The Grant Owen Podcast

Most founders want freedom. Very few have a system to actually build it. In this episode, I sit down with Matt Gray, founder of Founder OS and Herb, to break down the exact five-level framework he used to go from zero to over a million dollars a month in revenue using a personal brand. We talk about why distribution matters more than the product, how to pick the right platform, why you need to own your audience through a newsletter, and how Matt's journey to sobriety was the thing that actually started his personal brand. We cover each level in detail: from posting your first embarrassing video to building a full content waterfall system, hiring A players, running the killer survey to find out what your audience actually wants, and tracking profit per piece of content so you know exactly what's working. If you're a founder who wants to build a profitable personal brand without losing your mind, this is the blueprint.
Thank you to our partner:
Riverside: Go to https://creators.riverside.com/Grant and use code GRANT to get one month of the Grow offer.
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Chapters:
00:00:00 Level 1 How to Start When You're Making Zero Dollars00:05:31 How Sobriety Started His Personal Brand00:08:02 Why Founders Build Personal Brands and Why That's Fine00:10:37 YouTube vs LinkedIn vs Instagram Which Platform to Choose00:13:18 Why Your Newsletter Is the Most Important Asset You Own00:16:43 What Actually Matters in Your Content at Level 100:25:12 Level 2 How to Make Your First $20K From Your Personal Brand00:32:45 How Many Iterations It Takes to Find Your Offer00:40:59 How to Handle Haters and Long Term Thinking00:50:54 Level 3 Scaling to $100K a Month and Building a Real Business00:52:36 Building a Scalable Offer and the 7 Core Business Components00:58:26 The Content GPS Infrastructure That Drives Predictable Revenue01:00:54 Hiring as a Marketing Funnel01:05:04 Onboarding A Players and Keeping Tight Feedback Loops01:08:46 The Killer Survey That Tells You What Content to Make01:11:02 Stop Comparing Yourself to People at Level 6801:16:06 How to Improve Your Content Quality Without Losing Your Voice01:27:41 Level 4 Scaling to $500K a Month With the Content Waterfall System01:31:51 Zone of Brilliance and What to Delegate01:39:02 The Peer Group That Changes Everything01:44:41 The Creator Identity Trap and How to Escape It01:51:50 Level 5 Over a Million a Month and Burnout Prevention01:55:05 Level 5 Building a Founder Independent Business01:58:26 The Content GPS at Full Scale and Tracking Profit Per Piece of Content02:07:08 What Would You Say to the Version of You That Was Struggling02:10:17 Are You Proud of Yourself

What is the secret to why Diary of a CEO is so successful?
In this episode, I sit down with the trailer editor behind Diary of a CEO to break down the exact frameworks they use to hook millions of viewers. We dive deep into the psychology of retention, why the first 20 seconds matter more than the next two hours, and how to use cinematic storytelling to make your content impossible to scroll past. We cover the 15-point checklist for a perfect trailer, the "perfect imperfection" edit trick, and how to build a narrative arc that keeps people watching until the very end. This is a masterclass in video packaging and audience psychology.
Thank you to our sponsor:Riverside: Go to https://riverside.com and use code GRANT to get one month of the Grow offer.
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Chapters:
0:00 Why Podcast Trailers Are Essential for Growth6:36 Turning a Podcast Into a Cinematic Documentary11:48 The Psychology of Audience Retention14:52 The 5 Key Elements of a Successful Podcast26:41 The 15-Point Checklist for the Perfect Trailer34:25 Breaking Down the Louis Tomlinson Hook45:28 How to Engineer Intrigue in the First 20 Seconds54:11 Using Sound Design and Visual Details to Keep Attention1:04:18 The Interactive Hook: Vanessa Van Edwards Breakdown1:07:02 Building a Narrative Arc: The Kevin Hart Example1:16:40 The A-B-C Framework for Storytelling1:20:13 The Easiest Win You Can Implement in Your Next Video1:22:36 How AI is Changing the Editing Process

