in my heart, like I was saying, and just kind of it was like I maybe somewhere in there we could start there and see what happens.

00;21;13;28 - 00;21;21;21

Brexton Bennett

So that's cool. Okay. So right out of college, you started teaching.

00;21;22;00 - 00;21;50;08

Matt Smith

Yep. And I taught for three years. I ended at Highland High School. I taught and coached. And so I was coaching volleyball at the various schools that I was at. And then, yeah, teaching English atop the ninth and 10th grade classes and was very I mean, this is probably bad but almost I think it actually gave me a leg up to have the attitude of I don't really care how I'm being judged by my my administration.

00;21;50;15 - 00;22;10;29

Matt Smith

I care that the kids are having the right experiences. So I was kind of like fire me if you want to fire me, but this is this is what I'm going to do. So like, for example, I think we were supposed to teach gosh, I can't remember. It wasn't Romeo and Juliet, but it was some classic. And I said, I went I went to my administrator and I said, This is bullshit.

00;22;11;00 - 00;22;32;06

Matt Smith

I was like, half my kids can't even read. And remember I didn't read one book in high school. So in my mind I can't remember. It was we'll just call it Romeo and Juliet, which people are going to like hiss at me for. It's like, Oh, it's a classic. And my half, my kids can barely read like, and we want to throw this at them like, no, I'm not teaching that.

00;22;32;14 - 00;22;50;27

Matt Smith

And so she's like, Well, what do you want to teach? And Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton. And I said, I want my kids to read a ton about what is happening with, you know, everything in the election. Listen to the debates. And I want them to write a paper around who they would vote for and why she said, awesome, teach that.

00;22;51;07 - 00;23;09;02

Matt Smith

And so that was so fun kind of having that approach say, hey, what is actually going to be really good to arm these these youth, you know, to be able to go out into the world. And so teaching them things like, hey, because, you know, you get comments from kids like, oh, I read this on the internet and stuff and I'm like, okay, was it true?

00;23;09;09 - 00;23;24;24

Matt Smith

How do you know? And just really challenging them and pushing them in something they're interested in rather than in things that, Oh, this is the curriculum and this is why I have to teach it, because I have to get good grades, you know, they have to get good test scores and all that stuff. I was kind of like, Sorry, I don't I don't care about that that much.

00;23;25;18 - 00;23;26;09

Matt Smith

So yeah.

00;23;27;08 - 00;23;43;12

Brexton Bennett

I don't know if this is worth going into or not, but I've heard some teachers express how challenging it is to work within the education system can be really challenging, especially probably for somebody who did not enjoy school and maybe things a little bit differently about things. Yeah. Did that get kind of exhausting sometimes?

00;23;43;12 - 00;24;05;29

Matt Smith

That wasn't too bad. I yeah, it wasn't too bad. One of the schools that I taught I didn't love it was a charter school, the first school I taught at. And it was like, you know, everyone was uniforms. There's cameras in the classrooms. And I knew they're watching them because another teacher came to me and said, Hey, they showed me a clip of you teaching and how you handled the situation.

00;24;05;29 - 00;24;24;10

Matt Smith

I was like, Oh my gosh, they're actually watching those cameras. Like, I thought there was just cameras everywhere, not so. Anyway, I didn't love that. I more loved the I mean, teaching island. I was the perfect set up. I was making the most possible money as a teacher in the state of Utah. I think maybe besides Park City.

00;24;24;16 - 00;24;39;01

Matt Smith

And then it was a block away from my home and the principal was amazing. His name is Chris. Get rumors. Last name but but he was very hey teach how you want to teach and I you know, I brought things like that to them where I said, hey, I want to teach this. And they said, Hey, that's awesome.

00;24;39;05 - 00;24;55;15

Matt Smith

Just make sure they're really learning how to think and how to, you know, hit these certain kind of broader goals. And I was like, Awesome, we're aligned on that. So I was going completely rogue, but I wanted to have my freedom shirt. So. And interest of the kids. That's awesome. Yeah.

00;24;55;24 - 00;25;12;08

Brexton Bennett

So sure. For sure. Hmm. So as you're teaching and the semesters go by, I didn't feel like I mean, this is everything I thought it would be. And more like this is my calling. Yeah. Or did you fall in love with it more and more as time that.

00;25;12;08 - 00;25;35;04

Matt Smith

I just loved teaching. I didn't love grading papers. I just but but being well prepared and, you know, executing on a lesson where kids are engaged and, you know, they're actually learning. I really don't think there's anything like that. You know, you're just my my wife would call it being in flow, you know, and you just almost every step you're taking is intentional.

00;25;35;04 - 00;25;52;25

Matt Smith

You know, you're walking toward kids that maybe aren't paying as much attention or you're doing things. I remember I was I was reading once out of a book and maybe it was a little bit more difficult for kids to listen. And so I went and I got and I stood up on this like probably six foot high ledge over the top of them.

00;25;52;28 - 00;26;13;20

Matt Smith

And kids are like, What is Mr. Smith doing? And I just kept walking as if nothing was happening and then came down or would start running around the classroom. You're talking about, I don't know, whatever different different, you know, run on sentences or whatever and and just doing things that really engage kids. I mentioned to you before we started this this call, I really feel like teaching is entrepreneurship at its finest.

00;26;14;03 - 00;26;24;24

Matt Smith

And so if you can be creative and that goal of, you know, helping kids to to learn and grow, like that's just it's a beautiful thing.

00;26;24;24 - 00;26;27;08

Brexton Bennett

Yeah, it it is.

00;26;27;08 - 00;26;28;27

Matt Smith

It's yeah. You know, you know.

00;26;28;27 - 00;26;49;02

Brexton Bennett

So one thing that I found with teaching, you know, I could sit here and listen to you talk about it forever. Because one thing that I've noticed is it also seems to be one of the most intense self-improvement courses that you can put yourself through because high schoolers have this incredible way of detecting in kind of any kind of in genuineness.

