The Human Cloud: How Today’s Changemakers Use Artificial Intelligence and the Freelance Economy to Transform Work with Matthew Mottola on Episode #0266

Matthew Mottola [0:00]
Hi, this is Matthew Mottola from the human cloud book and you’re listening to EA Interviews.

Intro [0:04]
EA Interviews, Episode 266, inspiration, transformation success stories and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview.

Mario Fachini [0:18]
If you ever wanted to make more money or do something on your own, but you’re just not worried where you should start? What you should be doing? What softwares you should be using? How does this even all go together? I’m excited to have Matthew Mottola on today’s show. He is the best selling author, speaker. And he has written the book on the human cloud, you may have seen them on Fortune, Forbes, Yahoo Finance and we’re gonna talk about what the next five years looks like with human potential and what you can do online. I’m going to bring them up right after we thank our sponsor.

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Mario Fachini [1:10]
Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Matthew Mottola. Matthew, how are you feeling today?

Matthew Mottola [1:15]
I’m good. I’m good. Thank you so much for having me today.

Mario Fachini [1:18]
I am excited to learn what you know, you’ve clearly done some impressive things. And it’s just astonishing that you’re focusing on what you are because so many people talk about the success, the money, the this, the that, but I love that you’re focusing on the human side of it, in the human potential and what people can be doing. And the rest is a byproduct of it. But I remembered when I was starting off and I want to do this on my own. I want to start a company. Where do I start? How do I get customers and clients? How do I do this as a freelancer, this, that, the other thing? And that’s what you specialize in? So why do you think everyone should get out of the corporate structure or why does it suck? And why should everyone be a freelancer and do it on their own?

Matthew Mottola [2:08]
I think in terms of setting the stage, when we talk about the human cloud, let’s start by defining it right? What does it mean? So we’re not talking about AI, deep learning, just some generic buzzword. So when we say human cloud, we’re talking about the intersection of remote work technologies, the freelance economy and automation. And at a high level, the reason that anyone should even care about this is because it enables individuals to have more of an impact. And when I say impact, that means if you are a freelancer working, instead of working in a corporate environment, you can do more, even if you are working in a corporate environment, you can hire freelancers, and then from an entrepreneurial lens, the ability to build businesses around the freelance economy. So yeah, so I think in terms of why it really comes down to impact. And if we looked at ourselves 20 years ago, but there’s no way we could do as much from an individual perspective as we can do that.

Mario Fachini [2:59]
What do you think is really attributed to that shift over the last 20 years? Is that just the speed of the internet? The way people have decided they want to focus on more personal things or do you think company and the corporate culture has dramatically shifted fundamentally?

Matthew Mottola [3:16]
I think it comes down to two things. And I think one of the ways is how we connect with companies or how we get value. And the second thing is how we create so in terms of getting value, that used to be that fewer artists, you had to go work for an agency or an ad agency, and maybe a couple got really lucky selling their art. But nowadays, you can be a freelancer and you can connect with clients all around the world, instead of having to go with a corporate structure. Second thing is productivity. Think about it as kind of like there’s the tools, right. And today, there’s so many tools that we can build things in a remote and freelance manner. If you’re a graphic designer, instead of needing to work for a company to have the Adobe Suite or the various tools you have. Most of these are free. And then the tools to actually connect with your clients are also free whether it’s Trello, email, g drive, you name it. So those are the two massive technological forces that are sort of remote work technologies, both to connect you with different people versus having to work for a company and then also to get that work done.

Mario Fachini [4:15]
That’s an interesting point you bring up because I never really thought about it, but you’re 100% correct with the softwares we use. Nowadays used to be, I don’t want to say restricted to the agencies and stuff. But maybe some of them. Would you say it was more the price point was just so astronomical only the big larger companies could afford the best of the best?

Matthew Mottola [4:38]
Yeah, there’s sort of two reasons for that. And then you nailed it right at the fact that it was too expensive as an individual to be able to create. And if we want to get really geeky, pre Industrial Revolution. We all had looms in our homes. But then the factory system came along and wielded the steam mill and some of the various technologies made a factory the sort of most efficient and productive way to get things done. And so if you were making t-shirts, you now had to give in and say, Oh, no, my T shirts are too expensive. I can’t compete with the factory, but sort of what’s happened and not to get too geeky, but sort of Moore’s Law, if you’re if you’re a total software nerd, you realize the laws. Of course right? So you look at that, and you say we’ve been doubling the speed of technology. I mean, this thing right here has as much computing power as the rocket ships that brought us to the moon. So that’s insanity. So it’s twofold. So the first is, it used to be a strength of a large company that you had a bunch of stuff. And this is so much more than just individual technologies. This is things like healthcare, insurance, HR, finance, it was easier to be a large company. But now from an individual perspective, instead of finance, you have QuickBooks instead of HR, you don’t even need an HR system because you can connect with fellow freelancers. And then to your second point, the actual technology, the actual tools have become way cheaper because of Moore’s law.