Cale Owen was eight weeks from shutting his gym down, making $30K combined with his wife, and had just gotten a job to keep the lights on.
Then he found Gym Launch, went all in, and eventually became CEO of the company. Then he walked away. This is what happened in between.In this episode, Cale sits down for one of the most honest conversations about building a business, losing yourself in it, and figuring out what actually matters. You'll hear about the home birth that almost took his daughter, going from 33 gym members to selling out a six-week challenge in one night, what it felt like to hit $1 million in his bank account and immediately want ten more, the moment his wife told him he was a shell of who he used to be, and why he resigned from one of the fastest growing companies in the fitness industry. This is a conversation about money, identity, faith, and what it means to run a good race.
Chapters:0:00 There's More to Life Than Scaling Your Business1:15 Were You Always This Driven1:36 The Gym That Lost $3K a Month3:32 Eight Weeks From Shutting the Doors3:58 Getting a Job to Keep the Gym Alive4:18 Combined Tax Return Under $30K4:40 Failing as a Husband and a Father6:32 Finding Gym Launch and Calling Alex6:57 The First Time He Heard Alex Hormozi8:06 Opting In and Testing the Nurture Sequence9:20 First Lead 30 Minutes After Launching Ads11:16 17 People Show Up the First Night11:56 We Made More Today Than the Last Two Months13:07 Going to the First Mastermind13:26 Home Birth Gone Wrong14:08 Why He Went Back to Work on Monday16:43 The C-Section Story and Not Sleeping18:25 She Trusted Me20:07 High Performers Never Think They Could Have Done More21:46 The Interview Process That Changed His Career23:33 Advice for Young Men: Learn Inside Someone Else's Company25:03 Getting Into Strategy Meetings as a Sales Manager26:34 We Could Just Do This Ourselves28:13 Becoming CEO of Gym Launch29:57 Long Way From Not Being Able to Feed Your Kids31:29 Setting a $5K Monthly Personal Income Goal33:17 Breaking Down Goals Into Quarterly Targets35:05 Building a Free Gym Management System36:45 The World's First Free Gym Management System38:21 Getting Friction From Private Equity40:02 We Did Not See Eye to Eye41:51 There's Got to Be More Than This43:23 His Wife Left the Company First44:52 Working 60 Hours a Week and Always On45:09 The 5 to 7 Rule They Never Broke46:19 The Birthday Trip Golf Game and Hard Questions47:21 Three People in His Family Were Professional Athletes48:36 My Proudest Moment Was Being Prepared for a Presentation48:53 You Are a Shell of Who You Were a Year Ago49:47 His Kids Were Starting to Feel It50:22 Physically Present Mentally Somewhere Else51:16 He Put In His Resignation51:42 The Call With Layla52:32 She Said She Didn't Think He'd Last More Than a Year53:35 What He Did After He Left54:29 Buying Into Wolf Gyms Franchise55:37 Solving for Lifestyle Not Scale56:35 What Would Alex Do in Your Situation57:28 He Only Works With People Who Take Action58:22 I Don't Know What the End Play Is59:04 5 to 10 Clients One on One That's It1:00:03 I Don't Know What God Is Calling Me to Do1:01:53 What Grace Actually Means1:03:37 When You Invite Jesus In It Changes Everything1:04:19 The Day He Saw $1 Million in His Bank Account1:05:13 God Said You're Never Going to Be Satisfied1:06:09 95% of Those Calls Could Have Been an Email1:06:51 I Was Always Chasing the Next Number1:08:41 What Would You Say to a 20 Year Old Chasing Money1:10:13 Optionality Is Not the End Game1:11:46 Money Promises Security But It's Lying to You1:13:24 What Game Do You Actually Want to Play1:14:10 What Would You Say to Yourself Before Your Second Kid1:14:17 Just Take the Next Step1:15:50 What Do You Want Your Kids to Say About You1:15:54 That I Ran a Good Race1:16:48 You Can Do Whatever You Want to Do1:18:38 Maybe Pastoral Ministry Isn't the Craziest Idea

