Why Discipline and Data Are the Keys to Success: Insights from Beacon Data Founder Matt Cole

welcome to the know your ship podcast presented by ehub I’m your
host Frank Dolce well welcome in this is the know your ship podcast we’re
speaking with Matthew Cole do you want me to call you Matt or Matthew like
what what do you like Matt Matt who calls you Matthew my mom just well I’m a
Francis and my mom doesn’t even call Me Francis you know who calls me Francis
it’s like I have a sister-in-law who calls me Francis and maybe one other a
another one other like close friend that I’ve known for a long time calls me
Francis but I like having the name Francis it feels like more official or
something yeah kind of like royalty I don’t know Matthew Cole Matt Cole Matt
runs a company and started a company called Beacon data uh but you have a
really interesting and diverse background we’ll talk about all of that and of
course uh Matt is married to a former guest on the know your ship podcast
that’s Ashley Cole Cecilia New York she was fantastic by the way I don’t know
if you’ve had a chance to listen to her podcast yet but it’s really good
she’s super insightful and I don’t I guess my question is as we’re getting
started here how do you keep up with her now that’s a good question and I
haven’t finished the whole thing and what I listened to was intimidating
right cuz she is she’s like superwoman I always I always uh joke with her
that I feel like she has more time in her day than she has 30 hours we have
24 you know she just and I think uh we all have our strengths and weaknesses
and and but she’s she’s on point 99% of the time and so it’s hard to keep up
with um but but you know I think she uh I have some strengths she might not
have like when it comes to like relationship building and doing certain
things like from a cell standpoint and so um but I would say she if if we
were to list our strengths and she had she had 19 out of the 20 you know I
might have one that she doesn’t yeah but anyway so yeah it’s hard to keep up
that one piece is important yeah ex and by the way relationship building is
not an easy thing like that’s that’s a that’s a challenging thing for a lot
of people and in your role I know and it seems like in your background that’s
probably been really meaningful and and to be able to cultivate that that
skill set yeah and I would also say like we’re both cut out of the Same Cloth
in a lot of areas like we’re we’re problem solvers we’re entrepreneurs we um
when someone tells us it can’t be done that’s like that’s like throwing the
gauntlet down like we know that we’re on to something because if someone
doesn’t believe it can be done then we know there’s a way and it’s just
trying to be creative and figuring out how to Marshall your resources to get
it done and and so yeah we’re cut out of the Same Cloth in a lot of ways and
I think um you know she comes from a very entrepreneurial family I come from
more of like a a workingclass family middle class family and so like it
wasn’t in my I think it’s in my DNA to run a business and to be an
entrepreneur ever since I was young like I’ve always worked really hard and
I’ve enjoyed having my own things I had a out from from uh fifth grade to
11th grade and you know and that in some ways is very similar to being an
entrepreneur and you know uh I used to get some really nice tips around
Christmas because I knew my customers I treated them well and they they took
care of me and anyway so I guess my point is that she kind of grew up with it
like uh Sunday dinners um her dad would talk the ins and outs of business and
problems they’re dealing with and you know to learn at his a fly on the wall
for those conversations so it was kind of interesting culture coming into the
family because uh it was just a different mindset like than what I grew up
with and it wasn’t a bad thing like I I have a great family but yeah just
different but a different background yeah so we were talking about just prior
the difficulties of being an entrepreneur and starting a business and running
a business and all of the challenges and and and so you just mentioned your
childhood I know that you have a background in athletics and for me that
that’s meaningful I can lean on all of those experiences is that is that
something that entrepreneurial Spirit the work ethic um the focus the
determination is that something you you saw in your family growing up is that
something that you just naturally developed yeah so my um grandfather was
like University of Utah football royalty I don’t know if you know this but
he’s Joseph B worthland he’s also a that’s your grandfather Yeah how did I
not know that there’s like there’s so many levels that I like we were just
talking about a a friend of ours who runs a company called fishkins yeah and
how you’re related there like every time there’s some other connection but
that’s if you’re a University of Utah fan and I am of course like worthland
is a name that’s on top of the mountain yeah no he he and he was an
entrepreneur he had um worthland meets and and they had the wholesale
business of their their uh their Butchery and then he had his retail and then
you know they sold meat to all of like the fancy restaurants and Salt Lake
and and so I think I have it in my blood as well but I would say he um you
know uh what was the question again I’m trying to just de where did you
develop that skill I mean you started a paper rout when when you were early