Mario Fachini [6:01]
Yeah, I remember when I was designing literally, this machine for live streaming. I remember the first processors. My first one was the gateway g six 266. Then it was like the Intel Celeron D and it was two core than it was a quad core, this one’s got 14. And it’s like these things are supercomputers. Now are the phones in your pocket? Like you said some of those have octa cores in them. And I think everyone gets caught up in the tech. But what would you say for someone that’s just enamored with the tech? And it’s like, oh, it’s so cool. It’s so this, how do you get them to leverage it to their favor because you can have the most cutting edge equipment. I’m not gonna say who this was but I was actually having a discussion about gpss. And it’s like, you can have all the tech in the world. But if you don’t know how to properly work it, you’re still going to get lost?

Matthew Mottola [6:59]
I think the most important thing for someone whether you are a super techie geek like myself or you are someone that doesn’t even want to use a computer, is that today, yesterday and 50 years in the future, relationships I would argue are the main driver, right? The currency really comes down to relationships and specifically how you can help people. And so a good example of that is now, we’re talking right now without us needing these massive product production studios. And we actually very intentionally I say that I only use iPhone speakers and I only use my laptop camera not because you know but mostly just because we want to show, you don’t need to go out and have this $30,000 production studio, you can do massive things with very small dollar amounts and a very small team. But what that said, if this content is crap, whether we spent 100k to get it out there or 1000, it’s still crap. And so at the end of the day, it really comes down to understanding your unique value and being able to deliver that unique value. Whether you are a freelancer that’s doing design work, and your client is your own client versus if you are an agency employee having an agency client, it’s all the same thing. It’s an end of the day, it’s the ability to deliver value and the tools have made it way, way easier. But it still comes down to your unique value.

Mario Fachini [8:20]
So for someone listening, that’s going, Okay, this sounds good but I’m stuck and how I find and pinpoint my value. What would you say to them to help them with their messaging?

Matthew Mottola [8:33]
Oh, that’s a great question. So to summarize, it’s sort of what is your unique value? Yeah, right. And not to scare you. But what technology has done is it’s made it easier to connect with people around the world. And it’s made the uniqueness of you a higher priority. So instead of being able to only have a skill, say you’re a graphic designer, and you’ve worked five plus years in a large company, you now have to be pretty unique. An example I give with that is we were hiring a writer for the book. And we actually were writing a piece about Da Vinci. Now we put up a writer, we put the job up across various freelance platforms. And we came back with a writer who had all the same qualities as everybody else in terms of five plus years, here’s a bunch of ratings and reviews, but they specialized in DaVinci. And it was the coolest thing ever. Because in what world can you have someone that’s a hell of a writer, but also kickstarter Da Vinci. So that’s sort of a proof point of where we’re going to is things are very hyper relevant. We also bring up an example in the book of North America’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, instead of hiring all full time or an agency, they went with 25 to 30 freelancers, one of those freelancers was a motorcycle afficionado or total motorcycle geek that was also a Bluetooth developer that’s so unique, like, you’re not going to go find that in the middle of San Francisco or through a list of 100 resumes under the old system. So that’s sort of where we have to get to is you have to have hyper unique value. In terms of how to get there from an individual perspective, the first thing you have to understand is that you do have to quantify your outcomes. So for so long we’ve been used to in school, kind of really listen to us, right? It’s all about how much you know. And specifically, we look at things like I went to this school, I have plus years experience and I’m applying for this job. In a freelance model. We don’t give a crap where you went to school, we don’t give a crap how many years of experience you have, all we care about is what is the outcome that you can consistently deliver and what’s the proof that you can do that for me. So that’s the first sort of coming to Jesus moment, right is understand that there is a fundamental difference, that it’s not a job req it’s instead of outcomes that you can prove, in terms of getting there, which is probably the most important part, where you have to kind of understand is that those outcomes are going to have to be unique to you. And so there is no one playbook. And if you do see a book that says here’s your 10 steps to freelance success throw it out or use it as toilet paper because probably crap because there is no one step, but we like to say is take your curiosity, the things that you’re curious about and build your value ladder in terms of the outcomes you can deliver within your unique skill set. Instead of a career ladder, think of it as an outcome ladder because in a freelance world where you used to be a 10 plus years equals director instead, it’s 50 plus projects equals a 150 an hour or 10k a website or whatever your outcome is.

