Matt Wallace (Co-founder of ONOW Myanmar)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with the Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their craft. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work. Guys, today's episode is excellent. We're talking with my new friend, Matt Wallace. He's the co founder and executive director of Opportunities now, or OH now, a social enterprise that has helped Myanmar's impoverished young people launch and grow more than 500 businesses. Matt's a world class entrepreneur and leader. He received the 2019 Alumni Humanitarian Award from the University of Illinois. Trust me, very well deserved. As this episode will prove. Matt and I recently sat down. We talked about what he learned during the military coup in Myanmar that forced him and most of his team out of the country. We talked about why he believes there's no difference between spiritual and work conversations. And we talked about the new, the number one piece of advice Matt would give to aspiring entrepreneurs. And as I said in the podcast, this is one of the best pieces of advice I've heard on the podcast for founders. I want to make sure if you're entrepreneurial at all that you hear it. Please enjoy this terrific episode with my new friend, Matt Wallace. Hey, Matt, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for doing this.

Hey, thanks so much, Jordan. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Yeah. At 6:30am Nonetheless, I love it. So, all right, first things first. What is oh now oh Now?

Opportunities. Now is the long form, but we call it oh Now. OH now is essentially an incubator, a business incubator. We help young women, typically migrants in Myanmar, launch their own businesses. So we connect them to the funding that they need to launch. We help them do the market research, we walk them through the process of actually getting off the ground, and then we coach them for a couple of years. So we're a business incubator.

I love it. That's easy to understand. So for those of us who have never been to Myanmar, tell us a little bit about the country and the people just help us establish some context here.

Yeah. So I would say the first context that many of your listeners may be familiar with is the fact that there is a coup happening right now in the country. I mean, a military coup right now. That is typically in the news now and then here in the west, in the States, but it's big news for me and my family and my teammates. Myanmar has a history of military dictatorship. It was a dictatorship from about the mid-50s all the way up until the year 2011. And then they had this really important political opening that took place where suddenly people gained access to markets for the first time. They gained access to freedoms like freedom of the press and freedom to gather for the first time. Had a really strong 10 years of economic growth and this kind of new experience of liberation and realizing what it was like to experience the freedoms that we kind of take for granted in the West. It's a Buddhist country, about 85% Buddhist, but incredibly diverse. The official number is 135 different people groups in the country, different ethnic groups. So very diverse. And it's not a small country. It's 53 million people. Wow. So the size of Texas, land mass wise. And so it's a big country that we often don't think about, but it sits right at these crosshairs of China with a billion and a half people, India with a billion and a half people, the rest of Southeast Asia with about a billion people. It sits right in the middle of half of the world. It's an important piece of land. Yeah.

And I read an article about you. You went to college planning on studying politics, Actually, similar story to mine. I entered Florida State as a poli sci major. And I'm really curious how you ended up founding opportunities. Now, what's the story?

Well, I could spend a lot of time on this. I won't spend every moment on it. Right. But I went to school at the University of Illinois. I'm an Illinois grad. I actually grew up on the farms of southern Illinois, of southeastern Illinois. My dad was. He spent a lot of time on the farm and I rode on the tractor with him. And all of those kind of really fun things about growing up in the. In the cornfields of Illinois.

Quintessential Illinois farm boy story.

Yeah, exactly. Right. So I went to the Springfield campus of the University of Illinois, intent on getting into state politics. And if you know anything about Illinois, state politics can be a little bit messy in this.

That's a kind word.

Yeah. Right. A number of our past governors are in Prison, I think today still. So I think you guys might hold.

A record for number of governors in prison.

Yeah, that's right. So I grew actually very disillusioned with state politics in the middle of university. And so it didn't take me long, maybe a semester to say, I'm going all the way to the other side of the spectrum of politics. And I went all the way out to international politics, especially Southeast Asia. So, you know, the other side of the world, completely different type of politics. And just really grew interested in Southeast Asia and what was happening in the region. And as soon as I graduated, a week later, I married my wife. Her name's Heather. She's amazing. She said, yeah, we'll move to Asia. This will be great. So we. So we moved. We had just passed our one year anniversary and we moved to Southeast Asia and we went as English teachers into Myanmar. I hated teaching English. That was not for me. But I really grew interested in helping some of my friends who are running small businesses to understand how to do it effectively and understand their market and begin to look at diversifying their product lines. And, you know, that just, you know, very natural conversation with some friends led into what became opportunities now eventually. And there was one key issue that we saw, and it's that a lot of our friends were looking to leave the country of Myanmar and to go to other countries to look for work. And they were getting into some, some problems. They were getting into issues where their passport was being confiscated and they were, they were essentially being forced into labor that they weren't interested in. And so we wanted to say, you don't have to do that. You can stay here, we can help you and you can launch your own businesses. So that became O' now a friend of mine and started it. And that was 10 years ago.

