Expert of the Enterprise w/ Matthew O’Rourke | Ep. 68

In this episode David and Gary chat with Matthew O’Rourke, CEO of O’Rourke Enterprises Corp. They discuss the ABC’s of SEO and how to be the expert in the startup of your dreams.

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Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattheworourke/

https://triangleimports.com/

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/14/23554886/tesla-price-cut-ev-market-deman-elon-musk

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

David: 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I am your host, David Baxter. And I'm joined today by professional Warby Parker model. Gary Voight. How's it going? Man?

Gary: 0:17

It's going good. That's hilarious that you said that because I just ordered some new,

David: 0:21

he really did not know that. I did not know that. That's hilarious. I tried them once and for my wife, and it did not go well. So we have never tried it again.

Gary: 0:33

Both my wife and I get the lenses from them to the contact lenses and glasses frames. Sorry about your experience.

David: 0:41

That's alright, that's alright. This is not promoted by Warby Parker by any stretch of imagination.

Gary: 0:46

Although if they did want to sponsor anybody.

David: 0:51

Yeah, you might get a free free shipment. We are joined by a real guest today. Matthew O'Rourke is joining us today. And we're gonna be talking about his new enterprise and all sorts of good stuff. And we're gonna lead into that with some Car Talk. Because apparently, the car world is exploding. And Tesla has gone insane. No, I don't know if you know who's upset. Right now, people who bought a Tesla in December. That's who's upset right now. Because Tesla just announced that they if they already haven't, they're about to, they're going to do a huge price decrease, not increase, decrease. And it gets even better, because they're not actually doing that big of a change. But then they kick in now they're qualifying once again for the federal tax credit. So it's something like 20% When all said and done. So if you got that sweet, sweet Tesla ride and December you got it delivered. You've been driving around all proud. Now you feel like a moron. Sorry,

Gary: 1:47

actually, it's the article that we were reading from the verge. And we'll put the link in the show notes says that after the tax credits, it can get up to almost 30% off of the sticker price from last month. Yeah, and a lot of it is some of the prices have come down now to their ones promised like $35,000 model three that they never actually built. But so their standard range model three, that was promised, I guess for 35,000. Now the upper group, the upgraded versions are going to be that price. So

Matthew: 2:25

and and guys, if I can chime in on that one of the one of the rumors coming out of Tesla world is Elon and his, I believe infinite wisdom, decided it was a whole lot cheaper to reduce the price, then build something cheaper. And that's a big part of what went into the price cut. Which you're right if you bought it if you bought Tesla in December, you feel you feel like a dunce at this point. But if you look at the numbers behind it, it's a whole lot cheaper to do what he did, then it is to do what was promised, but never occurred, if that makes sense. Sure,

David: 3:06

I mean, this is all new tech. And Tesla is leading the way I think, though, this is a sign I mean, I'm sure Elon has ways of couching this to make it sound like it's brilliant. But I think what we're really seeing here is this first step in competition. Tesla has been alone for a long long time in the Evie space and now the big boys who've been doing this a very very long time are finally making cars I mean Ford has got you know they don't make enough of them that's what Tesla still is winning on right for lightning the Ford Mustang What's that E something? Yeah, those things those are great cars.

Gary: 3:45

Yeah and then the Hyundai ones the iyonix those are getting rave reviews for the range and for their reliability and yeah Hyundai is not exactly a small player in this in any way

Matthew: 3:54

well motor Motor Trend Motor Trend loves Hyundai. Yeah, I mean Motor Trend just came out I think they won the award for best new SUV across all platforms. Not even just Evie is I think is what Hyundai just won for their Oh yeah. Yeah. It's just It's rare to see that because I mean, you have a lot of you have a lot of times that there's different marks there's different subcategories but it one for two by understanding all categories as the new SUV. There's a lot of new ones out there. There you go. There you go.

