Interview of entrepreneur Matt Bailey (for UniqueGenius.com)
In this interview, Matt Bailey shares the story behind his blog A World of Inspiration and the free ebook he produced to extend its reach. He recounts his personal evolution from a bored small‑town resident to an adventurous traveler who tried speed skating, roller coasters, skydiving, and a solo ten‑month stint in Australia, experiences that shaped his mindset of "just go for it." Inspired by other bloggers who offered ebooks, Matt decided to create his own free ebook as a low‑risk product to showcase his ideas. Lacking confidence to write the whole book himself, he compiled interviews from about 20‑30 fellow bloggers, emailing them, setting deadlines, and receiving 20 contributions. He assembled the content using Microsoft Word on a Mac, navigating technical quirks, and exported it as a PDF. The launch had modest marketing—mainly asking contributors to share—but he notes limited immediate traffic and reflects on the need for a stronger promotion plan. Despite modest sales (his first dollar from the ebook), the project yielded unexpected benefits: new relationships with contributors, confidence to launch a paid newsletter (CanadianFreeFlyers.com) focused on travel points, and the seed for a new series "The Most Important Word in the World." Matt offers advice for first‑time creators: avoid perfectionism, simply produce something useful, reach out to people you admire, use clear deadlines and reminders, and view the process as a learning experience. The interview concludes with encouragement for others to start their own projects.
Chapters
All right, we're here with Matt from A World of— Matt Bailey from A World of Inspiration. And Matt, today I just want to do a short interview about your ebook, the A World of Inspiration ebook. Now of course if you have another project that came up from that as well, but because you made this— the jump from having a blog and you were writing about some topics but you had no products to having a blog with a product, even if it's a free ebook. And that was a big jump. It's a really big jump. So I'd just love to hear a little bit of— why don't you just first tell me about yourself and what you're doing with The World of Inspiration before we get into the ebook interview.
Sure, yeah. So yeah, I guess I started it— I think about 9 months ago, and just trying to think of things I enjoy, and one of the biggest things I always remembered, or that people were always telling me about, was all the different adventures I get myself into. Which isn't—
but that's not, you weren't always getting into adventures.
That's true, yeah. It kind of, I guess it was kind of a snowball effect after After moving from my hometown, I just kind of got bored with life there and decided to move to a new city and start fresh.
In Canada, right?
Yeah, in Canada, yeah. And just started slowly doing things. Eventually, I think I went from— I tried out for the Olympic speed skating team at some point. I didn't know how to speed skate. Just kind of went out and it was an awesome time. I didn't make it, of course, but it was a good experience.
Did you know how to ice skate? Yeah. Yeah, okay. And then, uh, from there, you know, but that, by the way, that's just, that's a great example where you just went for it for just for fun.
Yeah, yeah, just to kind of see. And I think that's kind of the thing as well, like, I still thought there might be the possibility of making it, and I just, I just think it's awesome to kind of to put yourself out there and just see what happens.
What were a couple other examples of ways you started just to have more adventure?
I think especially with the daring adventures, I used to be even afraid to go on a roller coaster, kind of thing like that. And then finally one day I was with friends, of course, so I also had some peer pressure behind me, but I got pushed onto a roller coaster and ever since then I fell in love with them and ended up going, um, to a whole bunch across the US, some in Mexico and across Canada, just trying out different roller coasters. And, and then when I went to Australia and I ended up going skydiving for my first time, I think that was kind of like my tipping point. And after that, I just thought anything's possible. And pretty much anything since then that's kind of intrigued me, I'll just do.
Well, and before— and actually, I think it's a great story around even why, how you end up going to Australia, because that was a huge adventure. Yeah, what was that about?
Uh, I don't know why Australia. I don't know if it's kind of the, the promise of the beaches and the heat and that kind of stuff, but pretty much since I was 18, I had always wanted to go, and but the plan was to go with friends. I didn't think I would, uh, I didn't think I could travel on my own, that kind of thing. So I had— there was always friends that would say they would go and then something would come up. And then eventually, I think when I turned— I think it was 24, I realized I had been talking to people about Australia for 6 years and still hadn't gone. And I just kind of decided in January I'm leaving no matter what. If people aren't coming with me, that's fine. And it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made because ever since then, now I'm not afraid to do things alone, which opens up a lot more doors.