So let's come up to present day. You already mentioned the coup. Oh, now has had a pretty dramatic 12 months. Tell us about the events that unfolded in Myanmar, the impact it's had on you and your family and this organization.

Well, I'll start 12 months ago with the beginning of the pandemic. We have this wing of what we do that especially utilizes technology, digital technology, to help us support people across all of Myanmar. It's a big country. We're only in one city. We didn't want to be limited to the city. So we turned to technology to be able to serve business owners across the whole country. That ability, that capability to use technology made us a hot commodity. That's probably the, you know, the jargon Term, But a lot of people wanted to use our technology. And so while everyone else was kind of shutting down for the pandemic, while everyone else was finding themselves out of work or finding that their services weren't that essential, we were finding the opposite. And we were growing very quickly. And throughout the pandemic, we grew by leaps and bounds. We doubled in staffing size. We went from serving about 350 business owners to serving 16,000 business owners.

Wow.

It was a really big year for us and we were able to help a lot of business owners survive the pandemic. Things were in amazing shape all the way up through February 1st. And then on February 1st, the coup happened. And that was far more, I would say, traumatic than the pandemic ever proved to be to Myanmar. And that was true for our business and, you know, tens of thousands of other businesses as well. So that really kind of turned everything upside down for us.

And what's going on now with the organization? So that's February 1, 2021, right? We're recording this in early May of 2021. What are the last few months look like for you guys?

Yeah, February was just a mess, and it was followed by two more months of just a mess. It has really been very chaotic for these three months in many cases. Concern for the safety of our team is the primary top of our mind. And I was on the ground in February when the coup happened. Me and my family and my teammate Johnny, we were all on the ground for one month after the coup and finally had to make the decision to leave just because of a couple of factors. One of them being the safety of our families, the other of it being the fact that the banking system just wasn't working. And there was a financial. A major financial crisis ongoing that was putting our, our families at risk. So we had to make the decision to leave. We made it back to the States, thankfully, through some. It was difficult to get flights, it was difficult to make the arrangements in the middle of a pandemic as well. I remember looking in February, I actually did a Google search. Leading a company through a coup and a pandemic. There's nothing on that.

Right? There's a. There's no playbook.

There is nothing on that. But our team, thankfully, is safe right now. 75% of the team actually fled the city of Yangon. So 35 or so people left as by the time we got to March with their families, we've been able to stay in touch with them, at least by phone. A number of our staff are still connected to the Internet. So I have regular calls with them and we continue to stay connected. But it has been very difficult to continue to do any kind of meaningful work throughout this and for good reason. Because people, they want to be part of this movement that is trying to keep their country from falling back into decades of political darkness. So we want to provide useful work, but also we don't want to force people to work in the middle of a really difficult time.

Yeah. In a really transformative time for that country. I'm curious what the Lord's been teaching you personally throughout the last year. I mean, I'm sure the list of those things is endless. But what comes to mind first when I ask that question?

I would say Colossians one comes to mind. I have really been thankful for that section of chapter that says that Jesus holds all things together in the middle of, you know, just insanity for the last year on multiple levels all around the world. And then for this thing to happen right in front of our. Right in front of our eyes and happened to us in Myanmar, that whole hope that kind of comes from that very strong preeminence of Christ piece that's been really powerful for us. It's really what's carried. For me, what's carried me through is just that trying to have that trust in the midst of everything really shaking underneath us. So I'm a. I'm a big fan of that part of that part of Colossians.

It's a pretty big promise. It's a pretty big. Pretty big deal. The world's in chaos, yet we know that our Lord is sovereign and that he's working, as Paul says Elsewhere in Romans 8:28, all things for our good and his glory, even the things that we don't, we would never call good. We were never called coups good.

So.

Hey, Matt, backtrack a little bit to the founding of the organization.

Yeah.

I'm curious if there is a connection for you between your faith and your passion for the gospel and kind of the why behind founding opportunities now. Like, is there a link there for you?

Yeah, definitely. I'm a big NT Wright fan. I've only become a big nt. Right.

Oh my gosh.

We're best friends in the last three years or so. My colleague Johnny is a huge NT Wright fan. He got me onto the book Surprised by Hope three or four years ago. And I was thankful to find that I was already kind of tracking with his theology a little bit. And, you know, you had a great. It's amazing to be on the Same podcast that N.T. wright was on at one point.

Yeah, there you go. Add that to your bio.