00;26;49;02 - 00;27;07;16

Brexton Bennett

I don't know if that's a word or any kind of any anytime. You're just trying to pull one over, you got to pick up on it in a second. You're not prepared, right? Any for any insecurity you stand up there with. Yeah, they'll call you on it. I had I stood up in front of a a group of kids one time and it was like an early morning class.

00;27;07;16 - 00;27;25;07

Brexton Bennett

And I was trying to get them like, you know, get a laugh or something just to add a little energy to the room. Because it was really early and everyone's dead asleep and I made some joke. What was it? Oh, yeah, that I like my my socks were mismatched and I was like, yeah, my socks are mismatched because I threw them in the laundry last night and I woke up this morning, they weren't dry.

00;27;25;07 - 00;27;34;02

Brexton Bennett

And one kid was like, You left your laundry wet in the washer overnight. That means it's all moldy. Like no wonder you smell so bad all the time. And I was like.

00;27;34;12 - 00;27;38;13

Matt Smith

Dude, my classroom of.

00;27;38;28 - 00;27;44;03

Brexton Bennett

So just stuff like that. And then you just got to like you got to absorb that in front of 25 eyeballs and just be like.

00;27;44;13 - 00;27;45;24

Matt Smith

Okay, we're moving forward.

00;27;46;06 - 00;27;56;04

Brexton Bennett

And you just like everything that you do is just on display and you got to just like you got to be up there totally authentic in front of a whole group of kids. And it's just it's awesome. It's so much.

00;27;56;04 - 00;28;15;21

Matt Smith

Fun. Is one of the kids in my class, he goes, Hey, Mr. Smith, you say the word interesting a lot. I was like, Yeah, I, you know, I'm interested in what you guys are saying. He's like, Yeah, I think you say it when you don't know what you're talking about. I was like, Okay, know, but I don't know how to respond or something like that.

00;28;15;23 - 00;28;30;22

Matt Smith

I just you are under the microscope are very bright. I mean, seventh graders, I taught seventh, ninth grade at one and I'm like, holy smokes, a lot of them are smarter than I am. But you're exactly right. Yeah. Teaching. Teaching are refined. You.

00;28;30;22 - 00;28;37;18

Brexton Bennett

It's so true. That's awesome. In did you find you said you were coaching at the same time right. What were you.

00;28;37;18 - 00;28;43;17

Matt Smith

Coaching. Volleyball and then a little bit of basketball, mostly. Ball. I grew up playing volleyball, so I.

00;28;44;02 - 00;29;03;02

Brexton Bennett

Gotcha. I was going to ask one thing I wanted to ask you before we got on the interview, and maybe that's the answer is if you I mean, what were you filling your time with outside of teaching during those two years? Were you working any side jobs? Just going on court trips, hanging out with friends? Over the summer, you were like starting some side business on the side or something.

00;29;03;08 - 00;29;24;21

Matt Smith

Or were you up to. Well, just just briefly on the teaching schedule, especially with with volleyball, my first year of teaching, I would get up at 630, I would try to read a little bit and then I would need to be at school, which I was living in Provo, but teaching in Salt Lake and was I was teaching in West Valley and it's like a 35 minute commute.

00;29;24;26 - 00;29;41;18

Matt Smith

So I would need to be there at like 720 and sometimes I wouldn't get home till like ten at night with coaching because it would be, you know, we have, you know, games later and stuff like that. So I'm trying to plan a little bit in the middle and then I mean, I really didn't have that's a long day.

00;29;41;18 - 00;29;57;11

Matt Smith

So, so that, you know, volleyball is the first season, right? And so that when they said, hey, we want to be the volleyball coach, I was like, sweet, I love volleyball. And then I was like, oh, my gosh, drinking in the fire is like, this is insane. And then when volleyball is come to a close, it said, Hey, Matt, do you know anything about basketball?

00;29;57;11 - 00;30;18;25

Matt Smith

I said, Not really. They said, Well, you're athletic. Can you be the basketball coach? I was like, Oh, I said, Yes, which is probably stupid, but I mean that first, whatever it was, five or six months of teaching, I was just getting hammered in terms of the time commitment that it took, especially with with English. You know, you're grading papers in addition to lesson planning and stuff that that takes a lot of time.

00;30;18;25 - 00;30;40;24

Matt Smith

So I wasn't doing a ton outside of that, but, but was still, you know, loving it and just really loving being with the kids. I have a group of friends we grew up with in Orange County who we all get together every year to do a motorcycle trip and dirt bikes, not not that road. And so we basically in college started that.

00;30;40;24 - 00;30;58;29

Matt Smith

We we got on bikes, we called it pro to pal and we rode from Provo to Lake Powell and we basically just went through through the mountains that are right right next to Provo. And then all dirt just went all the way down to Lake Powell. It's probably like five or 600 miles round trip or something like that.

00;30;59;07 - 00;31;13;19

Matt Smith

And that was a blast. And so we've done that every single year. You know, we've gone into Colorado, up in Idaho, Saint George kind of explored this area. And anyway, yeah, that's one of the things I enjoy selling my time off.

00;31;15;14 - 00;31;27;20

Brexton Bennett

Yeah. You're enjoying your summers. That's cool, man. Oh, man. If we could just sit and talk about teaching something that's really cool, man. So how did you decide it was time to move on?

00;31;28;09 - 00;31;53;11

Matt Smith

So, yeah, one summer I started a business and it was it's called Future People and it was about educating little kids through their clothing. So I would sit in student teacher conferences and, you know, guess which parents came? It's the parents of the kids with the straight A's. I'm like, I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to the parents whose kids have F's and they're not showing up.