Gary: 4:35

Yeah, I know they've also been doing a lot of I guess you could say the the hybrid engines for if they can't keep up demand on brand new EVs. They're starting to put on the hybrid engines into the the models that already exist. And I know BMW is doing that too. They just announced the 330 I that's got the hybrid I drive for like 45 years and

David: 4:58

a lot of these companies I think cheating horribly, because they will they just want to check a box like the new Jeep hybrid. I think it's like 20 miles on electricity. And then and they just did enough. So they got that, that federal tax credit. Yes was like seriously what? Yeah,

Matthew: 5:16

it's not. That's not competition for them. And I think I think one of the things that really that really comes up when it when you start talking about Ford and Chevy, to a lesser extent, but Ford, especially when you think about the roundtable that happened in Washington, it's been inside of the last year on the conversations about Evie and electronic vehicles and the way the government can help that the only one that wasn't invited for a seat at that table was Elon. He was the only one that didn't get a seat at that table. And I think there is there's kind of a cumulative effort to not unnecessarily knock Elon but there's a cumulative effort in order to try to inflate what Ford's doing or what Chevy tried to do fail that and what they're trying to stick their nose into again, and including the the Hyundai's in the Asian vehicles. I mean, there was a roundtable about eight months ago and the largest volume, Evie manufacturer wasn't at the table. And I'm like, I don't understand how you have that conversation without bringing him to the table like I don't under I don't understand that at all.

David: 6:31

Sure. I mean, Tesla is the gorilla they have when it comes to EVs at least Yeah, they they dominate. Now, EVS still from what I understand are still a very small 5% of the market is EVs. They're expected that to jump pretty dramatically. But Tesla is the only one who consistently creates a bunch of cars. Like we said, Ford does some they have great models, but they can't make enough. And everybody else has a bunch of vaporware. Yeah, it's, it's a bunch, oh, Chevy has a fleet of them. But they're all renders, there's not a real car in there. And so we will see what the next five years looks like. Because I think it's gonna be very interesting. Well, it's gonna be

Matthew: 7:07

interesting, too. And one of the things that people forget, is when you're talking about Tesla to what Ford is trying to do, for example, the buying power, and the purchasing power that Ford has on the components that make an Eevee work is much, much, much, much lower than what Elon is doing. Elon guaranteed himself this buying power seven to 10 years ago, when they started making these individual components, he said, all I'm gonna do is Eevee. This is what I want. And I'm gonna buy enough to create 5 billion cars right off the bat, Ford's not making that purchase. So the cost to build the EVS on Ford side is much higher than it is on Elon side. Because all he's doing is building EVs. And he's replicating the same components on every model. And every car that leaves is using the same components, no matter what the model is. So when you have that kind of buying power and everything you do, uses, you know, one of these capacitors or components, I don't even understand, you know, you're you're in a position where you're saying to yourself, how much lower are his costs versus what Ford's costs are? Because one out of every 30 cars, they sell 40 cars they sell isn't even sure.

David: 8:29

But that number is going to change pretty fast. In the next few years. Yeah. So it'd be interesting to watch. But if you're noticing there's some expertise here, coming from our guest, that comes comes, he's earned that so tell me a little bit about you and and your company and where you've been? Where are you going?

Matthew: 8:49

Sure. My name is Matt O'Rourke. I am I've done so many things in my life. I've been very, very blessed. I was born and raised in New York City, was raised by Greek and Irish parents. The battlefields at home were extra extraordinary. With that combination, for sure. But it I've been I've been in school I've been I've served in the US Navy. I traveled a lot due to that travel a lot professionally and spent the last eight years in the automotive industry up until this venture that we're in now. And the new venture goes by the name of O'Rourke enterprises. And yeah, our claim to fame so far is we we have a working knowledge about the business services industry that I believe a lot of our competitors lack. And for me, I think there's a lot of people that believe those that can't do teach. That's not the person that I want to learn from, with All due respect to that slogan, I'm somebody that believes I, in my professional career, I've never generated less than a million and a half dollars in a year. There is I've got a lot of smart people around me for a long time. And I hired those people. Because I'm, I consider myself intelligent in that way. But I don't believe that people that are out there, from the standpoint of I don't know what I want to do. So I want to get into business management or holding your business services, I think you have to have a long line of success before you start teaching people how to do that. And, you know, that's kind of what I stepped into, or work enterprises to create.