Mario Fachini [11:31]
Oh, you are good. And for anyone listening, we just met, so I’m enjoying this literally as much as you are listening to it. You definitely know your stuff. And I knew you did. But Wow.

Matthew Mottola [11:46]
It’s been painful. He learned through experience. So I will say I started my journey freelancing. And I think one thing that I want you all to take away is that we don’t want to say you all have to be freelancers. But what we want to say is that you all have an opportunity to take ownership and control over the outcomes that you want to deliver. And if you can hone that you’re going to have complete control over what you do, where you do it and who you do it with. And one example was like, I worked at Microsoft for two years. So I can’t claim this freelance renegade. That’s only ever freelance. But what I can claim is that freelance enabled me control in whatever opportunity I wanted to take on.

Mario Fachini [12:24]
Yeah, I remember reading in your bio, you helped develop the 365 toolkit.

Matthew Mottola [12:31]
I did. Yeah. So what that was prior to Microsoft, just a little bit back started freelancing sort of grew my own freelance career. Geeked out in terms of the tools and products that were required to scale the freelance economy. I think when I was freelancing, people thought we were Uber drivers. So I just got so sick of hearing people say, oh, like you’re yeah Uber driver, which did nothing wrong with that. But hey, it wasn’t Uber drivers to management consulting. And so I went from there to go build the tools to really scale the freelance economy itself, and started building out million dollar freelance projects at a company called Gigster. And so that was let’s do custom software dev using only freelancers not full time employees or an agency. And then from there with Microsoft, the problem statement was how do we get J and J, GE , these massive companies to go spend $100 million on freelancers, just like they do full time employees or agencies. And so that was the sort of massive pain. And what we did was we took Microsoft tools and we created a technology stack that enabled them to hire and manage freelancers specifically through a freelance program. So even though I was a full time employee, I mean, I was basically freelance, I had an outcome, my outcome was I needed to get 10 customers by May 1, if I didn’t get that I considered myself fired. And in terms of how to get to that, it was all about understanding what outcomes are required to get to that sort of final end state. And my proof of being like, hey, technically as corporate at a salary had benefits, you name it. But I did work 90% remote. That was actually one thing that I was like, I’m going to get stuff done here. But I have to take the remote side of me over at least.

Mario Fachini [14:12]
That is fascinating. And I want to ask you, what’s your favorite thing about remote? And what do you most dislike about it? Oh,

Matthew Mottola [14:20]
Okay, let’s start with…

Mario Fachini [14:21]
The biggest pros and cons of a remote basically.

Matthew Mottola [14:25]
Yeah, so let’s start with what I dislike about it. I dislike that when you do want to have in person collaboration. It’s not there. And I also missed the free lunch. To put up lunch. I miss having a place where I could go and there’d be oatmeal or food and I was in San Francisco for a while where we spent way too much money on free lunches, free dinners and organic snacks. So I missed that for sure. The good thing it all comes down to control. For me personally, I actually worked best out of a coffee shop and I don’t know why I think it’s because I can see Do no one talks to me, but I at least get my social cue where I’m like, okay, I can stay in flow and there’s people around but no one’s gonna actually talk to me. And so I really do enjoy controlling that. And I think one thing that’s different than an office that I just couldn’t really understand was why am I there for eight hours a day, I’d rather work for 12 hours one day, if I want to, if I need to take a call, I want to take a call, if I need to take a nap between two and four, or whatever it is, I can do that. And so that’s my number. One thing that I like about remote is it’s just there’s more flexibility and control to put yourself in the best position for however you like to work.

Mario Fachini [15:36]
I want to ask you, you went a little bit in your backstory, which is fascinating, like I said, but how did you really get into it? In high school? college? What was the turning point there to go? Here’s what I want to do. I love doing, you keep saying I’m a geek, I am, too. I actually designed this computer for live streaming. But like, where did it all start from?