00;31;53;11 - 00;32;20;18

Matt Smith

And I'm going, Yeah, no, I need to talk to those parents. And so I kind of started doing research into that a little bit and really fell in love with the data and the, the education that I was having around, you know, essentially 0 to 5 years old. What's happening in a child's brain and the impact of educating I'm sorry, not educating, but just investing in 0 to 5.

00;32;20;29 - 00;32;39;01

Matt Smith

And it's crazy. I mean, there's statistics all around basically the way that a child is raised during that time and how it affects the rest of your life, you're just laying the foundation. And so, I mean, I can pick out students in my classes where I'm like, you can tell that kid had a rough 0 to 5. They didn't.

00;32;39;25 - 00;33;01;24

Matt Smith

Their brain doesn't know how to handle emotion. And then you can see exactly how that plays out in class and stuff. So for me, it was essentially interactive shirts that allowed parents to, you know, or adults to interact with kids. So it would say, like, I know my colors and then it would have four colors on the shirt and then it would say, Quiz me really big at the bottom.

00;33;02;09 - 00;33;23;02

Matt Smith

And so we had an animal sounds, shirts, animals and letters, numbers, you know, just kind of all those rudimentary things that encouraged parents to engage with their kids. And we started that over the summer. And then I decided not to go back to teaching as that kind of started to pick up a little bit.

00;33;23;02 - 00;33;46;19

Brexton Bennett

Huh. Okay. I want to ask you about the business, but first, I'm curious, like, were there any books or article, anything that you remember in particular as you studied this 0 to 5 learning about the development of kids? I, I just got done reading. Have you ever had anybody keeps the score by Betsy. I have. Well it's I just got done reading it.

00;33;46;19 - 00;34;14;09

Brexton Bennett

It's this fascinating, absolutely fascinating book about the effect of, well, he he goes specifically into the effects of trauma, but he just it's all about I mean, he goes deep, deep into the development of our minds and how it affects our social interactions and how any sort of trauma across the whole spectrum, how it plays out, clear into adulthood.

00;34;14;23 - 00;34;35;25

Brexton Bennett

And I mean, you can determine, just like you were saying, from 0 to 5, it will affect the next I mean, the rest of somebody's life, too, in a profound way. And so many things that behaviors that people have where you're like, this just is illogical. Like, Why are you doing this? It can so often be traced back to behaviors that the brain learned before they were even speaking.

00;34;35;25 - 00;34;37;09

Brexton Bennett

Really. And it's fascinating.

00;34;37;22 - 00;34;55;07

Matt Smith

That I wrote it down. I'm going to read it. It's awesome. So you asking me about, you know, about those resources? I essentially listen to some just, you know, TED talks and things. I'm still not a great reader, to be honest, even though I kind of like I and I wish that were something that I were better at.

00;34;55;07 - 00;35;21;03

Matt Smith

And but anyway, I listened to I can't remember the exact names, but it was basically, you know, different therapists and things that were just talking about child development. There's one from the University of Washington where they went over a few different studies around, you know, the importance of having an actual human rather than a television that's teaching something or, you know, etc. or radio or something like that.

00;35;21;03 - 00;35;50;09

Matt Smith

And then there's another just about it's called serve and receive where basically when when a child serves that like in tennis and then someone receives by, by sending it back, you know, if they're saying like, oh, you know, they're pointing like bird and then the mom or dad is like, Oh yeah, that's a pretty bird. It's a bluebird that's like that served and receive relationship and how how important that is, you know, that someone has a loving, you know, adult in their life that can nurse them in that way.

00;35;50;09 - 00;36;01;17

Matt Smith

They say that that's more important than, you know, reading, you know, all these all these different things that we think are the most important. But ultimately, it's like you need a loving person that can give you that environment to nourish your brain.

00;36;01;28 - 00;36;05;12

Brexton Bennett

That's cool, man. Now it seems like I mean, you're just kind of a curious guy.

00;36;05;22 - 00;36;07;03

Matt Smith

You have a curious guy. I think.

00;36;07;03 - 00;36;07;27

Brexton Bennett

He just like to learn.

00;36;08;12 - 00;36;09;20

Matt Smith

Jack of all trades, master.

00;36;09;21 - 00;36;11;13

Brexton Bennett

Know and be curious. I don't mean like I'd.

00;36;12;15 - 00;36;16;22

Matt Smith

Just like with a lot of curiosity, although I believe me, I'm definitely odd.

00;36;17;21 - 00;36;21;24

Brexton Bennett

Okay, so you decide to get busy on this business. Write me the name of.

00;36;21;29 - 00;36;22;18

Matt Smith

Your people.

00;36;22;23 - 00;36;26;15

Brexton Bennett

The clothing company people, future people. How long did you do that for?

00;36;26;28 - 00;36;55;20

Matt Smith

So I started doing future people. It probably lasted like two years, maybe a year. And a half or something like that. I mean, it still exists, but yeah, an Instagram. But I'm really slowly. I think we're more like 5000 followers or something and started to have people post spouses and stuff. But I was I was doing that and at the same time I was buying trucks in Canada and then with, you know, driving for a while or whatever for the legal amount of time and then coming and selling them.

00;36;56;11 - 00;37;16;29

Matt Smith

And so doing those two things allowed me to buy my own home. I was talking to one of my mentors, his name is Trevor Larson, and he's kind of like, Matty, what? Why are you renting? Like, you're 26 years old or whatever? You should have other people paying your rent and it was just everything was clicking and I was going, Yeah, how much do you need for down payment?

00;37;16;29 - 00;37;35;29

Matt Smith

And this is one thing that I wish that I could educate kind of the young adults on is like getting into a home and what that takes. I thought that you had to have it whatever, $100,000 to get into a home. But he was like, Matt, you can just put down like 5%. I was like, What? And maybe that is $100,000 today's market.