How long— so you decided to go to Australia alone. Did you have a job there? How long did you go for? You really leapt into it, so just a little bit more around what was going on. When you decided to go, how much did you know and how much did you not know about how it was going to work?
Yeah, I'm actually like, for traveling, I'm pretty bad with plans. I didn't really have anything going. It was kind of cool because my cousin, who's also a best friend, he joined me for the first month. So it was kind of nice to have him there and do things, and then he had to come back and work. And I had a work visa, but I also had enough money saved up for the whole trip if I needed to. And the plan was somewhere between 6 and 10 months. Sorry, yeah, 6 months and a year. Anyway, so I actually didn't have any plans at all when he left. I just kind of stayed in the city I was, and I was bored, so I walked into a restaurant that was there and just asked for a job. Ended up getting it. And then I think I worked there for a month and after that I just kind of stopped working and just enjoyed myself.
Yeah. So a lot of this is you were going from someone who was intimidated or worried or scared about trying anything new to someone who's saying, "I'm going to Australia on my own for 6 to 10 months." Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, huge leap. So that's— and by the way, so Matt writes about some of these things that are on his his blog A World of Inspiration. And so now, why don't you walk us through a couple of the steps. There's— you joined— well, we met and you joined the Unique Genius Superhero Program. Yeah. And then you did A World— I'm sorry, the A World of Inspiration ebook. So just what were a couple of things that led to doing the ebook?
I think one of the big things was a lot of the people that I was reading from their blogs, they all had an ebook to offer. They usually have the free one and then some paid ones as well. I just thought for a free one, I thought it was an amazing way to get a product out there to introduce some of my ideas behind your blog and just to enhance the reader's experience and that kind of thing. I had never had a product so I thought a free one is a great way to start and even like in your program there's a lot of the throwing a rock and just doing something to start the snowball effect I guess.
Can I say so? Take a step.
That was kind of the big push with that and at that time I didn't really think or knew enough information that I could write a whole ebook myself so I decided to branch out and ask a lot of other bloggers.
Yeah, yeah, it's like a— I call it sometimes a collecting— it's sort of an interview series, sort of a collect and publish project. But why don't you— yeah, what were some of the steps you went through in thinking about it, picking a name? Just walk us through how you did it, like starting from once you started to get the idea, like, okay, there's idea of doing it for ebook, and said you didn't want to write, you didn't feel like you had enough to write about on your own, so you decided to collect some content from other bloggers. So how did you do it? What were the first steps you took?
Initially, I was trying to think the message I wanted to get across. One of the big messages I have is just trying to inspire people to get out there and do things. And it might be something small like joining a social club, and it might be something bigger like taking an outdoor survival camp like yourself. I thought, well, the best way to do that is A, to pick out all the bloggers that I follow and respect and ask them what inspired them to do something pretty cool that they've done in life. I thought by having that, I'd have a variety of different things to inspire people with and also kind of a voice from many different people instead of just me.
Okay, that's cool. And so how did you— I know you made a list of bloggers that you were already following or that you respected.
Yeah, I pretty much made a list. I think it was only, at that time, still pretty new, so it was only maybe 20 people I wrote down. I sent them all an email, and I think the first 10 I just told them about the project, and a lot of them agreed to do it. A lot of them also kind of introduced me to other people. They would say, oh, well, I know this guy, he'd probably be a great fit. So that was kind of introducing me to also new people. I just, uh, with me, I just figured I find it surprising online that everyone kind of responds to you no matter who they are, even if it's a no, I don't really have the time right now, but it's a great project, I wish you the best kind of thing. And it's, I just find it kind of amazing how I don't know the word for it.
Responsive?
Just how everyone responds to you, right?
Yeah.
No one ignores you.
Yeah, well, I know one of the, uh, a common fear for people is, why would someone want to respond to me? Or why would someone want to help me out with this? Was that one of your fears?
Yeah, for sure. Especially with some of the bigger names people.
Oh.