Gary: 10:47

So is it basically like a consulting company, but obviously marketed from the real world experiences that you've gained?

Matthew: 10:55

Exactly. And what I think is important about that is every one that we bring in, whether it's a marketing platform, a holding platform, a CRM platform, this is all things that my companies have personally used to create success. These are not things that Oh, my God, we have the next great thing, and we've got no track record. So you're the guinea pig, no, everything that we offer, to our clientele is based on five years at minimum of of specific success on creating a platform. That's almost that's almost bulletproof. Not every not everything is bulletproof. But as close as we can get.

Gary: 11:43

So what, what did this passion come from after? Like you mentioned, you had a rich history in the automotive industry prior to this? Right. So what kind of drove that switch?

Matthew: 11:57

So the switch for me, I mean, it's two parts, I think, you know, I was 38 years old, and I'm not, I'm gonna age myself and say, you know, I wanted to step outside that industry really, really hard. Before I got to that point in my career, where that's what I was known for. I don't mind that I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But I have always seen myself as a little more diversified when it comes to my ability. So that was a big step for me. But also, there's a lot of not only competitors, but people that were friends in the industry that took advice from people that marketed themselves really, really well. And their actual capabilities were kind of unknown. And they took advice, and they ran with advice, and they wound up going belly up on it. And I think I heard that story over and over and over and over. And I said, Well, what's the problem here? And I started looking and saying, all right, let me see the background of these people that are operating these companies and a vast majority, were successful at one thing one time and got named notoriety. And then they decided, well, I was successful doing this, and people will pay me based upon the success, my experience, and I'm like, Yeah, but if you haven't replicated it, you've got to, you've got a problem if you haven't been able to replicate it. And for me, I mean, I've been blessed to say, what we've done, me and my staff have done over over the last eight years, we've replicated the same success with the same with the same model the same models, over and over and over and over. And I think that's how you actually get the ability or the or the, the the knowledge to start teaching other people how to do what they're doing.

David: 13:57

So are you if I'm someone who wants to start a new venture, I come to you and you guys are consulting to help me take it up and you know, explode or whatever.

Matthew: 14:06

Exactly. And the difference for us, though, which I am very proud of is, we start from the ground up if you need anything from if you need a loan report written for your bank, we can do that. If you need if you're at a level where you got all the money you need, and you just need to market the hell out of it. We've got those people, if you're in a position where you have the marketing and you've been successful, but your infrastructure sucks. We have that experience. So every step of the way, no matter where you are, when you come to us, we can take you from where you are to wherever your goal is. And I think that makes what's make what makes us different than a lot of people because the people that have made me successful in my career helped me be successful. I put on the payroll And I because I know what these individuals are specifically capable of doing. So, yeah, so it makes us a little bit different than your average consulting model.

Gary: 15:10

Do you work with a lot of startups? Or do you have newer businesses and smaller businesses like entrepreneurs coming to you? Or are you looking for more of like an enterprise size client?

Matthew: 15:22

So I would say about 35% of our, of our base so far is what I would consider startup plus. So they, there's no one that's come to us and said, We have no idea how to make money doing what we're doing. But you know, startup Plus, they're in a position where they're, they've started off hot, and they've got absolutely no, no cushion underneath them. And so that was that's about 35%. About another. Probably 25 Is the entrepreneurial side, themselves. So one or two man shops, and then you've got the rest are our enterprise, mid cap, you know, anywhere between two and a half and five.