00;37;35;29 - 00;37;51;08

Matt Smith

But back then, you know, homes were going for three or four grand. And so I started thinking, I need I need to get a home I've saved up. This money is just sitting in my bank account and and seeing him and then a mix of a couple others. I started to think like, why am I not investing my money?

00;37;51;08 - 00;38;18;23

Matt Smith

Like it's just sitting in a bank account and so turned on to use that curiosity in investing and you know bought my first home and then one of my tenants I was living there one of my tenants is one of my best friends as well. He sold a he sold a commercial office space to a guy named Evan Walker and his business partner, Mike Marino.

00;38;18;23 - 00;38;35;03

Matt Smith

And he came home and said, Hey, Matt, you got to talk to these guys. The they have a really good business. They're looking for investment. You know, I think people think if you own a home, you probably have money. So he's like, you should be investing in their company. I'm broke. I don't know what you're talking about, but I was I just kind of brushed it off.

00;38;35;03 - 00;38;57;04

Matt Smith

And but but when he said it, I thought, I need to talk to them. And so anyway, I he brought it up again and I went and talked to them and they pitched me on this business idea. They started a company called Root. At the time it was kind of just the concept, but they pitched me on it and I was really impressed.

00;38;57;04 - 00;39;13;06

Matt Smith

And so I went and I knocked on the door of Trevor HILDEBRANDT. He's he's my current co founder and one of my best friends went on, on the motorcycle trips and all that stuff. I went to high school together, but I was like, Hey, you should come. Listen, these guys like you should. You should see if you want to throw in some money.

00;39;13;15 - 00;39;33;26

Matt Smith

And so I pitched him the idea on the spot and he was like, That is genius. And I've pitched him a lot of ideas. And he, you know, he was on Shark Tank and has started probably ten different companies and been pretty successful. So I'll run ideas by him. But he was like, That is genius. I was like, All right, awesome.

00;39;33;26 - 00;39;51;28

Matt Smith

So then he came and met Evan. Mike Pitch, you know, again, and he was like, Hey, y'all in money. And I really felt like, you know, if there's a way I can be a part of this company, I should just to be able to kind of learn more about entrepreneurship. And so, you know, you ask essentially how long it lasts.

00;39;51;28 - 00;40;13;20

Matt Smith

And at that point, I had built a an e-commerce store on Shopify and Root is actually a widget on Shopify. It's this asset that goes on your your website and allows people to buy shipping insurance when they're checking out for $0.98. And so I knew a lot about Shopify and that helped me to transition to that company, become their first employee and help them grow over the next couple of years.

00;40;14;20 - 00;40;22;29

Brexton Bennett

So when they originally talked to you, pitching you the idea, they pitched to you as though you were a potential investor, right? Even though you were.

00;40;23;00 - 00;40;28;16

Matt Smith

A potential investor that you they were just like, is that. I was like, well.

00;40;28;25 - 00;40;32;29

Brexton Bennett

Like they were I mean, they were sitting there talking to you as though they were talking to you like a potential investor.

00;40;33;00 - 00;40;34;28

Matt Smith

Yeah. I said, what's the middleman? And so you.

00;40;34;28 - 00;40;40;27

Brexton Bennett

Went in there wearing the potential investor hat so that you could have a conversation with you guys knowing that there was no way you were going to be able to invest.

00;40;40;29 - 00;40;56;11

Matt Smith

Well, I thought I mean, so I asked I said, what's the minimum? They said, 50 grand. And I was like, okay, so what's the business idea? You know, you just kind of roll past that. You're like, I got 50 bucks right? But yeah, that's our valuation.

00;40;56;19 - 00;41;08;16

Brexton Bennett

Hmm. And at that time, before getting on with route where you kind of to the point where you're looking for your next thing, you're hoping to go big with the clothing company, you just kind of kind.

00;41;08;16 - 00;41;31;06

Matt Smith

Of lost interest in the clothing company, not in terms of the the goal. But I was like, this is or we had really low margins. I mean, looking back now, it was horrible in terms of unit economics. I was like, we're making shirts for, you know, basically ten bucks shipped and you know, we're selling them for 1499. And so you have $4 to go acquire customer if you want to make a buck.

00;41;31;06 - 00;41;49;27

Matt Smith

And we're like, that's not good. So I mean, I was just, I was finishing my basement, actually. I wanted to make sure I knew everything about construction. And so, you know, you're seeing a theme here. I was going and doing the electrical and the plumbing and, you know, I wanted to do every step. And so I was just focusing there until rap came along.

00;41;50;19 - 00;42;02;08

Brexton Bennett

Gotcha. And becoming part of their team. Was that something that you really had to push for to get hired by them, or was it a pretty natural by the time they had gotten to know you as a potential investor, they wanted you on.

00;42;02;16 - 00;42;23;14

Matt Smith

Your next question. So I like I said, I didn't burn any bridges in college any time. I mean, if there is a guy going for the same girl and all that stuff, we were always still really good friends. And I, you know, I dated a lot. And anybody who who I broke up with that was like, hey, we still love each other and you're a great person, you know?

00;42;23;26 - 00;42;44;10

Matt Smith

And so what happened was rude. They basically were saying, Hey, do you know anybody who has Shopify stores? And I said, Yeah, my buddy was one of them. So I went and told Trevor, Hey, but this put this asset on your on your website and he, trust me, we have a good relationship. And so he did it. And, you know, he was doing a decent amount of revenue, so it brought their company revenue.

00;42;44;18 - 00;43;02;29

Matt Smith

And at that point, I was kind of like, well, I'm going to go back and teach. That's kind of where my head's at and they're like, No, you should stay like that. That's cool that you were able to do that. And I kind of had this mentality that, you know, there are a lot of salespeople in the world and it kind of bothers me when salespeople talk the talk, you know, I'm going to do this.