Because they kind of thought, uh, Hello, I'm interviewing right now.
These people, what are they thinking? Anyway, we're going to ignore them.
Yeah, it was definitely a big, I guess, a big obstacle just thinking like, you know, if I'm emailing a really top name, like, what is it that I can really do for them? But at the same time, a lot of them like helping out people who are just starting out. And a lot of them all started in the same place as me. Yes, so it's also— and I had noticed on other blogs too with people who had done it before, so it just kind of showed me that it was possible.
Yeah. By the way, I'm— there you go. To me, I think that's also in the interview video, it's someone I like being I and people, we like being interviewed. We like getting our name out there. We like helping people.
Yeah.
You know, so there's a lot of reasons why someone will respond to you and actually want to respond to you.
Absolutely, yeah. And I think I had only emailed maybe 25 to 30 people and I ended up having 20 people that participated. So it's a—
Yeah, and actually one thing is some people, like I know when you emailed me about it, I was like, yeah, that would be cool. And you actually, it was great, you included a deadline or a date by which you wanted the response. And I think it's like I forgot about it and then you reminded me. There's one or two emails where you reminded me and I actually, I appreciated the reminder. So it's don't be afraid to not bug people, just remind them because they might want to do it but they might forget or there's a list of stuff and eventually I got it to you on time or before it got published. Yeah. So then, okay, yeah, so you collect the responses, then what did you do with them? What were some of the steps to actually create the ebook and put it up on your blog?
A few of the people in the book I had asked them how they made their ebook, kind of like an easy way to do it. Some of them hire professionals to build it together, but some don't. So I kind of wanted to do it the easy way and kind of have the least amount of obstacles.
I like that. This is Kizzy, by the way. She wanted to say hi.
And so I, uh, yeah, with me, I put it together with Microsoft Word, which is a— would be a pretty good system except I'm using it on a Mac, so I've ran into a lot of problems and just from trying to make it on a Mac, there's not as many— it doesn't offer the same features on a Mac as it does on a PC, which is odd. So just learning through that, going into forums and asking different questions and putting it together. Eventually it was finished.
Yeah, I think I did mine— I've done mine in PowerPoint and then saved it as a PDF, or sometimes in Word or PowerPoint and then save it as a PDF. And then the last one, actually Lex, someone took it and put it in Adobe InDesign and then turned it into a PDF. But it was all— I mean, you can do it, yeah, whether it's Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, it doesn't have to be some complicated thing.
Yeah, it was pretty awesome too because I was thinking it was going to be a huge kind of ordeal.
It doesn't have to be.
It's nice to have one out of the way and then it kind of makes the next one easier.
So in the steps of getting it produced and then putting it up, what advice would you put to someone? If someone's going to do this project, what advice would you give them? Up until now, it's like collecting responses, creating the ebook, coming up with a topic, what would be some of the advice you would give your past self or some doing it?
Well, I definitely think one of the things I definitely need to improve on next time is the marketing of the ebook. I didn't really have a plan in mind other than just asking the people who participated in the ebook to kind of mention it.
That's a great marketing plan, by the way. Is it?
Yeah, true. But it didn't seem like I didn't really get a— I've definitely gotten some awesome responses from some people that have read it, but I haven't gotten a huge influx of new readers or anything like that.
Oh my God, you failed!
I know, terrible.
Well, on an audio interview we just did, Lex and you and I, this is the common, you know, we start a business, we put up a website, we have a call, we do an ebook and we went, there's gonna be some like massive response right away and if there isn't the next day, something went wrong. But in reality, usually there's, you know, most times there's some lag time between when you put something out there and you get some responses first but until like the bigger unintended benefits come through.
Yeah.
I know Lex said it was a couple months for her. My ebook's only been out for a few weeks. I haven't— I know a lot of people, great, like you, great comments, but no like massive breakthrough. I'll be curious to see what happens to you in the next month or 6 months if some unintended benefit comes through that you didn't expect.
Yeah, absolutely.
Without a lot of work even.
For sure.
Yeah. Has there been any unintended benefits so far from it? Or are the best, or just the best, the most important, the benefits you've gotten so far just by doing it whether they're intended or not?