Matthew Mottola [16:02]
Yeah, so I had one aha moment, I would say it was my first job out of college. And the reason it was an aha moment was because what I expected was nothing like what actually happened. So sort of a step back, I started freelancing freshman year of college, and I didn’t actually know it was called freelancing, I still actually really struggled with good work, because all it is is contract work. I played college sports to pay for my way through college. And that meant that I couldn’t do a full time job. I just didn’t have 40 hours consistently to work. I was always having to play. But I needed money. So what I did was I just went business to business saying, hey, how can I help? And then they said, you tell me and I said, well, what are you struggling with or what’s something you’d pay me for? Unfortunately, I had some early, early people that were like, well, you seem young, ambitious, and your business student, can you just go find me 15 of my competitors and figure out where there’s a gap in the market or figure out where we have or they have a weakness that then turned into, hey, can you build us a business plan? Can you do some financial modeling, because we know you have a finance and accounting background. So I ended up getting really good. And just basically anyone that I talked to you like I remember my baseball hitting coach had mentioned, oh, I want to start a business. And I was like, well, how much money you got? And he was like, it depends. And I’m like alright 4000 bucks let’s go back 10 competitors, right, let’s scope out for 30, 60, 90 days. So that’s how I got introduced to it. But I still was the finance and accounting major and studied crazy hard because I was, you know, you’re expected to kind of go to the Big Four, I grew up outside of Massachusetts. And there’s that blue collar so anyone can relate if they feel like they’re being pushed towards more of a traditional job. I did it and it was crazy hard to get. But I got sort of that prize job. And I’ll never forget, I get the suit which looking at me now I’d be like, Oh my god, he has a button down. I don’t think I own one right now. But so I get to the 32nd floor of a high rise in Boston, the first couple of days. I’m like, this is incredible. Of course, the eyes open because they’re giving you so much Kool Aid. But then a week into it. I just couldn’t get over how miserable people looked. And everyone’s walking around, like zombies, right like that. You’re looking at him. And they’re just like drones walking by her again.

Mario Fachini [18:12]
Here again waiting for the weekend.

Matthew Mottola [18:14]
Here again. Yeah. And the actual work itself, I remember being like we studied so hard, right? Like, we worked until one to 2am just to get a good enough grade on the test to get this job. And now here you are and you don’t give a shit about the actual work. And that was the first thing that puzzled me was oh, my god, you’re actually coming in doing this, but not caring about the work. And then the second thing was I just just felt lifeless, right? It wasn’t everyone in the company, that was a good company and they treat their employees well under traditional standards. But that was my aha moment where I realized oh, my God, this thing that I was doing that everyone didn’t think was like, oh, sneak out of the coffee shops to literally do my work. And they thought I was just fooling around. But that was my aha moment of this is the way that works should be which I mean, one important thing for me is I don’t go and say even though I’m like a tech CEO entrepreneur, I don’t necessarily care about how much money I make. So until investors that but I really don’t, I care about the impact. And so for me, I wasn’t what’s the total addressable market or sort of the things that you can have to say now. Instead, I believe the world needs this type of model to make sense. And so let’s just go dive headfirst into trying to create that which turned into building some of the tools and software behind a lot of freelance models.

Mario Fachini [19:28]
Well, I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing, because you’ll have a unique perspective that I don’t see very often. And I would say even with myself, with the geek background, this, that, the other thing I never fully went into what you did in most people I know it’s either one or the other. But you’re kind of covering all the bases here, which is really cool. What’s been the funnest thing you’ve been able to just experience from everything you’ve already accomplished from such a young age.

Matthew Mottola [20:04]
I love my freelancers. That’s by far, if anyone asks where do you want to be right now I want to be talking to my freelancers. I am always amazed, always impressed. One of the first I’ll never forget the first time I hired a freelancer, I had committed a textbook to a university. And I didn’t have it. It was a Microsoft Word document. So I promised them I made a lean startup, basically a website hybrid thing, because it was in my head that I was going to do that. And I built out the draft of it. But I didn’t have any design or anything. So I went and I hired a freelancer. And basically, I said, I have no idea what I’m doing. I have no idea how to do this. But here’s a comparable of what I want it to look like, what’s this gonna cost and fortunately it was a freelancer, sort of, in the beginning of the stages, he was like, it’s gonna be $1,000. So what did I do, I didn’t eat on the weekends, just so I could scrape up the 1000. But I’ll never forget that first moment that he delivered something to me. And that was my aha moment of oh, my God, like, I don’t have to know absolutely everything in the world, I can put my trust into somebody else to scale and augment what I’m doing. So that was my first experience. That was the freelancer named Emerson, who’s at Nashville and sometimes Orlando, says my first experience. The second which is also one of my favorites in the book that people don’t know is my co author, Matt coatney. I had hired when I was writing, I’ve been writing this book for five years, to be honest, it’s just part of the journey. When I would build stuff, I would write stuff down, because I’m super dyslexic. So I need to get it down on paper in a structured format. But so I hired Matt to technically edit my report. And the same thing like 500 bucks if you edit it, we end up becoming best friends and writing an actual book versus just a report. And so by far, the number one thing, the reason I do this is because the freelancers that I meet are the coolest people in the world, they do such insanely incredible work. And I just enjoy every single time I have with them. So I feel like I’m stealing time just to hang out with them. And the last story, I swear. But so as part of the book, there’s this project manager that I just really want to call out a woman named Sam Mason. And she was based out of Cincinnati and I actually met her similar through editing the research paper. Turns out, she was a software VP, then she went to go raise her kids. And when she went back into the workforce, they said, oh you’re too stale, right? It’s been 15 years and you’re not going to be where you were. And she said screw it. I’m going to be an editor and lucky me I met her and she’s the best project manager I’ve ever worked with in the world. And I’ve been able to meet such incredible people. And we did as part of the book with her and Matt we did an off site in Cincinnati made them do a mock wedding shoot shut up to a park that Haha, guys, I set up a mock wedding shoot as a joke. But yeah, that’s the number one thing. Like why the freelancers are so cool.