00;43;02;29 - 00;43;22;00

Matt Smith

I'm the boss and I'm just like, shut up. Like, go do it. And so we were in this, you know, kind of, I'm going to sell this person. We had just learned that someone was down the hall who owned is just called bond design and they own a Shopify store that's doing it for some pretty decent revenue. And I'm going to go so far out of the they're right down the hall, dude.

00;43;22;00 - 00;43;40;09

Matt Smith

That was probably the third time I heard that conversation. So I literally got up, went, sold fun design, came sat back down and said, Hey, I just saw them on and they're like, What? I was like, Yeah. I mean, you guys keep saying you're going to do it like I was about to do it. Let's move. And then I started just calling people who are not Shopify stores that were good friends of mine.

00;43;40;09 - 00;44;03;13

Matt Smith

And then I wouldn't sound like a great salesperson. I just had good relationships. So I probably had four or five kind of bigger stores. Courtney Jean was one of them. Albion Fit. I mean, all these Utah local stores that started putting this acid onto their sides. And then based off of I think I was doing 60% of the revenue for all of route at the time.

00;44;03;18 - 00;44;24;17

Matt Smith

And then they raised another round and they were going on stage. At one point they said, We will give you 50% commissions instead of the 10% we were making because they were like, We love what you're doing. And, you know, knowing what I know now, I would have played cards a little bit differently in terms of how things work, and I'm super grateful for how things have shaken out.

00;44;24;17 - 00;44;50;01

Matt Smith

But anyway, I just I started to go through and had really good mentors at root and just learn as much as I could. David Dustin was one of those. He is just a super gracious professional guy that taught me a lot about how to treat employees in the workplace and professionalism. And, you know, I'm sure a lot of people that are listening to this podcast will ask like, how important is my major?

00;44;50;12 - 00;45;05;15

Matt Smith

For me, it wasn't. I mean, I literally was like, look, I can go to business school and then become an entrepreneur, but I don't need credentials to become an entrepreneur or I can go get a teaching license and I do need to do credentials to become a teacher. So I'm going to do that and I can just become an entrepreneur later.

00;45;05;15 - 00;45;22;05

Matt Smith

Like it's more of a skillset thing in my mind. That was so now I'm just picking up right things on the job and thinking, if I wanted to go into this, I could do that. If I wanted to go into this, I could do that because a lot of the people there kind of saw me adding value. So they started saying, Hey, I want Matt on my team.

00;45;22;05 - 00;45;29;04

Matt Smith

I want Matt on my team. Because, you know, I was just trying to learn and give as much as I could, right?

00;45;29;23 - 00;45;35;04

Brexton Bennett

Yeah. That's cool, man. What were some of the important lessons that you learned at Root during the years you worked for them.

00;45;35;27 - 00;46;07;26

Matt Smith

Is a great question. I mean, Evan taught me a lot. I was really close to Evan. He he is really good at just running a room. He's you know, he's if I'm confident and I'm like a seven, he's a 15. He's just a very confident guy. And I mean, he's got a good head on his shoulders, but, you know, I think I think I had enough experiences there where it just really solidified the importance of like being true to who I am.

00;46;09;06 - 00;46;35;21

Matt Smith

You know, you get you get through a lot of situations where people think, you know, right and wrong and, you know, honesty. It's like, okay, like that. Honesty is is a spectrum. It's not, are you being honest or you're not being honest? It's more how honest and how transparent, forthcoming. And, you know, there's definitely ways you can phrase things where you can say, Oh, that's honest, although maybe it won't be perceived in the way that it actually happened and stuff.

00;46;35;21 - 00;46;59;00

Matt Smith

So I learning the value of Yeah, just like really being true to who you are. It just always wins. I mean, I've seen people who don't and I've seen him get hammered and I've seen people who do and see him succeed and that it's not always the way that it goes. Sometimes you get fired. I actually, I the the way that I left out is I got fired.

00;46;59;14 - 00;47;17;09

Matt Smith

And I can tell you about that story is pretty, pretty loud. But yeah, I, I part of the reason to me that I got fired is because I was just trying to be true to who I am. And yeah, I honestly, that was probably one of the biggest blessings. God, I don't think I would've ever left, but that led me to right currently am so.

00;47;18;14 - 00;47;31;25

Brexton Bennett

All right. So just to give listeners some context, I did a little research and route. I mean, you were there from the very beginning, from zero, and they grew when you're with them to like like 20 million in revenue, is that about right?

00;47;31;29 - 00;47;37;11

Matt Smith

I don't know if I can disclose, but they have not disclosed. But we were.

00;47;37;22 - 00;47;39;02

Brexton Bennett

Getting close.

00;47;39;02 - 00;47;52;18

Matt Smith

To a billion. And valuation, I should say, is where we were looking at raising and you know that. So they publicly have raised at 1.25 billion and yeah I mean that so.

00;47;53;01 - 00;47;55;08

Brexton Bennett

And and that was over the course of like two years or.

00;47;55;08 - 00;48;14;17

Matt Smith

So. Two years is when I left. And I mean, maybe they were closer to like 500 at the time because now two years later, a year and a half later or something, that's when they raised that 1.25. Sure. Markets have changed a little bit. Yeah. So I essentially that was a master's program. You know, I'm watching all these different funding rounds.

00;48;14;17 - 00;48;14;26

Matt Smith

I was going.

00;48;14;26 - 00;48;23;09

Brexton Bennett

To say like what an incredible opportunity to watch that process from in such a short period of time, from all the way at the level.

00;48;23;26 - 00;48;48;02

Matt Smith

Who do you hire and when do you hire them and how much you're paying people and stuff. Because I was close with with Evan and Mike, the founders like I just they kind of would open up and let me know kind of whatever I wanted. And so it was a really, really awesome educational experience. I still call Evan and Mike and chat with them and let them know how I'm doing with this company that I'm working on and just super grateful for everything that they're doing and that the education it afforded me.

