Money Lab

Come on baby, light my business fire! (The Doors. Nailed it).Matt and Andrew are joined by Brandon from MadFientist.com to talk about staying motivated in their online businesses. Brandon shares his journey of growing his own successful site (including the mental breakdown that motivated him to launch it) and chats about his newest online business, including the challenge of mixing business with a hobby.The three of them debate what truly motivates them in their work (hint: it's not money, but it kind of is?) and how to keep that hunger alive when you start to feel like you're coasting in your business. How do you tap into that intrinsic motivation to keep the business fires burning bright? This is an honest, behind-the-scenes chat about what drives these guys to do what they do. Enjoy!P.S. You can read about Brandon's synthesizer business experiment here: Madfientist.com/Online-Business-ExperimentP.P.S. Liked this episode? You'll probably enjoy the episode called Money-Making Hobby Sites with Sean Ogle that dropped at the end of August 2019. Check it out!

It's all about who you know. And you should really know your audience.Mojca Zove, the founder of SuperSpicyMedia.com and TheScienceOfFacebookAds.com, joins the show to talk all about strategies for understanding your audience, especially when it comes to social media campaigns. She also dives into her transition from running a successful Facebook ads consultancy to running a product-based business.So how do you convert eyeballs into sales? How do you validate a new product with your audience and bounce back if you have a disappointing launch? Mojca shares the ups and downs of her own journey, including the strategies she's used with her clients to turn Facebook views into actual customers.If you're launching a new product to your audience or you're curious about the secret sauce behind a good Facebook ad campaign, this episode's for you. Enjoy!P.S. You can find Mojca at SuperSpicyMedia.com and TheScienceOfFacebookAds.com And you can follow along with Mojca's journey on the Changing Gears YouTube video series here.

You can't say the wrong thing to the right person -- but saying the right thing sure helps with sales! Brennan Dunn, the founder of RightMessage.com, joins the show to chat about personalized messaging and how to create a highly tailored sales funnel for your audience. Matt and Brennan discuss the nitty gritty of how to segment website visitors and email subscribers. How do you figure out who's coming to your site and optimize your message for those people? And what kind of data should you be measuring to see if personalized messaging actually works? If you wanna get extra nerdy about your business's sales funnel, this episode is for you. Enjoy!P.S. You can find Brennan at RightMessage.com and DoubleYourFreelancing.com.

Hot links, coming through! Matt and Andrew make most of their income through affiliate marketing, so it makes sense to give their links a little love once and awhile. They discuss how they're optimizing, testing and tracking their affiliate links. What do you do when you start to look at your click data? How do you manage your affiliate link inventory and clean up what's not working and double down on what does? Every link counts, and this episode explores how to make each one count more. Enjoy!P.S. If you want to step up your affiliate link management game, check out GetLasso.co!

How do you launch, market and sell a new product without going totally crazy? Corbett Barr, the founder of Fizzle.co and Palapa.co, joins the show to chat about his new SaaS business and how he approaches sustainable and sane business growth. Matt and Corbett discuss how to find new customers, how to close sales in the software world and how to gather initial feedback while you’re still iterating on a product. Whether you’re a software developer or an entrepreneur thinking of launching something new, this is a great episode for diving into the nitty gritty of marketing and growing a business. Enjoy!P.S. You can find Corbett's work at Fizzle.co and Palapa.co. Fun fact: Matt and Andrew met through Fizzle!

Matt's been running an experiment to increase his YouTube ad revenue and sell more of his digital products through his videos. And guess what? It totally worked! In this episode, Matt and Andrew dive into all the techniques Matt's using to increase YouTube views, watch time and subscribers and explore why this new YouTube content strategy is paying off (literally -- Matt's made over $12K because of this optimization experiment). If you want a deep-n-nerdy dive into YouTube SEO, thumbnail designs, playlists and end cards, this episode is for you. Enjoy!P.S. Want to see the behind-the-scenes of all this work (and the extra loud Hawaiian shirt Matt sports in all his videos)? Check out the entire experiment write up at Moneylab.co/Youtube-Optimization

Being weird pays off. Jason Zook, the King of Weird Business Models, joins the show today to talk about all of the crazy businesses he’s started over the years and to celebrate his new book, Own Your Weird. Jason has sold his last name (twice) for a total of $100,000, created a business where he wore other people’s t-shirts for money, and sold his entire “future” to his audience. Jason and Matt explore how being weird in their businesses pays off and debate how to keep the weird stunts going without burning out. If you don’t already know Jason’s story of weirdness, this one’s worth the listen. Enjoy!P.S. You can check out Jason and order his book at WanderingAimfully.comP.P.S. Yes, Matt has a rap album. Enjoy: Moneylab.co/Rap

The ultimate dream: spend a dollar in your business, earn ten dollars on the other side. But calculating business ROI isn't such simple math. Matt and Andrew discuss how they justify making big business purchases and figure out whether or not their large recurring expenses are worth it. How do they know if hired contract work will pay off? How do you put a price tag on things like mental health? And how do you make sure your business can handle a new monthly expense? It's simple, really: Phase 1: Spend Money. Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit. Enjoy!P.S. Like the show? Let us know what topics you'd like us to discuss on the show! Send us a note at matt@moneylab.co

Should you try turning a hobby you love into a money-making website? Sean Ogle, founder of BreakingEighty.com and LocationRebel.com, joins the show to talk about turning a hobby into an online business. Both Sean and Matt run websites based on hobbies they love: Sean runs a golf site and Matt runs a homebrewing website, BrewCabin.com. So how do they approach monetizing their hobbies? What does it take to create a paid community around something you love? And how do you make sure you keep the passion alive with your hobby when it's a business? If you've ever considered turning a hobby into an online business, this episode is for you. Enjoy!P.S. You can find more about Sean at LocationRebel.com and BreakingEighty.com.P.P.S. If you want to see a behind-the-scenes look at how Matt monetizes own hobby-based site, check out his course SEO for Bloggers: Moneylab.co/SEO

It's listener question time! Matt and Andrew answer everything from how to keep on top of the changes to the Google algorithm, how to treat nofollow vs. dofollow links and how site performance affects for SEO. Oh, and what happens to your website when you die? Matt and Andrew answer all your questions about optimizing your site for speed and prepping your website for the day you kick the bucket. Enjoy!P.S. Want to organize your business as if you were a ghost? Check out Matt's Asana for Bloggers course: Moneylab.co/Asana