Mario Fachini [22:59]
I can tell you pull the energy from the different perspectives. And you’re very similar to me or it’s like if you just have one or two people just chirping in your ear constantly, repetitively, it’s like droning on. But you can pull the energy from the team and be like, okay, what are your thoughts on this? What are your thoughts and you can get this mastermind collaboration that just rising tide raises all ships?

Matthew Mottola [23:24]
I couldn’t agree. I think to be honest, I’m young, right. So I really have no grounds. And I kind of go into most things saying I know nothing. And to be honest, that’s been the case for most of the things I did when I was coming into Microsoft. Fortunately, I knew freelance. But I didn’t know how to actually build a product. I didn’t even know how to use Microsoft products. I used Google. And so the first thing I did was I asked what my budget was, I didn’t need a headcount. Right. But I needed a budget for freelancers. So I hired this freelancer named Ross from Thailand who’s a Microsoft expert. And I would talk to my boss once a day, so yet things are on track. And I talked to Ross and was like, okay, what the hell is SharePoint? What the hell is OneDrive? How do we use this? This is the problem that needs to be solved. He teaches me Microsoft. So, I mean, some people ask, they’re like, so what are some of your leadership techniques and how do you leverage that? And I’m like, no, I’m just young and poor and freelancers were by far the best way to amplify, augment my weaknesses. And the best thing about freelance is, usually every single person is an expert. So you don’t go into freelance saying, hey, I’m the, you know, manager or GM or director, I’m going to tell you what to do. You literally go in and you say, this is the end state that we’re looking for. This is the outcome that we’re looking for. Here’s some comparables, you tell us how to get here because you’re the expert at whatever it is, whether it’s SEO, whether it’s front end development, whether it’s products, whether it’s writing, like the freelancers the experts, so yeah, in terms of the energy and really getting the best out of other people. It’s just kind of all effects, but I’ve had to do, so I can’t claim it’s like a leadership tactic of a tribe.

Mario Fachini [25:03]
And that’s okay, because clearly you’re succeeding with it. And I’ll never forget one of the turning points in my business. I developed a software to build WordPress websites automatically. Well, now it does WordPress sites. But originally I started I coded the first iteration of it myself in Flash. And then I use something called a silver stripe. And I’ll never forget going through. Everyone was screwing me over all the developers, this and that it was a horrible couple of months. And when I found my lead programmer who’s still working with me now, even to this day, nine years later ish going on 10. He was very calm, he was very hey, we can do it in silverstripe. We can do it here. We can do whatever you want. He wasn’t trained. Everyone else’s first question is, why isn’t this WordPress? Because I didn’t freaking know it. That’s why that’s all it was. And I kept going, okay, maybe if we’re doing this bigger iteration and I asked him and it was the exact same thing I go. I’m firing everyone else and hiring you regardless. How much would it be for you to teach me WordPress, like Crash Course, I gutted everything I had done for a couple of years. And he retooled it in three weeks. Three, I hired him for consulting for three or four hours. And by the next day, I was like, oh, WordPress is pretty cool. Now I know all about it. Well, I knew enough. I’ve learned a lot over the last decade just using it. But I knew the end result I wanted to get when someone is building a website, I didn’t want it to have to take five hours of all the repetitive stuff. So we automated that. And now I get WordPress is a much smarter platform to use this and that, but it’s like, don’t insult people. Why are you doing that? I remember, Oh, that sounds dumb. You shut your mouth when you’re talking to me. Like who asked you, I’m trying to hire you for help and click, like, how to lose friends and alienate people and go write a book. But I’ll never forget how sincere and genuine he was. And it reminded me a lot of what you were saying, I have no clue. But here’s the end result. Great, you know how much time and how much budget, that’s all I asked my team, how much time and how much budget.