David: 16:14

Okay. So if you're so you, you sound like someone who's an expert in our audience. So if I am one of these people who is, you know, either running a business that's doing okay, but I feel like I need to kick it into high gear, right, where I'm a brand new business, you know, where, where would you say, I should concentrate? Like, generally speaking?

Matthew: 16:37

Well, I think, and that's quest, that answer has changed a lot in the last two years. But the way, the way that I would look at that is if you're in a position where you're not making as much money as you want to make, you're not doing as well as you want to do, you're happy, but you're not thrilled, a vast majority of that is going to be on your, on your buying power. And let's face it, the last two years have been an absolute nightmare for anybody in business. And when it comes down to it, my companies now let's look at the automotive industry, the automotive industry, in the last two years has made, you know, if you're dealing with parts, you're looking at 25% less on your profits than you were the what two years prior to that. And that's going to take probably another 18 to 24 months to to soften a little bit when you start making those profits again. So I think the best question that I would, the biggest question that I would ask people in that position is, what do your books look like for the next two years, if nothing changes on your on your profit line, because if your profit line is surviving at this point, then writing it out is a really important aspect, being able to write it out and not make any rash decisions. Because you want to be making more money. If you're doing things the way you need to be doing them. That'll happen for you. Now, you need to do your homework, you need to go after that one point or two point here. They're different than you've ever had to before. But I think looking at where you are, especially on the idea that if you're a startup now it's going to get the next two years are going to get easier. That's that's what the numbers show us.

David: 18:28

Sure. Yeah. It's interesting. They say them because my, our, our chat last month, last month, last week, gosh, where did it go? was about the economy and everybody's thoughts on the economy, because some of my business group members are really scared about what's coming. And other people are super optimistic. Right. So we're where do you fit on that line?

Matthew: 18:52

I think I think it it, it depends on your position. And I need to stress that because the companies that I think are scared and need to be worried are the people that are so the organizations that are so deep into either one thing or so deep into absolutely everything. And I think that's that's the position, we have to be a little bit scared. Because if you're if you're if all your eggs in one basket, you're in a position where you've got to say, I need to start diversifying myself as an organization now, because there are industries that are going to get smashed in the next few years, whether they're getting smashed now or not. And then you're going to have the industries that are getting hit hard right now who are going to start the the elephant's going to start standing up off their chest. And I think if you're a startup or a younger company, where you're still flexible, you can pivot. You're in a position where you can be real be really, really optimistic because you'll have the ability to say, Okay, this is what everyone was talking about, but we're not so invested in any one thing that we can't pivot. So flexibility is probably the most important thing that's going to prevent you from getting hit in the head and the next 18 months, having the flexibility to pivot. You know, if you're in if you're in if you think about a holding company right now, where you're specifically in, let's say, you know, medical and your and your goal is to, for example, there was an organization here in North Carolina, near the coast. And their platform is, we want to make ourselves the medical doctor kind of sort of powerhouse of the coast in North Carolina, and they're doing a great job. But the problem is, their bread and butter is buying up, Mom and Pop, pharmacies or Mom and Pop doctors offices, while the economy crushed those. And the problem is, there's none of them, most of those didn't survive the last two years. So if you're looking for a mom and pop medical office, in order to grow your grow your platform, you need to, you're probably too invested to pivot. And you just need to write out what comes next. Where if you're starting off and saying, I want to open a string of, you know, comparable, if I want to open a string of CBD stores in North Carolina, well, you're probably in a great position to pivot. Not a lot of money to start it up. The relationships, are the blueprints already there for success. And you're not in a position where you're stuck focusing on somebody else's success to drive yours.

David: 22:03

It's an interesting Proposition. Proposition, a term of English No. Proposition. So I'm just trying to show how do you how do people find out about you wouldn't like, what am I going through as a business owner that I feel like I need your expertise, that's where I'm trying to grab?