but but being involved in athletics at the level you were involved and and
doing the stuff that you did to to get where you are today I mean that’s a
it’s it’s a skill set it’s it’s something that not everybody has so I’m
curious about how you developed that so when I was young I was about four
years old and my dad actually left my family and so I grew up without a
father around and I had a lot of great father figures growing up that really
mentored me and a lot of them were coaches and I think it was probably it
wasn’t until like 8th grade where I realized I could kind of be the captain
of my own ship and and write my own story and really you know decide where I
took my life and it was actually a coach his name is l gwick so so he uh
another Legend if you don’t know Larry gwick I mean you could Google Larry
there’s a movie about him and about his Highland Rugby teams yeah correct uh
and so and he’s also what the travel what is his moniker he I think it’s
Columbus travel and yeah so anyway travel Guru my brother was on the the
movie he was an extra actually I was asked to be in it but I think had to put
your life on pause for like two months and I wasn’t in a place where I could
do that but but he taught me so many life lessons and and Drew the parallels
to sports and I think you know one of his biggest Mantra was everything in
life comes with a price tag and you have to be willing to figure out what
that price tag is and you have to be willing to pay the price and so in
sports that comes with hard work and discipline and doing the little things
and so he so our practices were super grueling they you know 2 and 1 half
hours and it was like pedal in the metal like I think one thing the movie
didn’t get right was you know in the movie I think he has like a lawn chair
he pulls up and he’s super chill he he was chill when he was talking to you
one-on-one but he was also super intense and his practices were very
organized very structured and it was the only thing I’ve ever seen really
like it was like in college football um where you had like the indiv I think
each practice was like 32 hour 32 M 32 periods that were 5 minutes each or
something like that it was like 10 minutes each and every single minute of
practice was planned out and it was that’s how he was he was very structured
and so you would start practice with a on M run we called it the Sizzler and
you ran to Sizzler and back oh down the corner Sugar House they just got rid
of that um but then then you would you probably would run I don’t know five
to seven miles in each practice it was just really physically tough and then
you were expected on your honor to do your own personal running which was two
a two- mile run and then 10 100 yard Sprints and 1050 yard Sprints daily or
this was daily except for Sundays and uh game day and so you can imagine like
what that would do for you to transform your body um and so I think it was
8th grade when I started doing that and you know I was always kind of like a
husky kid and so I lost L lost weight got into like really good shape and
then the next year for football I just did really well and and and played
really well and it was when I realized you know I didn’t I could I could do
whatever I put my mind to As Long As I put the work in and so that’s
something that Larry taught me and ingrained me I ended up being captain for
the team for two two years and and uh went to Africa with them and and we won
four national championships while I was there and so that was I would say a
big turning point in my life and then you know early on in my career um
realizing that I have ADHD and so um realizing that with kind of my mindset
it would be tough for me to work work for someone and um and not be in
control of like my daily schedule and everything and so and then just being
around my wife’s family the the neans um they’re all entrepreneurs and so um
I learned a lot from that as well so and that happened fairly early on in
your life is that High School period when you started getting involved with
the N family yeah so when I was 17 I was a junior in high school um I met
Ashley and uh did you guys you guys didn’t go to the same school no she she
went to Olympus High School I went to cwood gotcha and so I ended up working
at this place called th store and it’s actually funny CU it was like right
it’s right down the street from where we live right now and I worked with one
of her best friends and that’s how we met and so and then you know started
dating and then she kind of waited for me while I was on my LDS mission and
we got married pretty shortly after I got home gotcha gotcha and so you
started to develop well well I I guess I’m not going to say the the
entrepreneurial mindset but you develop this idea that discipline and effort
and focus could help you get to the goal to what you wanted and you just
learned that because coach gwick said these are the things that you have to
do you were disciplined enough to do them and then you noticed the result
when when you started playing rugby football and you you were also a wrestler
yeah as well and and so and so that’s you know that that’s a valuable and a
lesson during a time in your life when you’re really trying to figure out who
you are and what and what you want to do and so how does that translate then
to and and then of course hanging out with the with the Nan family how does
that translate then into starting a business running a business because