00;48;48;02 - 00;48;52;08

Brexton Bennett

So that's really cool. So yeah. Tell us how you got fired.

00;48;53;15 - 00;49;16;02

Matt Smith

So there's a there's a sales leader there that he is. He and I just butt heads a lot. The day that he was hired, he was like, I, you know, I want to learn from. Yeah, it seems like you're kind of like the alpha here in the sales group, so to speak. Like everyone really, really respects what you're doing or whatever.

00;49;16;02 - 00;49;36;27

Matt Smith

And I was like, okay, sure. And would, would kind of talk with him. And then we had a discussion around him that just didn't go great. And I kind of puffed out my chest about some of the past things that had happened and probably wasn't smart, but it was something that I'm definitely learning. And later in a meeting he was like, You are really arrogant.

00;49;36;27 - 00;50;01;08

Matt Smith

And I was like, Whoa, like what? Like he was just trying to kind of put me in my place and humble me. And I kind of didn't know. I was like, Excuse me? Like, I don't know. I'm just like, I'm trying to whatever. And I, I'm sure that I am Eric in all situations. So that was interesting. And it came to the point where someone had named a meeting with a curse word in it.

00;50;01;18 - 00;50;21;02

Matt Smith

And I, I said, Hey, I'm not no, we're not doing that. Like, that's not the culture. That's like it's this I want to clean, clean environment here. I mean, obviously I was the first employee, so had a hand in what was happening inside voice that and this this leader respectfully actually took it down and I like really appreciated that.

00;50;21;26 - 00;50;38;06

Matt Smith

But later it became kind of toxic and he would like purposely cuss in front of me. And I'm not that I care that much about that but just he knew was he was just trying to get under my skin and I would smile because it's pretty hard to get under my skin in my work. I was a high school English teacher.

00;50;38;06 - 00;51;04;16

Matt Smith

Okay, you can do a lot of things. So anyway, we had a meeting where I was. I was closing a company called Purple Mattress. They're they're one of the biggest players in e-commerce. This this guy who didn't really like me had passed me all these huge deals, like I was working with eBay and, you know, etc., etc., all these all these massive deals.

00;51;04;16 - 00;51;22;19

Matt Smith

And so they were kind of going, hey, how come you're not closing the small deals? And I was like, Well, I'm working on this huge you guys have give me these huge deals. And they were kind of gone, well, you know, we don't know how that's going, whatever. And ultimately, I pulled my record and said, I have sold more than anyone.

00;51;22;19 - 00;51;45;00

Matt Smith

Like I look who's second behind me, like I'm still over them. Now we have 40 sales guys, like I'm still your number one salesperson. And essentially in that meeting that that leader said, I don't want to work with Matt Smith and the CEO who was Evan was like, well, like, let's look at the numbers. And to day he's like, no, I don't want to look at the numbers.

00;51;45;00 - 00;52;03;13

Matt Smith

Like I'm not working with Matt Smith. And I was I was just kind of smiled that point. I was like, I guess I'm going to go start my own company. And they had said that. And I mean, it feels like you're running your own company and that's kind of going, Yeah, I probably should run my own company. And so anyway, I said, Guys, look, can I keep the equity that's.

00;52;04;00 - 00;52;26;00

Matt Smith

And I said, Yeah, of course, of course. And I said, I'm just going to start my own company. And they said, are you going to compete with us? And I was like, Yes, it's funny that you feel threatened by that, but no, I'm not going to compete with you anyway. And so I stood up and after that, after that meeting, that leader and I looked at me and he's like, I know you hate me.

00;52;26;13 - 00;52;48;16

Matt Smith

And I said, I don't hate you. I love you. And he was just so mad. And I and I was serious. I was like, I'm not I'm not trying to I don't hate you. Like, I want you to, you know, be a good person, succeed or whatever. But anyway, that was that was interesting. And then gave big hugs to Evan and my co-founders, who were just good guys.

00;52;48;16 - 00;53;12;18

Matt Smith

They're homies and left. And I called my girlfriend at the time. He's now my wife. And we were talking I had told her the night before. I said, I feel like I'm going to get let go. And she was like, What? You're the number one salesperson and you're like, the golden child that and all this different stuff. And I said, I think I'm just going to let it happen.

00;53;13;00 - 00;53;36;21

Matt Smith

This was the night before all this happened. And I and she said she said that, like employment is is a gift from God. But you shouldn't be flippant about it. Like you need to fight for, for, for, you know, what's right and good. And so that actually directed me in that meeting instead of just rolling over some of the reasons where that leader kind of said, Hey, this is why we should fire Matt.

00;53;36;21 - 00;53;51;03

Matt Smith

We're just blatant lies. Like you said, I was, you know, whatever spreading rumors of all these things. I did stand up and I said, hey, I'm not I'm not telling you to, you know, to have to turn off my reputation like I have been very honest from beginning to end. And this is some ploy to get me out.

00;53;51;03 - 00;54;08;04

Matt Smith

Just be a man and say, I don't want to work with Matt. Don't you don't have to lie about it. And so anyway, when I called her afterward, we're talking and she said, You have really sad eyes. And I was like, What are you talking about? Because I'm just talking as if nothing has happened. And she said, What happened?

00;54;08;16 - 00;54;30;19

Matt Smith

And I was like, I, I got like, oh, she was like, what? You got like, oh, boy. I was just like, it's okay, it's okay. And she wanted me to come work with her. That didn't go so right in my heart. And then the old SEO of Jane Dot adds an e-commerce company here called me the next day and said, Hey, let's let's start a company together.

00;54;30;29 - 00;54;53;10

Matt Smith

And I was like, I appreciate that. I mean, that's that's very flattering. Let me let me kind of look at my options. Had two other employees from group call me and say, hey, we want to start a company together, have tons of employees are out saying like I can't believe you got fired what happened to like it was like a wild and just so good, you know, to be like, hey, people love me.