A few of them was just meeting new people. Like some of the people in the ebook I hadn't really known before and just through emails and stuff if there was a bit of a connection. There's been a few relationships in that ebook that I've I've built up since then.
Yeah, you said you've got some of them included New York Times bestsellers, right?
Yeah, and then a few of the other people in there too, like I started a series last week and approached them again and they're part of the series, so it's kind of like an ongoing relationship. I thought it was kind of neat too, I went out for a—
A series about what though?
Series, it's kind of, it's called The Most Important Word in the World, and I built it off of a post I made about saying hello. To strangers and seeing the kind of adventures that can come out of it.
Oh, now it's your turn for a phone call.
Yeah, I know. And a lot of people all like that. I know everyone has their own stories of people they've said hello to while traveling and it's turned into this amazing adventure or friendship. I just wanted to feature it just to make people kind of step outside their shells.
Yeah, that's a great— It's a great reminder. I know for me, I tend not to say hello to strangers for whatever reason.
Yeah, and I do too sometimes. I find it's easier when you're traveling. Probably if you're traveling alone, you have no choice.
Yeah. Hi, Kizzy. So that was— have you, with the ebook or with the series, do you have any plans on turning this into money yet, or are you still in the phase of just putting it out there, finding your message? Like, what's the What's the state of your business plans at this point, if any?
I guess with A World of Inspiration, I don't really have too many plans as of yet, other than I have been thinking if this most important word in the world series is actually pretty cool and a lot of stories come through, I did think that would be an awesome book of its own as well. But aside from that, I kind of took off and Since I'm into traveling, I've been learning a lot about using points for traveling as well. So I started a paid newsletter. And as of now, I'm kind of offering it for Canadians just because it's the market I know, but I'm going to have one for Americans too pretty soon.
Okay, so Ian, what's the website?
Canadian— CanadianFreeFlyers.com.
Did doing the ebook— how did doing the ebook— and by the way, that's something where you have made your first dollar.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And it's— so how did— was the ebook— did that help in any way to do CanadianFreeFlyers.com?
I think so, yeah, because I think a lot of it's just the confidence to get something out there. And so even just being able to say I published an ebook and have something offering there and just learning from that, it just makes all the next steps a lot easier.
So actually, so there you go, that was one of the unintended benefits of doing ebooks is the confidence to start this business which is already making you— well, you made like $100, $50, how much?
Just $10, I only had one.
Okay, hey, that's your first dollar, that is a huge— huge chasm for people to get to their first dollar from something that they've created.
Yeah, absolutely.
I know you've made a little bit of money from affiliate sales. Maybe that's where the $100 came from. I know I had it in my head.
Yeah, that's true, yeah.
But it's different to offer someone else's— I mean, it's still valuable to make some money through an affiliate sale, but it's a big difference between offering someone else's product and then creating your own where it's a potential for someone to judge you.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, so that's cool. That's cool. Any other advice for someone who— think back in your past self, you hadn't done the interview series, you hadn't done the ebook, just advice for someone who's starting to think about it, watching this video, isn't sure what to do. Do they want to do it? Where do they start?
I think the biggest thing is not to try and be so perfect and come up with this trying to come up with an idea that's going to take over the internet and make you famous overnight, but just to get something together and obviously make it good, but just make it good to you and not worry so much about the outcome.
Yeah, about something that's perfect or some huge overnight success.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, cool.
Also, also to just to meet people online, don't be afraid to send people an email who have touched you in some way, and he'd be surprised with the response.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome. And so I'm going to include your website links. And if you've— I think you said you'd also share a couple of like a template email template of what you sent. Yeah, for sure. Wow. I guess the interview is over according to Kizzy, right? Hello. A little needy.
She wants a good interview too.
Oh my gosh. I guess it's time for me to give someone else my attention.
Yeah, all right, all right.
This is great, Matt. Hey, thanks so much, and great job with the ebook and everything else you're doing here with the Most Important Words series in Canadian Free Flyers. It's— I mean, you're on your way.
Thanks, man.
Yeah, all right, let me stop this, and then why don't we get back on and chat a bit?
Sure.
Thank you.