there’s I I guess there’s similarities in those things but it’s it’s a little
different than jogging two miles a day and and showing up at the office and
and working really hard yeah it’s and I think there’s similarities but like
you said there’s differences but it’s all about like building healthy habits
and you know and being disciplined and and putting in the work it’s um you
know success is just not going to come like you’re not going to have your
your phone ring off the hook when you first start a business like you have to
go out and you have to make the phone calls you have to you know and you have
to understand all the ins and outs of your business and really build a better
mouse trap and so I think um I think there’s similarities but there’s a lot
of differences and I think it’s funny I was I was telling someone this
earlier today there’s this great re I I watched recently and it it showed
this like skier that was wearing like these really fancy clothes and he was
about to go down a run and he starts going down and and it says like what
people think entrepreneurship is like and it shows him like carving it up and
and looking like super elegant and then he jumps off this like cliff and you
know tucks it up and it’s like and then what entrepreneurship really is like
and he hits he hits and he does like 10 flips and you know looks like he dies
right and and so I don’t know I think that’s a pretty good example of what
it’s like and so you just you have to be mentally tough and strong and you
can’t like lose it right when something goes wrong cuz things are going to go
wrong and you have to have like a creative mindset and and figure things out
is you know as you go and that’s just how it is I I think one of the most
interesting interesting things about your story is you’re you’re a co-founder
of Cecilia New York and people will hear that you’re part of the nem and
family and obvious and and and probably assume that you had some leg up
because of all of the success and the Airlines and everything else but I
think it’s worth mentioning that both you and Ashley have built these things
on your own like you you you had great examples of course around you and
maybe you even had great advice as you were along the way but there’s those
things you built on your own without outside help or influence yeah and I
think the thing about David and he he’ll tell anyone this so I’ll say it on
air is you know he’s not leaving anything to his kids and he’ll help them and
you know um I’ve probably pitched 10 different business plans to him and he’s
only really been excited about two of them so he’ll tell you what what he
really thinks and actually with Beacon data he didn’t invest in it um so I
was kind of on my own but he did help me kind of get my foot in the door in
the airline space so I think you know he’ll open he’ll help open doors for
you but he’s a lot harder on family than he is on you know his everyday
employees like you’re you’re going to have to put the work in and proove
yourself and so because he knows he did it the hard way and that was his
secret to success and he knows there’s no like free lunch you can’t just give
someone something and think they’re going to make something of it it just
just doesn’t work out so so yeah you definitely have to like for instance
like the contract that we ended up winning with aul I think we did a
six-month um it was a proof of con ccept and we probably put in like 2,000
hours of free work to kind of prove it out and and then we were able to
secure a contract but and he what he didn’t even sign it it was like one of
his Executives and they they were the ones that made the decision they wanted
to to hire us to do it so oh that’s interesting we’re we’re starting to move
over into the business side but I wanted to ask you one more thing and I
don’t know maybe it’ll lead to something else about your athletic career
because I think it’s fasc ating you you actually uh so you played rugby you
wrestled uh you you actually started wrestling in college but then the
wrestling program went away you ended up playing football in college and you
ended up at forom University now if you’re a football fan you know that forom
is significant in lots of ways because it was once upon a time a football
Powerhouse and Associated very much associated with Vince Lombardi who is the
icon in in football so uh tell us about that experience going back to forom
and and playing football did you play there two years I I played there three
years and so I was I went to University of Utah for one year and played there
one year and then transferred out and went out to forom for three um so it
was a it was a great experience um I love football I think it’s the ultimate
team sport like you know if one person doesn’t do their job of play breaks
down right and so something I I think this this parallels to business as well
something I talk about in in coaching is there’s really only three things you
should be thinking about on every single play and this is like a mantra
everyone I coach knows this and it’s it’s assignment align alignment
assignment technique and then I I always tell them the X Factor is effort cuz
you can make up for a lot with effort right right and so um you know
alignment is where you’re lining yourself up for success and so if you’re not
positioned well then you’re not going to be successful um assignment is doing