Matthew Mottola [27:17]
And there’s two things I really want to call out from there. And I think the first thing is the fact that least in a freelance environment, for me, the project ends but the relationships never end. So I’ll be working with the people I started working with when I was 21 years old, I’ll work with them for the rest of my life. And the reason is, when you’re in a company and you leave generally you lose your colleagues and maybe two of them, you actually stay in touch with but most likely, there’s non poaching agreements and all these things that make it impossible to keep working together. When it’s freelancers, you just get teamed up, right, you say let’s take on this project when it’s done. And it’s the first thing I really want to call out. And that’s by far the most important. The second thing is I would argue it’s faster to excuse my French, but to eff up, I was going to say the full one. But I realized this might be a kid show just getting more. But what I mean by that is it’s quicker to add that of going through a full time headcount or an agency where you have a six month contract, get talked to him once or twice, and you figure out something whether if it’s software development, you do something for a week or two weeks, or you haven’t create a scope document. And most likely, you find out really, really fast that it’s not the good fit. And it might not be just because of the technical thing. It might just be because it’s not the right working relationship. And freelancing, you figure that out real real quick. So I love people, they ask me like, oh, is it expensive to hire freelancers? And my answer is, if you want it to be yeah, but in my case, it’s been pretty cheap. Because you know, when it’s something good, you keep going if the ROI is gonna keep going, if not, you cut your wounds. And yeah, you have scars, but it’s a lot faster than having to have a full time headcount or an agency contract.

Mario Fachini [28:54]
For sure, 100%, I want to ask you a couple of things. One of them has to do with the automation, because I know that’s a big part of you. Why is automation so important?

Matthew Mottola [29:07]
Okay, I feel I need to ask this. It was great when I was writing the book, I took on the automation. And when I met Matt, I was like, you are the expert, you take this and run with it. But we both are sort of how do I say this all answer as a dummy. And he would answer as the technical you know, the real technical lead. At the end of the day, the answer comes down to just like with freelancing, you can do more with less. And so we take for granted some of the tools that we think are things like calendly, right, or things like Boomerang or schedule send or even Grammarly or spellcheck. We have these little things that we don’t think of as automation, but seriously saved time in our lives. And so that’s where the automation plays in is that it’s not like this master AI general intelligence or you name it. It’s instead very, very, very specific scenarios that you can use things like Grammarly things like calendly to automate parts of your unique workflow.

Mario Fachini [30:08]
Great answer. I’m always looking for ways to do more with less. And a couple minor basecamp. And I love schedules once like you used for picking the time for the interview. I’ve used it for years, starting with coaching stuff. And when I launched the show, I was like, oh, this is easy. There’s people wigging out for months, how do I set up a booking thing and I just took it, I basically copied what I already had changed a few words on it. And it was the first iteration of that automation is huge. And for anyone that thinks like, you have to be doing everything you don’t, it’s like, look for ways to do less.

Matthew Mottola [30:50]
Yeah, I would sort of summarize it by saying, think about things that are repeatable in your life and how you automate those things that are repeatable. Because if computers down, computers just know zero and one and then a bunch of if, this, then that logic. And so from your end, what do you keep repeating and how can you try to automate some of those scenarios, so like, what calendar is the perfect example, if an email client comes in, then send them your calendar link. Before you were probably saying, if someone sends me a time, check my calendar, send them times, then get another mail, then check, but instead have a calendly the second one that’s very freelancer specific, comes down to things like proposals. So if a client comes in, that’s doing a website, then carry over 80% of what you did last time, don’t keep creating new things. If you then start a website project, don’t create a whole new sort of onboarding kickoff call to carry over the exact items that you had before. So it seems like it’s sexy to have the tools. But in reality, at the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of line items that are saying if this, then that and think about the repeatable things that you have in your life. And that’s where automation kicks in, is taking those over.

Mario Fachini [31:57]
I want to ask you about your biggest transformational and success story with a client? Who would you say it is and what did you do for him?