Cole Gordon tells me how to make money.
In this episode, he breaks down the exact path from zero to nine figures, level by level. You'll hear why learning to sell inside someone else's company is a faster path to wealth than starting your own, what it actually felt like to hit $3.9 million a month and still be miserable, the $150K conversation with Patrick Bet-David that changed how he thinks about his business, the three things that keep great employees from leaving, and why he launched five initiatives at once and nearly killed his momentum. This is one of the most tactical and honest conversations about building a real business.
Chapters:0:00 Over $100M Cash Collected0:10 Level 1 Zero to $10K2:51 The First $10K and Bartending at Night4:05 Reading How to Get Rich During a Bar Shift5:23 Find a Fast Growing Company and Learn the Most Valuable Skill7:15 First 30 Days on His Own He Did $100K9:20 Go Where the Action Is Not Where the Stability Is12:24 The Habit You Need to Break to Get Out of the Cycle14:12 Level 2 $100K a Month19:46 Why He Hit $100K a Month So Quickly22:32 Zero to $2.5M a Month in Under Two Years38:55 Level 3 Managing the Front Lines44:09 Tormenting People Into Greatness and Why He Stopped47:18 Smoothing Out the Edges With Coaching51:12 Three Things That Keep Great Employees From Leaving54:00 The Mistake After Hitting $1M a Month54:48 $3.9M a Month and Still Not Happy56:17 The $150K Conversation With Patrick Bet-David58:10 The Big Mistake That Cost Him Momentum1:07:00 Level 4 Managing the Managers1:22:44 Level 5 Nine Figures and Beyond1:25:19 Going Upmarket and Changing the Pricing Model1:27:34 The One Step Away Rule1:29:33 The One Step Away Rule Applied to His Business1:33:07 Your Executive Team Should Be Entrepreneur Level1:34:21 Do You Fire Fast1:34:26 Red Flags and Pattern Recognition1:36:07 What He Wants His Team to Say About Him1:37:08 When Did Purpose Start Mattering More Than Money1:38:44 Marriage and What He Thinks It Will Change1:39:30 He Wants Three Kids1:39:52 Being a Present Dad and Having It All1:40:32 An Integrated Life Not a Balanced One1:40:48 The Trait That Makes Him Impossible to Bet Against