your job and then technique is how you’re going to be your opponent like what
technique are you going to use right and I think with football that’s what
it’s all about and it’s like figuring out exactly what your job is doing it
well and doing it better than the person you’re lined up against and so and I
I played defensive end I actually was a a fullback in in high school as well
but um I love playing defensive end it’s but it’s it’s a very you have to
have extreme discipline to like set the edge and and contain and it’s
probably one of the harder things when you think about it like how much space
you have to cover and so um you know when when I’m the d-coordinator for a
little League team or I was the d-coordinator for my son’s ninth grade team I
always take my smartest and most athletic players I don’t care how big they
are and put them at the defensive end because it’s a tough spot yeah um
linebackers are too but anyways I’m kind of digressing and going into
football a little bit no no no this is perfect because I I use this analogy
all the time uh and I love what you said assignment alignment technique and
then you throw in effort and and the reason I love that is because those are
all the things that you can control like the individual can control those
things there are things in that happen in a game or in life that you don’t
control but if you if you do the things that you can control then you
increase your opportunity to succeed and when we talk when I talk about
teamwork I say regularly like the football analogy if one of the 11 fails
then there’s a good chance that the play is going to break down so the the
key to success for a team is as many people as possible with the same goal all
heading in the same direction like if you have a couple of those people going
in different directions failure is right in front of you and so I love that I
love that analogy and I’m sure that’s something that is you you’ve knowingly
or unknowingly has helped you throughout your career yeah and I think in
business business like alignment is really important like you said like as a
leader you need to make sure that your direct reports are aligned with the
vision and and you obviously you set the vision you set the example you’re
living the values that you preach um those are all really important things
and and if if that breaks down then you know you’re going to have problems
you’re dealing with so yeah absolutely okay so let’s let’s talk about that’s a
perfect segue and I love that how you tie that experience into your your
business life and all of those things that you learned in growing up and by
the way I I I was the same I I grew up in a in a great middle class family
lots of lessons from Mom and Dad but I could also say that some of the most
influential people in my life were the coaches that I dealt with and it was
both sides I mean I had really good coaches and I had coaches that were
really good because they were so terrible and you never you You’ never want
to do like that was the lesson I’m never going to act yeah that way so and I
I’m sure you’ve had experiences like that as well but let’s let’s talk about
your your business career so you you you get out of of forom uh and I think
you got involved in an wait did you get is that when you got involved with
the sports training program yeah and so that was an interesting experience it
it actually um when I when I started running that business it’s it turned
into a franchise but it was a license agreement at the time it was called um
Blue Streak Sports training and we used this program uh it was called the
forier acceleration program and they had high-speed treadmills and and
everything and so now they changed their name to Athletic Republic It’s a
franchise but um yeah we we trained athletes in small group settings we also
had like um Physical Therapy personal training uh nutrition and um just uh
adult classes and stuff like that and so what’s interesting I I take a lot of
life lessons or a lot of business lessons from from running that business it
was an extremely tough business I wouldn’t recommend anyone to get into the
Fitness business because very low margin you’re it’s just it’s just a a tough
business business but um you know just really you’re on the front lines
you’re managing people you’re um you know you’re you’re kind of doing
everything like at least I was at the time like wearing a lot of hats like
you know managing the p&l um the marketing you know even from a PR standpoint
trying to get articles and newspapers and different things like that and so
it really got my feet wet into wanting to like run and own my own business
and then realizing you know I wanted to do something in my mind something
bigger and that not that I didn’t enjoy being around Sports cuz as I explain
I have a sports background but I realized you know to provide the the life
that I wanted for my family it probably wasn’t going to be that business that
provided it so so was was your experience your last football game at forom
final gun goes off was that devastating to think well I or maybe you had
thought like I’m going to go play on from this the the final instance of
being on the field was that devastating or was it a relief or how did you
manage that yeah that’s a good question I think very similar to you I had
some coaches and I would say and hopefully um some of my coaches from forom
aren’t going to listen to this but there was a couple that I just didn’t
