TL;DR
It storms every afternoon here. Luckily, I’ve got my morning apartment working session → relocate to a cafe for coffee and lunch → wait out the rain → hit the gym → dinner and evening apartment working session down to a science.
It’s awesome how much your mind can expand when in an expansive, beautiful environment. This trip was a reset I really needed.
I’m trying to figure out the rest of my year… Mexico, Asia, Europe are all on the horizon… plus some fun events in the US!
CURRENTLY
Documenting my journey
Made a full video breaking down exactly how much it cost me to live in Spain last month.
Medellin has me longing for more Spanish-speaking cities this year… debating Mexico City for May!
I’m glad I’m not driving down here... 50/50 on whether Tangier or Medellin is more dangerous to drive / cross the street, but you’ve gotta stay alert!
It’s pretty cool that every Instagram Reel I post, I gain at least 10 followers - I’m honored that people want to follow along and it’s only a matter of time til I have my first viral breakout hit…
FINANCES
Money and Investing Updates
Less than $100. That was my avg. daily spend in Medellin this month. Life is good here.
$30,000. My winnings on a slot machine here last week! (Sadly it was $30k pesos, which is like $8 USD lol)
$1,900. The amount of credit card annual fees I’ll pay this year. To most of my friends, that is crazy. To me, I’m confident in the math of the cash plus points plus benefits plus rewards I’m getting. Let me know if that’s nuts to you or if you’re a credit-card-maxxer as well. Instagram Reel coming soon with a breakdown.
BUSINESS PULSE
I’m proud to be a board member for this group and I’m also proud to say I’ll be the keynote speaker at the May 6 meetup. If you’re in Charlotte, I’d be honored to see you there and I promise to make it valuable.
I’ll even be building a website from scratch and pushing it live within 10 mins. Hope I didn’t bite off more than I can chew there.
Come hang out! 6pm @ Noble Smoke in CLT on May 6th
This week, I dove into another case study for one of our clients - a local dumpster rental business. We’ve dramatically increased their lead flow with Google Ads over the last year and added over $1M in revenue for the team! Pretty decent, if you ask me. Our team rocks.
I learned how to use animation software to create an animated version of this course map - more details coming next month.
(I wish I could take credit for the beautiful design, but that’d be Michael and Simone’s work!)
Sneak peak of a free course the team is building!
WHAT I’M LEARNING
AI Implementation
I seriously can’t get enough of automating and improving processes for myself and others, it’s just so satisfying. This week, I built a system to do deep research on companies our digital ads agency could help, assist me with crafting messaging for them, find the decision makers, and draft hyper-personalized outreach messages for me. It’s already booked me a meeting with a $5M+ ecommerce brand.
WHAT I’M CONSUMING
I did not realize how unique of a company Ferrari is. Per usual, the Acquired podcast did a great job telling the story.
If you’re into business, cars, or history, I think you’ll love this episode.
Here’s a few things I learned:
Porsche makes more cars every year than Ferrari has ever made!
Ferrari is launching their first ever EV, and it looks… CLEAN.
Ferrari has over 400 million fans, despite the cars being wildly expensive, and generating profit margins as much as 10x higher than other car manufacturers - talk about branding.
DESK OF THE WEEK
📍 Our Apartment Balcony in Medellin, Colombia
The views in Medellin are quite inspiring.
DESK OF THE MONTH
📍 Chapel Hill, NC (a few weeks ago)
I didn’t write about this two weeks ago when I was in North Carolina, because I didn’t send a Build in Motion edition that week.
I was honored to check out the office of The Downsizers in Chapel Hill, NC the other week to hang out with my friend Sean Planchard and The Downsizers team. Sean is the new CEO of The Downsizers and I loved learning more about their unique value-proposition, plus sharing a few (hopefully helpful) tips for their marketing strategies.
If you (or someone you know) is moving or downsizing soon and looking for a super personal experience - check them out or let me know if you’d like an introduction. They’re the premiere downsizing move management company in the whole USA, in my opinion after my industry research - so neat!
WHAT’S NEXT?
Spending a few days in NC with my family and grandma before going to Elon University for our Alumni Board Retreat.
From there, I’ll head to Charlotte to speak at The Charlotte ETA Group event. After that, I’ll be booking flights to somewhere cool (cool place TBD).
Adventure is out there!
✌️ Matthew
SUPPORT
From time to time, I may enlist the help of sponsors to help me afford to continue writing this newsletter. And it’s pretty cool to get paid to share my story!
You can check them out below, and find other (totally free) ways to support me via affiliate links here. Cheers!
How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads
The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.
Not financial advice. Just a guy sharing his journey. Thanks for being here!
Affiliate link disclaimer:
Some of the links on this website and in the Build in Motion newsletter are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase or sign up for a service, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products, tools, and services that I personally use or genuinely believe would be useful to you. Any commission earned helps support the newsletter and keeps this content free. You should assume that any link to a product or service on this site or in any email from Build in Motion may be an affiliate link unless stated otherwise.