Having no formal education, not even a high school degree, Matt Eldridge knew entrepreneurship was in his blood. With both parents operating businesses, Matt got the itch and launched a few small businesses in high school early in his career. After saving a bit of capital, Matt invested in real estate at the peak of the market and made a good fortune flipping properties utilizing PropertyGuys.com to cut out broker and real estate agent fees. Matt had tremendous success and was even asked to help join the PropertyGuys.com team to help grow the company. During that time Matt noticed his hard sell approach often came across as blunt in emails costing him sales. He knew this was a problem spread worldwide and invested several hundred thousand dollars in Lymbix.com, a tool to help analyze the tone of emails for major corporations. Unfortunately, sign-ups didn’t equate to sales and he had to cut his losses quickly after things didn’t work out. From there Matt mixed his passion of golf and entrepreneurship and founded Foursum, a comprehensive mobile app for golf hobbyists that allows you to connect with friends but also improve your golf game. Having the best app on the market caught the attention of several professional PGA players and sponsors like Puma.
Secret Entourage Academy
Secret Academy Episode – Ian Altman
The ultimate goal for any business is gain revenue and ultimately improve year over year. The truth is, many businesses sometimes see stagnant or declines in revenue because of other factors such as the economy and not adapting quick enough. For over two decades, Ian Altman was the founder and CEO of an IT consulting and software development company that caught the attention of several investors and banks after it reached Fortune 500 status. After selling his former company, he sat on the board as managing director and helped grow the valuation from $100 million to nearly $2 billion dollars before realizing that it was taking up too much time away from his family. Ian has since ventured back into consulting and teaches small businesses how to grow their revenues by ultimately utilizing the same sales and marketing strategies that worked successfully for him. He is also the author of two #1 best selling books, Same Side Selling & Upside Down Selling, that teach entrepreneurs the human psychology behind successful sales processes.
Secret Academy Episode – Nathan Chan
Some of our favorite magazines, both business and automotive, have gone down the unfortunate fate of being canceled due to expensive costs and low retention. Fortunately, most of our favorite magazines have since rebirthed online in the form of digital content, ranging from digital publications as blogs or media heavy channels on Youtube. Needless to say, print magazines may be dead but consumable digital content such as ezines and podcasts have flourished. Nathan Chan saw this as the perfect opportunity to not only create a digital magazine, but also to create one that is better than all others in the business and entrepreneur space. Nathan saw too many magazines filled with ads, non actionable content, or fluff. The gap was filled by Nathan’s magazine Foundr, a magazine for entrepreneurs that is only available digitally on Apple iTunes or Google Play Store. For over a year, Nathan has built a very solid magazine, interviewing top entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, while continuing to grow his subscriber base to nearly 50,000. Factor in the cost of production at only several thousand dollars per issue, Nathan enjoys a healthy revenue of six figures a year from paid memberships.
Secret Academy Episode – Darren Kavinoky
As a socially introverted kid, Darren did not have the best childhood growing up and often found it hard to associate himself with others. While out one night with other friends, Darren was introduced to marijuana and that moment changed his life forever for better and for worse. After a rocky start in college, Darren eventually went to law school and miraculously passed his BAR exam while still addicted to drugs. Eventually Darren opened up a successful law firm but his addiction lead him down a very dark path that eventually cost him his loved ones and business. Rehab and treatment centers did no good but the voice of reason came from his wife one night that caused him to do some serious self reflection to sober up and live the right life he is capable of living. With a bit of luck, Darren was asked to be a guest legal correspondent on TV show Entertainment Tonight during Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest. Since then, he has worked with HLN, CNN, Court TV, The Insider, Fox News, DR Phil, and many more. His accolades including being awarded as the “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in California” every year since 2007. Aside from guest appearances, Darren is the creator of the TV show Deadly Sins on Investigation Discovery and still heads his law firm The Kavinoky Law Firm.
Secret Academy Episode – Nick Ruiz
Sick and tired of his job, Nick Ruiz came across an infomercial that promised big income while flipping homes with no money down. After dropping $250 on the course only to be disappointed by the material, Nick took a short break before giving it a second chance. While not all the course materials were applicable, Nick was able to take away a few strategies and tips to jump start his career as a real estate entrepreneur. Nick’s first home netted him $500/mo profit in rental checks and eventually flipped that for $20k profit. His second home had an even greater outcome. At the age of 20, Nick had truly discovered the true meaning of passive income. With markets flourishing, so had Nick’s net worth that had grew to the millions. Then it all came crashing down in the 2008 real estate bubble that forced Nick to lose it all and file for bankruptcy. Salvaging all the resources he had, Nick was forced to start from scratch again with extreme caution to slowly build up his empire. Nick has mastered the strategy of wholesaling homes to earn significant profits with no money down. Today, he continues to build his portfolio but also teaches new real estate entrepreneurs his exact strategies to wholesaling, rehabbing, and flipping homes.
Secret Academy Episode – Cameron Fous
Unlike his family that had businesses in the clothing industry, Cameron Fous had an interest in finance, particularly the stock market, where he went to school to become a stock broker. After selling his BMW M3 to help fund his trading account, Cameron quickly lost $10,000 and continued to see losses for several years. As a result, Cameron had to take a job bartending in order to make ends meet. Not giving up, Cameron studied the market and different strategies from various websites online to eventually discover a winning strategy that gave him breakthrough month of $30k revenue at age 23. For the past 7 years, Cameron has a successful track record of net profits month of month and today runs FousAlerts.com, a website where other students can follow along and learn the exact strategies and principles Cameron uses to make six figures a month.
Secret Academy Episode – Ben Greenfield
Growing up as a nerd wasn’t quite what Ben Greenfield had envisioned growing up and he quickly changed that by playing tennis with hopes of one day to become a pro. His dreams were shattered when he was demolished on a collegiate level but his passion for learning and teaching only grew stronger. By studying health and fitness at the University of Idaho and working with his own personal training clients, recognition came to follow and Ben was rewarded the NSCA 2008 Personal Trainer of the Year award. Ben took an unconventional approach to personal training and was able to quickly grow his business from 1 on 1 training to group sessions to full fledged gyms and utilized clever marketing tactics to grow his income exponentially to become one of the highest paid personal trainers in his area. As a triathlon athlete and alumni, Ben packaged together his first online digital product in a value packed triathlon training course that went on to sell over $50,000 in just 7 days. From that moment on, Ben knew he could make it on the internet and subsequently sold all his local gyms and personal training centers. Today, Ben stays busy as an author, business coach, personal trainer, triathlon athlete, and blogs at BenGreenfieldFitness.com where he has grown that into one of the top online resources for health and fitness. A combination of diversified products allows Ben to earn a nice six figure a month income while being able to travel the world and participate in fitness events.