00;54;53;26 - 00;55;14;14

Matt Smith

I'm not just like rallied around anyway. So so one of the phone calls I got was from my current business partner, General Brands. And I met my best friend and I had him and told him I got fired and he was just like, No way. Like, that's insane. So he called me back the next morning and he said, Hey, I am serious about this.

00;55;14;14 - 00;55;34;25

Matt Smith

And we had talked about this business idea in the past. He said you would start the solar company together. And I was like, Bro, I'm not touching the solar industry with a 50 foot pole like that is the most. That's just the worst possible. No, I'm serious. Let me just show you the economics, all those different stuff. And so we we essentially launched Project Solar.

00;55;34;25 - 00;55;46;28

Matt Smith

I was fired March 2nd, 2020. This is right before the pandemic. Then the pandemic hit, and then we launched April 10th, 2020 was when we like formed the LLC to start Product Solar. Wow.

00;55;47;08 - 00;55;52;20

Braxton Bennett

That's so cool, man. What a story. So give us a quick what's the premise of Project Solar Mosaic? I'm really.

00;55;53;15 - 00;56;05;01

Matt Smith

So we sell solar are our goal sorry but our goal is to basically eliminate the door knocker from the solar industry and it's.

00;56;05;01 - 00;56;05;22

Brexton Bennett

Make it e-commerce.

00;56;05;23 - 00;56;30;16

Matt Smith

It's it's 2021 people and I'm like, you don't need grown men and women knocking on doors, getting paid $6,000 in order to buy a solar system. You can go online. There's all these amazing tools where you can know exactly what you need. It can be a completely digital sale. And we've proven that now. At the time we were kind of going, How should we do this?

00;56;30;16 - 00;56;50;27

Matt Smith

And Trev, so Trev has bootstrap a lot of companies. He had just sold his biggest company, Transparent Labs, and had had a great exit. And he was like, Hey, I think this one, he said, We're going to grow this through 100,000,001 year and sell the Vivint. And I didn't believe those exact numbers, but I was like, If we can get in the ballpark, great too.

00;56;50;27 - 00;57;11;06

Matt Smith

I had just watched these guys build $1,000,000,000 company and I love them, right? They're good guys, but they're regular Joes. Like, let's be honest. Like, I was like, there's nothing that you guys are doing that I can't do. And even if I did a 10th of what you're doing, I'd be set for life. So I was kind of going, Yeah, like we should jump into this.

00;57;11;06 - 00;57;24;00

Matt Smith

And so anyway, that's Project Solar, you know, we essentially were saying it's very inefficient the way the solar industry is right now. And the more we've dug in, the more we found how inefficient the industry is. And we're we're out to change the industry.

00;57;24;11 - 00;57;37;00

Brexton Bennett

That's really cool, man. Okay, I have a million different questions, but I think, one, I have two that I want to do before we end that. I think I'd love to hear your thoughts on the first one. Your your wife is also a business owner.

00;57;37;05 - 00;57;55;05

Matt Smith

She is, yeah. That was part of the reason I was very attracted there as she was doing it. She was talking about it and she when she told me about it, I was like, sure, how many families are you guys helping? And she's like, No, we have 11 families in Venice or in Ecuador right now that are Venezuelan that we've supported dude businesses.

00;57;55;05 - 00;58;03;11

Matt Smith

And my job dropped to the floor. I was like, She's a doer. And I was from that moment I was sold. So yeah.

00;58;03;27 - 00;58;26;20

Brexton Bennett

That's so cool. So. Hmm. I'm curious. A day in the life of the Smith family, do you just kind of expect that everyone's going to be home late on the phone working when you travel? Is it just always crazy? And you guys, how do you go about keeping life a little less crazy when you're both managing businesses at the same time?

00;58;28;06 - 00;58;56;24

Matt Smith

My wife bless her when we were dating, she's she's she's probably the most thoughtful person I have ever met. I'm serious. I'm not just saying that I'm probably gonna listen to this. And I'm not just she. She listens, and then when she hears things, she just remembers, and then she acts on it. So. So one of those things was when we were dating, I said, there's a really big decision that I need to make it root around some strategy that was happening.

00;58;56;24 - 00;59;16;10

Matt Smith

And I said, But I would need a whiteboard in order to explain it to you. And two weeks later said, I want to take you on a date. And I was like, okay, I'm taking our date. Awesome. And we go into BYU, we go up into the classroom in the business schools and ordered some food. And she threw me a marker and she said, Tell me about that business decision.

00;59;17;00 - 00;59;34;26

Matt Smith

And I was like, okay, I'm just going to propose right now like, this is crazy. Who is this girl? And so I whiteboard this whole thing and she's, you know, just going toe to toe with how you shouldn't be doing this. And, you know, it just I kind of had met my match and I was so, like, enthralled.

00;59;34;26 - 00;59;58;10

Matt Smith

And that has become a big part of our family culture. I mean, you know, her businesses, I love talking to her about everything that's going on. She's amazing. And the business decisions that I'm making all run by, Hey, we're doing another funding round. Like here are the different options. What are your thoughts here? And, you know, I love when she sometimes she'll kind of come on like, you know, the this stuff like oh like engage with me, come on.

00;59;58;24 - 01;00;11;18

Matt Smith

And so it's fun. We have we have two whiteboards in our house and we love to to kind of go back and forth and hope that our kids can be a part of kind of entrepreneurship. And however that looks that's hilarious.

01;00;11;18 - 01;00;30;06

Brexton Bennett

And that's right. So I remember when I met you, you were living in this house that you were you had bought and one of your tenants happened to be one of my best friends. So I was over visiting him and that's when you and I met. And I think you were engaged at the time. And I remember I asked you about how you met your wife and you said, Yeah, on our first date.