Matthew Mottola [32:07]
Oh, I would say it’s Microsoft. And I know that doesn’t count. I mean, it will call that a two year client. But I would really say it was Microsoft, the fact that we had ideas. And I think this is one of the biggest things as a freelancer that you jump in and really add value for. There’s a bunch of ideas, there were a bunch of problems, there was some success, there were some non success. As a freelancer, you go in you say, okay, what is the defined sort of outcome that you’re looking for? And in our case, it was how do we have a technology layer that enables freelancers to be hired and managed within an enterprise? That’s where we started. So I went in and at first I said, okay, what is the exact problem? So you go in, and you just listen, so you have freelancers out there, that’s more in the product end, this might be your discovery session, your two week discovery session, where you go meet with 100 people, or you go meet with 50 people, and you just try to define what is the actual target that we’re shooting out. So figured out that okay, the actual target is we need to enable the enterprises themselves specifically in procurement or HR function, to have the technology to hire people at mass and manage them. So that’s the first thing. Second thing was alright, let’s take six months to actually build the technology which if you’ve built products before, you know that what you think is going to happen is never what’s going to actually happen. So you’re running at just like your two week Sprint’s you saying, okay, at the end of month, one, month, two, month three, this is or look at Long story short, because all that sort of is the fluff, we went from having really good data about what we did internally. And we were able to take what sort of we did what the client needed, and apply a technology layer, which required everything from actually building the technology to bring it to market, which if you think about the bring it to market, that’s everything from we need to have a press release, we need to have the right social campaigns, we need to have a presentation deck, we need to have onboarding material, which as a freelancer, this is where the thing that should be lightened up in your head is upsell upsell, upsell, upsell, upsell, because you go into it first, give them a competitive analysis. And you’ve now done marketing, product, engineering, and even sales. So I would say by far, sort of the most transformational thing that I’ve done was what we did at Microsoft, I would argue we actually succeeded a little too early. We can go into sort of why that’s not a good thing at large companies. But yeah, that was by far I’d say the most transformational project I’ve done.

Mario Fachini [34:37]
Why isn’t it a good thing at large companies?

Matthew Mottola [34:42]
The structures are tough. Specifically, if I mean, let’s think about a startup versus a large company, within a startup, the person who builds it is the person who’s going to become CEO when they raise more money, but then a large company, you’re really complicated because number one, where does it fit in the whole product portfolio number two, Who owns it because where it fits in the product portfolio. So instead of sort of in a startup environment where if we succeed, that means that we either get more money from our clients or investors and as the CEO I’m not kicked out or I’m not looking up and saying, who’s that GM? And who’s that director? And how do I play politics? So I’d say that’s the biggest difference, it’s just that the variables that I care about, are literally just customer growth, or getting an investor use, they’re getting an investor’s, we’re in a large company, you inherently sort of have that politics of who’s going to be the person that signs the pen. And the other thing there is, instead of going for sort of investor capital or revenue, you do go for more of the budgets. So it’s how we unlock a million dollar budget verse, which has a lot of implications, like we said, about sort of where this fits within the whole product portfolio. A quick example, if you think about LinkedIn, if you were to do a freelance solution within LinkedIn, you would have to prove to management that you’re not cutting off their existing revenue stream. So we would have to prove that we’re not classic innovator’s dilemma, that we’re not going to get rid of staffing companies, but instead amplify and augment the core business streams. And there’s some leaders that would say, go create a skunkworks project and figure it out but for the most part I’ve seen in large companies, it comes down to making sure you can fit under the right little or pardon the org chart.

Mario Fachini [36:24]
I got you. Okay, well, I appreciate the insight. I got one more question for you, with the Wheel of Whatever. And you get the pick? Do you want business or personal?

Matthew Mottola [36:36]
Let’s go personal. Let’s Keep it exciting.

Mario Fachini [36:38]
Good. Yellow or black?

Matthew Mottola [36:47]
No, let’s go black. Point makes it darker.

Mario Fachini [36:54]
Now, it’s just something I incorporated recently because there’s two colors to pick from. So personally, who is a celebrity that you would love to hang out with for the week?

Matthew Mottola [37:09]
Celebrity, it’s funny, I have a complex, I don’t want or like celebrities or at least most celebrities, because I don’t think they really done anything for the world.

Mario Fachini [37:17]
What about celebrities, do you like sports?

Matthew Mottola [37:21]
Even worse. I would…

Mario Fachini [37:23]
Really?

Matthew Mottola [37:24]
My answer is going to be I know, right? I mean, there’s some athletes that have done great things for the world and I was actually supposed to do the whole professional route. And that was one of the problems was, I just didn’t feel like this was necessarily moving the needle for society. But that’s a deeper conversation. I would…

Mario Fachini [37:43]
Well, let’s go deeper with that. I actually thought I set that up purposely thinking you’d say something baseball related.