Dan Martell has built and sold multiple software companies. He wrote Buy Back Your Time. And he thinks most people are using AI completely wrong. I asked him how to actually make money with it.
In this episode, Dan breaks down the exact playbook for making money with AI at every level, from your first dollar to $10M and beyond. You'll hear why only 5% of the world has ever paid for AI and why that's the biggest opportunity alive right now, the one text message that made Dan's friend Sarah her first $10K, the Replacement Ladder framework for using AI to grow any business, why nobody buys AI but everybody buys trust, the AI tool stack Dan actually uses every day, and what happened when he shut his entire company down for two days to run an AI hackathon. This is the most practical AI business conversation you'll find.
Chapters:0:00 Only 5% of the World Has Ever Paid for AI0:46 The Easiest Thing to Sell With AI Right Now1:56 The Marcus and Sophie Framework4:24 Theory of Constraints and the Right Problem to Solve5:33 What Is the Number One Constraint in Any Business7:13 How to Leave Your Job and Go All In8:27 Business Is Simple Find a Problem and Solve It9:08 Stop Getting Ready to Get Ready9:33 The Sarah Story One Text and $10K9:53 Pull Up Your Phone and Message Your Contacts11:05 Dan's Son Noah Gets His First Client at 800 a Month12:41 Would You Rather Be the Best Employee or the Best Employer13:59 What Other Services Can You Sell With AI14:44 Sales Is Not Talking It's Asking17:01 What to Do When You Hate Your Business18:40 Pain and Pleasure Are the Only Two Motivators19:13 They Haven't Made It a Must Yet20:29 Make It a Must Not a Nice to Have21:06 The Jen Story and the Gasping Moment22:17 How to Find Your First 10 to 15 Clients28:38 The Personal Brand Play33:06 Vision Is What AI Cannot Do34:55 Hard for Computers Easy for Humans36:13 Level 2 Making Your First Million With AI37:18 The Replacement Ladder Framework37:39 Admin First Then Delivery Then Marketing39:09 Why Marketing Is the Biggest AI Category39:32 Why You Should Keep Sales for Yourself40:00 Level 5 Leadership and AI Agents41:41 What a Fully AI Systems Business Looks Like43:13 The Gym Owner With Three Locations46:16 Shutting Down the Company for Two Days46:37 Teaching the Whole Team to Code in Claude49:28 Wayne the 62 Year Old Who Made $12K a Month52:38 I Only Share What Actually Works53:21 Whisper Flow and Talking to Your AI56:41 Claude Chat Claude Coworker and Claude Code57:57 The Claude Browser Extension58:49 Claude Code Is Not Just for Developers1:00:06 How to Migrate Your AI Memory Across Tools1:01:08 Level 3 $1M to $10M and the Brand Play1:02:05 Nobody Buys AI They Buy Trust1:03:25 Brand Is Association and Association Is Trust1:05:12 A Million Followers Is $10M in Activated Revenue1:07:03 How to Keep AI From Becoming Slop1:07:42 Human in the Loop1:08:16 The 10 80 10 Rule and Why AI Is Now the 801:10:01 The Team Built Solutions That Made Their Jobs Obsolete1:11:45 Dan's Free AI Curriculum for Your Team

He grew up with no internet, a father removed by police, and welfare in rural Ohio. By 24, he'd built close to 8 figures. I asked him how and what it cost him.
In this episode, Closer Cartel founder breaks down the real path from nothing to eight figures — the sales skills that started it, the info business that scaled it, and the identity crisis that nearly ended it. We're covering the full arc: what it actually takes to close at the highest level, why the info industry rewards the wrong behavior, how a panic attack in a Miami shower changed everything, and what he's building now with Kendo — an AI sales platform he believes will eventually replace human sales reps entirely.
You'll hear about closing a $15K deal while being cussed out at 20 years old, why hitting $100K a month felt emptier than expected, the moment he realized he'd built a business he was ashamed of, a spiritual experience so strange he almost didn't tell it, and why he walked away from everything in 2024 to start over. This is an honest conversation about money, identity, faith, and what it actually means to build something you're proud of.
Try out Kendo for yourself: https://www.kendo.ai/?via=grant
Chapters:
0:00 - Close to 8 Figures: Where It Started4:39 - Growing Up With No Internet in Rural Ohio7:21 - Leaving Home to Save His Family9:13 - Dropping Out With $500 and a Laptop21:18 - Shutting Down the Agency and Learning to Sell27:08 - Moving to Miami and Launching Closer Cartel31:01 - The Character He Had to Play (And Started to Hate)47:15 - Burnout, Depression, and Losing Passion for the Money53:28 - Why Info Rewards the Wrong Behavior56:02 - The Shower Moment: Spiritual Warfare in Miami1:04:29 - Living in Alignment: Faith in Practice1:12:18 - Why He Walked Away and Built Kendo1:27:21 - How Kendo Works: AI Sales Training and Management1:36:09 - Genetics, Potential, and the Real Red Pill1:39:53 - Vision at 30: $100M, a Wife, and a Life Worth Living