Matthew: 22:19

Yeah, so So the biggest thing that you would you would notice is, if you're successful, and your top line is great, and you get to the bottom, and the bottom line isn't, the bottom line isn't there. That's when you would reach out to somebody like me, if you're, if you've been very successful with a limited amount of marketing and a startup perspective, and you need to market in a way that will grow your base, and you use the Shark Tank reference, if anybody wants that. Your if your infrastructure isn't there, growth is going to crush you. And that's one of the biggest things that comes up, you'll have, you know, we've gotten a lot of calls from really successful companies on Etsy. And they say, so he's taken four points from us. We don't want to pay it anymore. And I'm like, well, that's great. But you have to understand you don't own a single a single client information box, et Cie owns all of that. So if you decide to step away from Etsy now, or you decide to do it in a way that is aggressive, or or hyper reactive, you you're going to leave Etsy, go out on your own and not have a single email address that you can use, not have a single phone number that you can use, and you can't retarget anybody. So something as simple as going from an Etsy store to your own website is an area where you need somebody that says, Okay, how do we do both? until we're ready to step away from this safety net of something like Etsy, and it's a small potatoes thing and Etsy, but it's a similar structure, no matter what level you're at, it's the same idea of going from a startup to a mid sized, mid sized to mid cap, you know, it puts you in a position where you're trying to take the next step, and the infrastructure isn't there for you to do it.

Gary: 24:26

You mentioned marketing and marketing is a subject to talk about. If someone was trying to market they're typically it's hard to market to startups, like a lot of our business comes from startups because they don't exist. So you can't really market to someone that doesn't exist yet. And then, right, some of the smaller businesses, entrepreneurs, they'll have an issue where they're passionate behind the product, they build the product, but then how to get people to care. And so they gotta learn how to market themselves in order for people to care. Do you have any like just short quick pieces of advice for or a smaller business or a startup? In today's climate? And what what styles of marketing do you find to be the most beneficial? In other words, like I know, paying Google for some clickbait here and there is not the greatest idea.

Matthew: 25:15

No, no. There's, I'm going to answer the question backwards. So SEO is one of those. It's a simple thing. Anybody in marketing or in business knows what the letters are, they basically understand its marketing, or it's a form of marketing. But it's, in my opinion, the form of marketing, you can't fake. You can't fake good SEO. If you have good SEO, you've worked for it. You've, you kicked down doors, you've gone through every generalized aspect of marketing, and you've built that and you got to be patient with SEO, what I would recommend to everybody is, if you're in an industry, and there's a industry standard of marketing, like there is in the automotive industry, I would say to people, take a look at what you're getting for that money. And if there isn't a deep dive in what you're trying to do, and how you're going to differentiate yourself from your competitor. You're just paying more money than your competitor. And that's not the way organic SEO is built.

Gary: 26:28

There's a huge difference, especially when it's industry specific. But yeah, more to your point, there's a big difference between paying for leads and marketing to those leads versus building your brand recognition and your brand voice to have people actually looking at you instead of you poking them to look into.

David: 26:46

For sure. So I want to poke poke your expertise here. Yeah. So we, as a company, my company, yeah. We tried to do SEO. And we were going to invest more into it. And we realized that every term that we searched for our company, every all the long tails were dominated by these lists, companies, right? How do you if you're based on what you were saying is SEO is the organic thing? This is how you win long term. Yeah. Which I don't disagree with. But how do you if you're, I don't know if all industries are like ours. But I imagine these lists are everywhere. Yeah. If you if you are in one of these industries that are dominated by a list, what would you recommend to them? Well, I think

Matthew: 27:33

when you're when the industry is are dominated by lists, you got to find your you have to find your niche. And let me tell you something I'm not I mean, I think anyone that's successful enough in their life. Patience is not a virtue, a great number of us have. I personally have very little patience. But I'm surrounded by people that remind me, we've succeeded, give us the time to be successful, and when I do they are. So that's the biggest thing I can say to people speaking from experience. I hate waiting, especially for something like SEO. But what I realized is, anytime I've tried to do something quickly, for the sake of getting it done quickly, I've always fallen on my face, and I've fallen on my face, just like everybody else.