01;00;30;06 - 01;00;44;12

Brexton Bennett

Like, I just I couldn't believe. Like, she was one of the best listeners I've ever met. I remember for some reason, I remember really clear that you said I felt like I was talking. Like I was like, oh, this guy's serious. So I believe you when you say that. That's awesome.

01;00;44;12 - 01;00;47;27

Matt Smith

Yeah. So a little more to the culture, so.

01;00;47;27 - 01;00;48;27

Brexton Bennett

You kind of just embrace it.

01;00;48;27 - 01;01;08;00

Matt Smith

We have a we have a son who is now 11 months old. And I mean, just naturally as parents, your life just starts to revolve around any 3 minutes, you know, you're just trying to soak it up. And it's just crazy how fast he is. You know, already when he was a baby, we were like, oh, my gosh.

01;01;08;00 - 01;01;14;25

Matt Smith

Like, he's only going to be this for three weeks, this little infant. And then, you know, it's just crazy how fast they're gone. So we tried to not be able to.

01;01;14;26 - 01;01;22;18

Brexton Bennett

I that's really awesome. And I would love to come over to the Smith home sometime and observe one of those white board debates.

01;01;22;25 - 01;01;48;06

Matt Smith

I remember having an experience where I thought it was a couple of things I want to share here, but basically where I thought I will give when I am wealthy and that is wrong. Yeah, I, I firmly believe that like now is the time to give. And if you're making ten bucks an hour, you know, you figure out how you can give.

01;01;48;06 - 01;02;13;25

Matt Smith

And if you're not making any money, you figure out how you can do it because everyone has resources, you know, it doesn't have to be money. But you even if it is money giving a little bit, the more I give in, the more I have realized that the beneficiary is is, you know, the giver. And so it's really about change and sacrifice.

01;02;13;25 - 01;02;40;16

Matt Smith

And so I had an experience, one of those that we've talked about revelatory, if you want to call it that, where I kind of was thinking, yeah, you know, I'll give to that whatever that person on the corner. Like once I have money, like I love to drop 12 bucks on that person's doorstep or whatever and then just felt like, you know, like you need to give now and make that a habit in your life and that will continue or be magnified as you as you grow.

01;02;41;01 - 01;03;01;20

Matt Smith

And we have a lot of people, I feel like in our culture that have kind of had this mindset of like, I don't know, I around like I am just going to be super wealthy. And then, you know, from that point forward that I'm just going to go serve and I just I think that that is a little bit poisonous or toxic.

01;03;02;17 - 01;03;02;27

Matt Smith

Oh.

01;03;03;15 - 01;03;26;00

Brexton Bennett

Matt. So, so my last question that I was going to say this, we usually try to end the podcast with the interview with this question. There's, there's a quote from a past president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints named Gordon Hinckley. And he said, one of the greatest ironies of life is this, that he who gives is almost always benefited more than he who receives.

01;03;26;22 - 01;03;46;19

Brexton Bennett

And I like to ask guests how they've seen this happen in their own lives. And I think case in point, it's absolutely true that the giving is not it's not an event that you get to when you're able. It's a mindset. It's a way of living. And it's a style. It's a lifestyle.

01;03;47;01 - 01;04;14;04

Matt Smith

Yeah. I think that one of the biggest benefits that I have received from giving is just staying in tune. And if I were not in tune, kind of with those promptings, if you want to call them that, or intuitions that come a lot of my big life decisions would have never happened. I mean, Route was a big one where I really felt like, Matt, you need to work here.

01;04;14;04 - 01;04;38;12

Matt Smith

And I was like, No, I want to teach. And that has now put me on this whole trajectory. And you've heard about about past things. But as I start to kind of feel like hard in life, where I just, you know, I'm not feeling as much you can say. I just think like, well, hold on a second. Like, yeah, it's all about me right now, and I need to go, actually, sir.

01;04;38;12 - 01;05;02;09

Matt Smith

Yeah. And when that happens, yeah, it's just. It's like a no brainer. We're talking to Roy a lot here at Project Solar and Services and service is the biggest prize you could possibly have. I mean, just essentially, you're building yourself by giving in and truly giving. And I don't mean like just go serve. That's the only thing you should do, because I don't think that's healthy either way.

01;05;02;09 - 01;05;19;01

Matt Smith

You're just, you know, giving everything away, but putting yourself in a position where you can serve and essentially, you know, be a tool for good in the world. I think I think that that's the world that I want to live in. And it sounds like a cool, cool place to live, man.

01;05;19;24 - 01;05;46;13

Brexton Bennett

That's a powerful takeaway. And Matt, I really think I mean, the thought that comes to mind right now is I think you've given us an awesome illustration of if I am here with the question, I want to do that. I want to put myself in a position where I can serve people, not just when I'm 60 and have a million bucks, but right now, I think it has a lot to do with what you've talked to us about today, about following your inner compass.

01;05;46;26 - 01;05;48;10

Brexton Bennett

And don't be afraid to do hard things.

01;05;48;11 - 01;05;50;07

Matt Smith

Really afraid to do hard things.

01;05;50;07 - 01;05;52;02

Brexton Bennett

Don't be afraid of my favorite voice.

01;05;52;02 - 01;05;53;28

Matt Smith

They tackle hard problems. They don't bring them to me.

01;05;54;26 - 01;06;02;01

Brexton Bennett

That's that's important, I think. I love that you have anything else that comes to mind before we finish.

01;06;02;16 - 01;06;07;22

Matt Smith

I just thanks for your time. I appreciate you doing this. I think it's awesome.

01;06;07;22 - 01;06;16;17

Brexton Bennett

Yeah. Matt, thanks so much for your time, man. This is this is man. I could do this all day. Thanks for sharing and appreciate your example, man. You're awesome.

01;06;16;17 - 01;06;19;02

Matt Smith

And express.