Vexian has studied over 6,000 YouTube channels and 100,000 videos. I asked him how to go from zero to 10 million subscribers.
In this episode, Vexian breaks down the exact roadmap from your first upload to the diamond play button. No theory, just the system he's used to grow channels across every niche. We're covering all five levels: what the game actually looks like at each stage, the mistakes that keep people stuck, and why most of what you think about growing on YouTube is wrong.
You'll hear why education beats entertainment for your first 1,000 subscribers, how the impression snowball works and why consistency is compound interest, the backend strategy most creators completely ignore between 10K and 100K, the "How to Win on YouTube" matrix that explains why some channels explode while others plateau, what viral vectors are and how one word can take a video from 5,000 views to 25 million, and what separates the people who hit 10 million from everyone else (it's not talent). This is the most complete YouTube growth playbook in a single conversation.
Chapters:00:00 - Intro00:28 - Level 1: 0 to 1,000 Subscribers07:08 - Level 2: 1,000 to 10,000 Subscribers42:37 - Level 3: 10,000 to 100,000 Subscribers01:12:00 - Level 4: 100,000 to 1,000,000 Subscribers01:38:10 - Level 5: 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 Subscribers

This is the Jaden Young Content Strategy approach. Anyone that wants to make money from social media needs to think this way.
Check out his full content system here: http://contentscalegameplan.com
Chapter Breakdown:
0:00 - The 5 Content Styles That Require Zero Editing4:45 - Level 1: Too Scared to Start (And How to Fix It)7:12 - Why Going Viral Won't Make You Money11:09 - Stop Copying — Steal Principles Instead15:16 - The Pre-Post Checklist: Hooks, Stories & the 24-Hour Rule21:17 - Ugly Videos Make More Money Than Pretty Ones24:50 - Level 2: Stuck at 10K and Burning Out27:08 - The Chart Method: 90 Content Ideas in 30 Minutes33:16 - The Metrics That Actually Matter (Shares Beat Likes)37:14 - How to Build a Content Series That Compounds42:49 - Level 3: The Internal Database & The New Floor50:03 - The Follow Game: What Actually Gets You Followers

This is the Jeremy Haynes mindset. Anyone that wants to make money needs to think this way.
Chapter Breakdown:
00:00:00 - Introduction: The $100K Trap00:07:45 - Why Most People Stay Broke00:15:30 - Identity as the Foundation of Wealth00:23:15 - The Propaganda You Feed Your Brain00:31:00 - Pain as Your Greatest Teacher00:38:45 - From $12K to $550K: The First Year00:46:30 - Breaking Through Self-Imposed Limits00:54:15 - Speed, Execution, and Low Tolerance01:02:00 - The God Factor: Faith and Transformation01:09:45 - Leading Your Family Through Expansion01:17:30 - Shoot the Gap: Death and Urgency01:25:15 - Final Thoughts: Becoming the Example

This is Dylan Jahraus. And she went from making $14 an hour at Zappos to building a 7-figure Etsy empire while raising kids and moving across the country as a military spouse. She proved that you can scale a business to multiple 6-figures even when your husband is deployed on a submarine and you're working 16-hour days in pajamas. If you want to learn how to turn side hustles into a real income stream and build a business that gives you time, location, and financial freedom, this Dylan Jahraus podcast is for you.
Dylan Jahraus shares her full story of success, from getting rejected by corporate jobs (even Crate & Barrel wouldn't hire her as a cashier) to hitting $140,000 in her first year on Etsy. She breaks down how to scale from $10,000 a month to selling your brand for 7-figures, why working for yourself is always better than climbing the corporate ladder, and the real truth about what it takes to build a business as a mom. This is the unfiltered blueprint for going from dog walker to 7-figure entrepreneur and why exceptional employees make exceptional business owners.
00:00 - intro01:23 - I moved cities to find my husband03:13 - when your identity is wrapped up in your career04:07 - our date nights were promoting my dog walking business06:13 - I made $10k/month on Etsy in 4 months09:44 - why I worked 16-hour days when he deployed13:04 - Covid blew up e-commerce & I took advantage18:06 - our tolerance for pain is our biggest strength28:15 - how to scale past $100k on Etsy45:05 - 60% of moms want to start a business right now49:07 - why bad partnerships hold women back53:33 - what to do when you're paralyzed by fear