really like right and just from the kind of people they were and in fact it
it turned me off so much towards coaching I joked around with my wife and I
was like if I ever tell you I want to coach football I want you to like punch
me in the face you know like they were that bad they were just like
demotivating and so I had a really good experience you know playing but I
think by the time I was done um playing college football I was ready to move
on and there was even it was probably four years from when I finished playing
college football that I didn’t even watch football cuz I don’t know if you
had the same experience but they definitely suck the fun out of it a little
bit it becomes a full-time job and it just it it’s not the same as it is in
high school and everything so I I did love it I drew a lot of parallels of
how is going to be successful in life but I think I was ready to move on and
I was 25 you know I went on a mission and so um and by the way that was kind
of an interesting experience uh being at forom University you know I was
married and older and um you know people thought that was strange cuz I was
the you know the only one on the team and stuff so it was interesting it
wasn’t like Utah where like half the guys were married you know I don’t think
that’s the case yeah not as much not as much anymore for sure okay so so you
go uh into the sports training which is an interesting um we we might have to
have a chat about that later because we take you know if you want to be a
great wide receiver then there’s all of these things that you can do um to
train to be a wide receiver or or whatever and and you guys were involved in
all of those things like nutrition physical fitness probably uh you know
mindset all all of the stuff and training and and I don’t know if we do that for
people who are working in the business world all the time and that’s probably
something that we should be doing is training people how to be how to
optimize their talents in the office as well yeah one thing that I really
took away from that business is um we we would sell packages of sessions and
semi-private training and we would always do a pre-test and a post test and
we would always say you know this is like this is kind of proof of what the
program did for you and it’s it’s giving um and we would create this
certificate that would show like the before and after results and I think
that’s really important in in business from knowing the value that you got
from something and you know we would always say that’s what the parents
paying for they want to they obviously they want their kids to be in
productive things and they want um you know them to have great experiences
and be around good people that are going to help build character but I also
think they want to see that there was progress and you know so we we had all
these averages that we would do we would take two to 4/10 of a second off
your 40 yard dash add 3 to four inches to your vertical leap and all these
different metrics and I think in my um Data Business that’s something that we
that we kind of do when we first come in we do like an assessment this is
where you’re at and you know we show you the Good the Bad and the Ugly and
then kind of give you like um a future state of what where you hope where we
hope you can be and then the road map of how to get there I’m glad you
mentioned that I wanted to talk about uh and and focus on Beacon data and and
to get your thoughts on is that was that passion about data developed when
you were doing the sports training because you saw the benefit or is that
just how your your mind kind of works is that data is King and you needed all
that data to keep improving yourself so when I and this is something I didn’t
really talk about when when I went and did my undergrad um it wasn’t until my
Junior and Senior year where I felt like I finally got in a rhythm and and
became pretty good at school where I could get good grades and everything
school just was not something that like I’m ADHD I’m more of a Hands-On type
of guy and so I I’m not the type where a teacher tells me to read certain
books I like that like I like to read my own books and in fact when I was in
college I read a ton of other books and probably didn’t read all the books
that the teacher yeah and so when I graduated from college I didn’t really
think that I was going to go on and get a master’s degree it was like it just
wasn’t my thing but when when I had run when I was running Blue Streak um I
had decided that I needed to go back and get an n ba so I went back in 2012 I
was about um I was about 31 when I went back and I went to this school called
Babson College which it’s it’s like rated number one for entrepreneurship by
all these different magazines and I think 100% of their professors are
entrepreneurs and it really opened my eyes to all the different types of
businesses that are out there it was actually founded um I’m trying to
remember the guy’s name I think it was Robert Babson but it was founded to
train um kids of Founders in the Next Generation to kind of take over the
family business and then to take it to the next level and to to make it um so
that if a parent had started a really successful business and they handed it
off to their kid that they didn’t just run it into the ground yeah and so but
it’s become this kind of like mecca for entrepreneurship and so I went back
and did that and that opened my eyes to a lot of different things and then I
