We strive for success in all aspects of life: mentally, financially, and spiritually. What does it take to achieve the best in all of these areas? It is easy to aspire for better things in life, but it takes determined purpose and divine providence to turn those dreams into reality.
In this episode, we talk to Matthew Potter, an entrepreneur and founder of successful websites and apps, including Pray.com. Matt shares his journey in building his thriving businesses amid hardships and external struggles. Despite being successful in his initial pursuit in the real estate business, he found himself losing passion. Inspired by divine providence, he found a new life purpose, and he is eager to share what he has learned with us.
Tune in to the episode to learn more about how you can grow and work on your life purpose, passion, and your business successfully.
Resources
3 Reasons to Listen:
- Understand how experiencing difficult situations helps us deal with bigger challenges in the future.
- Matt shares how he left his flourishing business in the quest for his true passion and life purpose.
- Know what it takes to be successful in a business also designed to help people.
About Matt
Matthew Potter is an entrepreneur, innovator, advisor, and co-founder of two websites and apps. Homestack.com is a real estate app, and Pray.com is a faith-based audio app. His work is dedicated to inspiring others to restore their faith.
If you’d like to reach out to Matt, you may contact him on his website. You may also connect with him on LinkedIn or through email: matt@pray.com.
Episode Highlights
[03:05] Being a Founder
- The founder holds the responsibility of upholding great values. These values will become ingrained into the culture of the company.
- Each company is unique and every founder should bring something to the table. Matt considers his empathy toward customers and devotion to the company’s ideals his unique qualities.
- Building a company with other people is similar to marriage. There are ups and downs.
- Working with co-founders required research, communication, and honesty with each other.
[09:53] Formation and Organization of a Company
- Matt’s entrepreneurial journey began after college. He became exposed to other like-minded people, one of which became his friend and co-founder.
- All founding members of Matt’s new business formed out of connections. Some of them were people he reconnected with.
- God is the maker of your connections. He directs everyone to the path they need to be on, similar to how Matt met his co-founders.
- Despite everyone’s readiness, trials and challenges were ever-present.
[22:08] Redefining Success
- Matt’s first company was HomeStack. It was built out of his co-founder’s passion for real estate, as well as his dad’s background in the real estate business.
- Matt’s mantra in HomeStack is: it takes years of experience to improve; it takes small improvements over time. He later brought the same mantra to Pray.com
- His experiences taught him about making mistakes in business and taking risks.
- Being customer-oriented and understanding the market conditions is vital in planning the growth of a company.
[26:08] “There are no silver bullets. There are small improvements over time.” - Click Here to Tweet This
[30:18] Losing and Finding His Life Purpose
- Despite having a successful and thriving business at HomeStack, Matt felt that he was not on the right path that God put him on.
- He sought God’s guidance about his life purpose through prayers.
- Coincidentally, Matt reconnected with one of his friends who told him about Pray.com. He believed it was the opportunity to fulfill his life purpose.
- Pray.com became a digital destination of faith, especially during the pandemic. After receiving feedback from customers that he saved their lives and brought them closer to God, Matt has now realized his true life purpose.
[31:32] “I felt that I wasn't on the path that God wanted me on. I felt that my purpose was not being fulfilled. For me, the business had become automated. It's great to have a business that's helping people.” - Click Here to Tweet This
[35:28] The Real Source of Success
- Many high-performers create visions and strategies and set goals as their achievement.
- Matt recounted the shift of religious ministry from word of mouth to written form. As an innovator, he recognized the need for transforming ministry digitally.
- Matt felt nervous leaving the company he built and venturing into a new one, but he translated it into excitement instead.
[44:03] To Grind or to Pause?
- Starting a new company meant going back to the bottom and grinding your way back up. For HomeStack, it took a decade before they finally felt like a real company than a startup.
- There is no overnight success. You build everything from long hours of hard work. It meant losing time with others or even yourself.
- If you are creating and innovating a business that God ordained you to do, you should put your effort into making it successful.
- The amount of energy and effort you put into the business is your key to success.
[45:22] “There are all these stories of overnight successes that we like to immortalize in the news and on television... It's definitely not the case for us at Pray.com. And, definitely not the case for a lot of those other stories that are made to sound like they were overnight successes. It is hard work. It is a grind. It is 100-hour weeks.” - Click Here to Tweet This
[52:32] Having a Business Model
- According to Matthew, Pray.com has investors who believe in the company’s vision and mission.
- Despite having a paid subscription, having a ton of free content on the app allowed more people to know about Pray.com.
- During the start of the pandemic, Pray.com enabled free content geared for children because they knew that everyone was inside their homes. Sleep stories were also made available for free.
- For a business to run well, Matt stated that you need to have both margin and mission; both profit and purpose.
[55:19] “You have to have margin and mission. You have to have profit and purpose... We wanted to create a for-profit company, so it could grow large enough where we could positively impact everyone in the world.” - Click Here to Tweet This
[56:29] Understanding and Adapting to Data Trends
- Allowing an open community post where everyone can communicate and share prayers is a great way to connect people.
- In Pray.com, people can request prayers from others.
- Many consumers use the app at night, so he made a Bible bedtime series to cater to the user’s preferences.
- Prayer meditations also allowed people in trouble to cope.
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To growing and becoming what we are created to be,
Tim