Matthew Mottola [37:51]
Nope, nope, nope, nope. I would say that the people that I lost most look up to would be my grandmother would be number one. That would be like my answer. If I could hang out with anyone. It would always be my grandma. But related to that. I love older small business owners. I love coffee shop owners. I love restaurant owners. I love those people that you don’t see in the news. They don’t have their face plastered everywhere, but society wouldn’t be anywhere without them. And so a quick example is one of my favorite coffee shops here. Venezuelans first generations and it’s just I love it. So that would be my answer is some of these small business small business entrepreneurs, you name it. And one of the side reasons I moved to Singapore was when I went there to visit, I actually met there’s things called Hawker centers there which think about it as little food courts, but there’s a bunch of stalls with food courts. And I met this uncle, the older man and he prior was a lawyer, but his dream was to start a smoothie Hawker center. And I just couldn’t believe it. It was the coolest thing that I’ve seen in my life yet was that uncle at the Hawker center that was a lawyer but really wanted to have a Hawker center. So let my answer is I love generally older sort of, yeah, I know. It’s not as sexy. I mean, if you’re gonna make me say I’d say like Channing.

Mario Fachini [39:12]
No, honestly, I’d love that answer. And I love it. If you have any specific business, you want a shout out, feel free. We’ll put them in the show notes. But I love that because I’m a huge proponent of people starting businesses, the backbone of America most of America is run from small businesses. It’s a very small percentage that is Walmart, Amazon, the big whatever companies, it’s all small businesses. And I think it’s fantastic.

Matthew Mottola [39:44]
Yeah, well, we’ll plug when the show notes there’ll be super pumped when they see their length there.

Mario Fachini [39:51]
Excellent. Well, we’re gonna thank our sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action Round.

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Mario Fachini [41:27]
And we are back with the Imperfect Action Round. Matthew, are you ready to take Imperfect Action?

Matthew Mottola [41:34]
Yes. I’m kind of scared, but let’s do it.

Mario Fachini [41:37]
Alright, I got three questions for you. 60 seconds or less answers on all of them. First one is what’s the fastest path to the profits?

Matthew Mottola [41:47]
There is none focused on your users and what they really need.

Mario Fachini [41:51]
Excellent. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it.

Matthew Mottola [42:00]
Prioritizing short term decisions for long term impact. The quickest way to fix that is going back to the first answer is really really deeply understanding why your users are doing what they do or doing and figuring out what it is from a long term perspective. that’ll solve their problem.

Mario Fachini [42:16]
Very good. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Matthew Mottola [42:26]
Think about what they need, instead of what they say. And that’s something where me personally, I’ve struggled with it mightily, because like I said, I’d love to be with my freelancers. And I always want to solve their problems. But generally, let’s say over 70%, of what users say is not what they actually need. And there’s numerous checks, we could talk about beyond 60 seconds, but that would be sort of my main takeaway. Okay.

Mario Fachini [42:50]
Fair enough. Well, thank you for those. What books would you recommend Expert Authority World that have made a difference in your life?

Matthew Mottola [43:00]
That’s fine. After writing the book I read so much before, I am so present that I read it out. But I would say anything that’s technology related, specifically in relation to where work is going. So there’s a book by Alec Ross, I forget what it was called. But look up the author Alec Ross, there was one by Tim O’Reilly called what the EFF, what the future. Kevin Kelly 12 forces, those are some ones that really shaped me. And one that I do think every single person that’s building in our space needs to read. I actually forget which one it is, but it’s by Erik Brynjolfsson. And Andrew McAfee, they have It’s Machine Platform Crowd and then they have The Second Machine Age. Read one of those that we’re going to talk about is the decoupling of wages and productivity, specifically, how in the past 30 years, we’ve built so much, but the wages haven’t stayed with. But that’s my social call for anyone that’s an entrepreneur. read that book, make sure you’re not perpetuating that. Well, you know what we’ve been doing?

Mario Fachini [43:53]
Excellent. Well, thank you for those And where would you like people to learn more about you?

Matthew Mottola [43:59]
Yes, start with HumanCloudBook.com, then go over to venture out bio.

Mario Fachini [44:04]
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun. And I appreciate you for what you shared and your time.

Matthew Mottola [44:12]
Of course. Thank you so much.This is great.

Mario Fachini [44:15]
All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. And God bless.

Sponsor – Free Business Book Publishing Course [44:23]
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www.EAInterviews.com [44:56]
Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out EAInterviews.com. For complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned in more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.