Gary: 28:21

Okay, well, it's time for our big question now, because you've revealed. So, David,

David: 28:28

we like to ask all of our guests, what are the top three things you would recommend to a startup who's in a couple of scenarios, they're just getting started, right? Or they're struggling with where they're at? Or they're thinking of making that dive? What are the things that you would tell them? You know, even if you're another one, say, if you were talking to yourself and 10 years ago, what would be the top three advice that you know now that you would pass on?

Matthew: 28:54

Sure. I think the first one is, whatever your industry is, whatever you're stepping into, have an honest conversation with yourself if you're the expert there. Because I've never stepped into any industry, whether it's on my own or not on my own and said, I'm not the smartest person in the room on this topic. I'm not the smartest guy in the world by any means. But when I step into my endeavors, I have an honest conversation with myself and I say, am I the expert? Almost Okay, so what do I need to do that? So I need to get this person in with me in order to have us be the expert. So one is be the expert, because if you're successful, and you don't have the answers, you're gonna, you're gonna flame out really, really, really quickly. So that's the first thing I would say. Number two is be honest with yourself about or, you know, reach out to somebody like myself and find out what's an honest number when it comes to the The amount of money that you need to do what you want to do, the number of people that I've seen, start off great and run out of money is I would say 60% of the failures that I've seen professionally, have been not on the idea not on the company, not on the people, they grossly underestimated the amount of money to be successful. And number three, is a five, what you need to give your endeavor the patience to grow. It's not going to happen overnight. And if it does, vast majority of the overnight successes are gone three months later. So you know, if you look at Shark Tank reference, you know, if Oprah Winfrey put you on her best things, you're gonna make a lot of money really, really quickly. And most of the companies that wind up in that can't, can't endure that three months later, because the infrastructure isn't there. Give your endeavor the opportunity to grow organically, and be ready for the success that hopefully comes along. Again, if you've got the success, and you're not ready, it's no better than not being successful.

Gary: 31:21

Those are good pieces of advice. So Matthews, all this about your new business or your new endeavor, the rock enterprises Corporation, do you have any of that built up where you can give us like a website link or anything so we can get in touch with you?

Matthew: 31:35

Yeah, so my, what I would recommend is even easier. So we're in in the standpoint, we're building it, we're building a pretty significant database, which isn't completely done yet for the website. But the best way to reach us and our platform for that I would send everybody to would be O'Rourke, enterprises, on Instagram, that would be the place to put us for sure right now. And vast majority, there's a lot of videos, I do a lot of, you know, personal conversations on on the Instagram. And I think it's a great place for people to get to know what I'm about, you know, I've put myself from a, you know, an audio from a podcast standpoint, from a video standpoint, really at the front and center of this. So if people want to get to know who's driving this ship, the work enterprises, Instagram is probably the best place to do that. And it's a really, really personal relationship I like to present with our prospective clients. So I think that'd be the best place to do that.

Gary: 32:44

Okay. And we'll also include that link in our show notes and the videos. Yeah.

David: 32:52

Well, awesome. So that's how to get in touch with you, Gary, if people want to get in touch with us, how would they do that?

Gary: 32:57

If you have any questions or comments or information you want us to talk about on the show, or you want us to talk about, you can email us at Hello at the big pixel dotnet. Or you can leave a comment or a question underneath the YouTube video, or you can just get in touch with us through any of our social media channels.

David: 33:14

Awesome. Well, with that, thank you so much, Matt, for joining us. We really appreciate it. And we will be back in a week and we'll see you then. Thanks again,

Matthew: 33:23

guys. My pleasure. Absolutely. Next meet you guys. Thank you