had a friend that was running this uh data Consulting business and he he
wanted me to come in and help him do some business development stuff and so I
started doing that and one of the big contracts we we won was actually with
um with aul that we’ work really hard to to win this and I think it was like
six month months into the contract our project manager um ended up leaving
for a big Google job he’s getting getting paid a lot so anyways I was like
the one that knew the most about it and everything so I kind of stepped in as
the project manager without having you know um a ton of experience but I knew
the ins and outs of what we were doing and so I it was like baptism by fire
and I just had to learn so much and that’s where I became I kind of fell in
love with it because you you would sit in a boardroom with Executives and you
would talk about their biggest pain points of their companies and realized
that most of the answers were in their data and it was like we we would have
we had this saying that we would say and we still use this to this day is
that there’s gold in your own Hills and because a lot of times Executives
will talk about oh I want to enrich my data with outside data and there’s all
these ways to do that but we always talk about let’s extract the gold from
your own Hills first and then we can think about enriching it but the the
gold in your own Hills is going to be way more valuable than any other
outside data you can bring in right yeah cuz it’s going to tell you who your
ideal customer is how do you build like a lookalike model how do you you know
there’s so much you can learn from it so um I think I became super I I became
like infatuated with it at that point and passionate about it cuz I realized
how much difference you could make and it’s it’s similar to sports like um if
you put the work in and you do like the little things then you see results
really quick yeah and so and then we got into working with uh private Equity
companies and something that I always like to tell people when when they ask
me what it’s like to work with private Equity is um it’s interesting you can
build a billion dollar business off of almost any idea it’s all about
execution like there’s a company we’re working with right right now uh called
valet living and all they do and and they’ll probably kill me for making it
sound the simple but all they do is they they have contracts with apartment
buildings where they’ll take your garbage from the front door to the dumpster
and so when I first learned about their business model I’m like that sounds
like like a college frat kid started it and but literally you know they’re
almost a billion- Dollar business and they figured out how to skele it crate
cont contracts with all these different um management companies and basically
the HOA fees um cover the the fees that’s contracted and then they have it’s
almost kind of like uber they have like these contractors that get paid based
on the the C service and and so they do really well and it’s crazy to me that
you could have an idea like that and it could turn into something so big
right yeah and and so and there’s this other company we’ve worked with this
is another great example called Tusa and all they do is they rent um plastic
containers um to like Walmart and like big retailers to move around meat and
fruit and they own these containers and then they they wash them and they
take them back and they charge a fee and this is like a billion dollar
business I’m like how in the world can you turn that into a billion dollar
business you know but that’s what I’ve learned from private Equity is it
there’s there is like a secret there’s a formula it’s and it comes back to
the same things it it’s discipline it’s hard work and it’s just figuring out
what your business model is and then just executing the crap out of it you
well yeah yeah it’s discipline and it’s hard work and it’s the other things
you talked about alignment and assignment but this is where the data
component is so critical and and what did you say the gold in your own Hills
yeah the gold in your own Hills so understanding your customer and you know
and and extracting all the insights um I think is more valuable than you know
than you even realize like cuz like like when you have an executive that’s
like I want to enrich the data so I have I can understand the demographic of
my customer and then I can do all this stuff and bringing all this outside
data in um it just in some way ways it can muddy the waters and so you really
want to make sure you get all the value out of your own data first before you
muddy the waters and you in some ways you want to keep it separate if you’re
ever going to BR enrich it right M because it can tell the wrong story and
and Lead You Down the wrong path yeah and so I think it’s important to to
understand that no no doubt have you ever had the experience and I’m I’m
asking this for a specific reason uh be because it sounds simple like okay
yeah we’ll just we’ll look through our data like okay we have it it’s all
here somewhere and we’ll just look through it have you ever had the
experience in a company where one Department they’re looking at the same data
but one department is saying no the data says this or is telling us this and
the other department is saying nope the data is saying and telling us this
and how do you reconcile that yeah and I think that’s one of the most challenging