In this episode, host (Speaker A) interviews Matthew, founder of a premium catering business in Sydney that generated $2.8 million in revenue with a 40 % net profit this year and aims to reach $8 million in two years. Matthew identifies seasonality as his main constraint: roughly 65 % of revenue occurs between September and February, leaving a slower winter period. The conversation reframes seasonality as a predictable feature rather than a flaw, comparing it to other seasonal industries (lawn care, snow plowing, pool services). Matthew’s current customer acquisition relies heavily on organic SEO (≈40 %), Google Ads (≈40 %), and referrals (≈20 %), with limited top‑of‑funnel activity on Meta. He notes that lead volume and quality drop in winter, yet his customer lifetime value remains strong (12:1), meaning additional ad spend could be profitable. He briefly considers launching a separate corporate‑delivery line to smooth revenue, but the host advises against new business lines. Instead, the host recommends focusing on scaling what already works: double the PPC budget and develop a Meta advertising strategy, leveraging the theory of constraints to concentrate resources on a single high‑impact lever. The episode concludes with the host emphasizing that treating seasonality as a known cycle and avoiding “shiny‑object” distractions will enable Matthew to hit his growth target.
Chapters
Alright, let's rock. Revenue, business, and problem.
Hi, my name is Matthew. I sell premium catering experiences to private clients looking to celebrate milestone events in Sydney. Great. We do about $2.8 million this year with 40% net profit. Woo! We'd like to be at $8 million in 2 years.
Let's go.
The main constraint is seasonality. So we do about 65% of our annual revenue in 6 months. And if I don't solve this, I either say no to demand in summer or I am overstaffed in winter. Yeah.
So one thing right off the bat I will say is that this is a feature, not a bug of the industry that you're in, right? Same thing as lawn care guys. Same thing as guys who do snow plowing. It's just a— it's a super common thing. Swimming pools sometimes, obviously in the summer. So like there, there are industries that are just going to be more smoothies if you have summer versus Italian ice store. Like there's a lot, right, that are seasonal. Now, couple of questions. So catering, what is your, what is your hot season again?
Pretty much September through February.
Okay. And so from now until September is when it's slow?
Yes.
So what, why are people not celebrating from now until September? I actually, I'm not even sure.
It's not a festive season. I think, yeah, it's not, it's not as much of a festive season. I think people don't spend as much money going through winter.
I don't know if any of that has to do with But you still have like—
The economy in general?
Don't worry about the economy, whatever. I would just remove economy from Lexington. There's nothing you can do about it. So, okay. So people don't do Easter, you don't do corporate events?
We do do corporate, yes. So we target corporate through winter more so. They have better lifetime value, but they have lower spend per event, which lowers gross profits. So we do market more or less exclusively to private.
Okay. I'm just like, it actually doesn't sound like you're actually in that seasonal of a business. People have like, I mean, I started with that, but like catering happens year round. I mean, shoot, I cater every single week.
Yeah. So we do large events. So typically kind of 60 to 100 people in the year, like birthday parties, engagements, weddings, they're all year round. But a lot of the corporate rush that comes through in summer for end of year staff parties things of that nature, that's what takes us like well beyond our capacity, which gives us our busy season. And then through winter, we just, we lose a lot of that.
You subsist in the off-season, correct? You like lose money or break even in the off-season?
No, no, we're still profitable. We have a really good, we have strong gross profit and strong margins, so we're still good. Okay.
I just like to make more money. Yeah, okay, got it.
Okay, so a couple things.
So currently how are you getting customers?
We have really strong organic SEO and we also do a lot of Google Ads.
Okay.
That's the most, that's the main channels. So we have probably 50% organic, probably 40% organic, 40% ads, 20% referral. Okay. We also do some top of funnel on Meta, but it's less tracked. It's more of a brand awareness.
Got it, so SEO and PPC kind of rule the show. Rule of the day. Okay, so what stops you from spending more PPC? Are you maxed out? Like, is it stopping profitable? Like, what's stopping you there?
Search volume and lead quality drops through winter.
Okay.
So our back to LTV is still strong, we're at a 12 to 1, so we can just spend more. I'm trying to find, I guess, my constraint or my question. My main question becomes, I have considered popping up a corporate delivery, like a, prepackaged, like typical corporate catering setting through Yacht Chat to be a kind of entity under Catered by Matt, which would be a year-round service because they have a very inverted seasonality to the event side. Yeah, like the corporates are ordering more of that delivery, but it's, it's— I don't want to get distracted. Like, I watch a lot of your content. I don't want to chase the woman in the red dress. Yeah, it's a whole new business.
Yeah. Well, I guess the, like, the problem that we're trying to solve here, like, you are profitable, you're running 40% even in the fact that there's on and off cycle. So to grow the business, we can ignore the fact that it's lumpy. I'll give you two examples of this. So Harry David's, it's a chocolate company here in the US, does like 100% of their annual profit in the month of December. And then the other 11 months of the year, they have their mall location and they just lose money. That's number one. Others, if you look at like insurance, right, insurance makes money every year, and then every 8th year there's a Hurricane Katrina and they lose a bunch of money. I think what we need to replace is the difference between volatility and risk. You can have something that is volatile but not risky. Insurance is volatile but not risky, same as this chocolate thing. It's volatile in the fact that it changes a lot month to month to month, but it's not risky because it's predictable. You know that every season this is going to happen. If we know it's going to happen, then we can predict it. If we can predict it, we can plan for it. All that to say, If we change nothing about the business, but you simply did twice as much, what stops you from doing that?
Nothing.
Okay.
Everything's quite efficient, to be frank. We can just spend more, hire more.
Well then I think you have that answer. I think what feels annoying is you just wish that, you know, if you're Harry David's, you wish that the other 11 months of the year people celebrated chocolate as much, right? But you're just gonna have a slow season and a hot season, and that's fine. Especially since you're not losing money in the off-season. So I don't think you actually have a big problem to solve here. I think we just need to do more of what's working.
Mm.
I wish I could pull some magic business model out of a hat, but if you're profitable all the months of the year and then some months you just make more money, that just sounds like a business that has a predictable cycle.
Right.
I mean, think about the alternative. It could be unpredictable. That would suck.
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's almost predictable to the, to the percent, to be honest. It's pretty, pretty consistent. Um, I've, I've been trying to contemplate like how to get around this without actually starting a new business, and I was just— I've been thinking about it for a couple of years. I thought maybe Alex would figure something out, but maybe it is just that— hey, it's just a feature.
No, what I would like to do is just focus all of your time on not trying to solve that problem and solving the more important problem, which is like how do we double PPC and probably get meta ads going. Like if you did nothing else this year, doubled PPC and just cracked meta ads, you'd hit your goal.
Yeah.
So it's like if you can double the business doing one thing, why do four?
Touche.
Right?
Yeah.
That's it, man. I mean, the whole point of the theory of constraints is focus, and it's just being able to say all the things you say no to. Like there's such limited resources in a small business, the biggest one being your time, your effort, and your mental bandwidth. If you can just say like, I'm not looking at this anymore because this is just a feature of my business and I'm so grateful because all my competitors will be distracted by the shiny object. Like, let them worry about that while you just keep crushing it and them.
Okay, cool. Yeah, cool. Thank you.
Appreciate you, man. Congratulations.
Thank you.
All right. Thanks, brother. Talk soon.
Bye-bye.
Toodaloo. Cheerio, as they say.
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