Right? That's amazing. But, you know, he talks about how the job of the church is in surprised by Hope, he talks about how the job of the church is evangelism, which I take to essentially mean it's our job to say how great it is to live in the kingdom and to be part of building the kingdom. The job of the church is justice, and the job of the church is art. And I think when I looked at the issues around us in Myanmar and I had the conversations with my friends and colleagues, we wanted to do something that spoke especially to the justice question, but also the. The evangelism question, which, you know, at its core, again, is saying it can be better to live in God's kingdom, and here are some very tangible ways that God's kingdom is better. And so, yes, it definitely had my faith, definitely was a big part of what we did and why we did it. Just seeing the hurt and the need around us. And Jesus, you know, the first thing he said when he started his ministry was about the oppressed. And so that was a big driver for me. That was back, you know, I moved to Myanmar in 2008. It was still a military dictatorship in 2008. So that was a big part of our early work, was seeing the oppression around us and giving people kind of the tools they need to maybe respond defiantly a little bit to the oppression that was really holding them down for decades.

I'm curious, I love the way that you defined evangelism. Right. It's sharing what's different about the kingdom of Christ versus the kingdoms. I mean, you have a front row seat to the broken kingdoms of this world. Right. I'm curious, as you've shared that contrast with the people of Myanmar, what are the aspects of the Kingdom of Christ that really stand out to them, that are really winsome to them? What's winsome about the Kingdom of God?

Well, I think the. One of the biggest differences they see in being part of, for instance, part of our organization, where we are really adamant about the diversity of the country being a strength, being a good thing. You typically, in a country that's this diverse, that has as many ethnic conflicts as they do have, this is actually a strength of the country. And if they come into a place like, oh, now, and they work alongside people who are not like them, they begin to actually see that there's a lot of value in these other people who, who have been, you know, have been mistrusted for generations. So the one very tangible thing that we see, that we know is true in God's kingdom is that people of all, of all different ethnicities and backgrounds can really come together and love each other well and be close friends and teammates. So we really stress the culture, we really stress the importance of coming together to achieve a mission or our vision together. You know, we talk about it from the moment they come in to the organization that they're going to be a part of a diverse company. And that's a really, that's a really important thing to see happen. You know, in the church in Myanmar, it's divided by ethnicities. In business, it's divided by ethnicities. We're just going to be a very tangible place where that isn't, that isn't true. That isn't the case. You get people from the city, you get people from rural areas working for us. You get people who are economic upper class and people who are in their very first jobs, coming from the farm, literally the farm and just starting to learn skills. And so we're a place where people really have a chance to explore paths that they never would have before. And I think that's a, that's a key piece of, you know, when God, who is creative creates us, he puts that capacity inside of us as well. It's part of having his image in us. And that's the kind of thing we want to communicate to people who for decades have not imagined that that was an option for them. It's a, it's an important part of working for us.

That's really, really well said. Hey, I'm curious. You know, I've talked a little bit about this, maybe a lot about this on the podcast before, but I think there are a lot of people who would look at the work that you guys are doing in Myanmar and say, hey, Matt, that's awesome. You guys have helped 16,000 businesses in Myanmar flourish more than they were before, but it doesn't really matter for eternity unless you have an opportunity to explicitly share the gospel with words. I don't know that they would say that, that explicitly, but I think that's the undertone of a lot of people in the church. How would you respond to that?

Well, I think that's, that's so, so sad. We have a God that's incredibly big and incredibly active across all of space and time. And to me that really says that really assumes that God is not moving in the day to day work of his people. And that's just not true. I really find it incredibly intriguing the idea that the things that we build now today can be part of eternity and are part of eternity in God's kingdom. I'm really thankful that the organization we've built has a lot of problems and it has had a lot of failures. But I'm so confident that Christ will take what we've built, especially the relationships we've built, and purify them and turn them into lasting eternal things for his kingdom, starting from now, for all of eternity. I think we a lot of times think eternity is something that we're going to get to later on, but we're already kind of living in eternity. And so I think it's a very short sighted kind of perspective to say that the good things we do on behalf of God's creation and God's people, to doubt the eternity, the eternal nature of that is really narrow minded and short sighted. And I feel there's so much more to gain from having the broad perspective that God's working right now in the works of his people and not just later on. And also narrow to say that the only thing that matters to God is the Spirit. God created this earth. He created people, he created the physical. It's really, I think it's really, it's really hard to say that God doesn't care about those things, the whole thing. He cares about all of it.

I was writing a devotional yesterday on just Genesis 1 through 3, trying to unpack 10 things we can learn about how God works through those opening chapters of Scripture. One thing that just jumps off the page and has for me for a long time is what God called very good. What God called good in the first five days and very good in day six is the material world. And if you looked at the church today and what we talk about, you wouldn't believe that we actually believe that's true.

Right?

Like we still have this spiritual material divide that the Gnostics really pushed for centuries, right? Like we're still dealing with the consequences of this. So I'm curious for you, applying this to your work, what does it mean to you like day to day practically? How does this hope of the renewal of all things, all material things on a new earth, what impact does that have on how you do your work?

Matt, to me it means that I'm making the most of all of the conversations I have throughout a day. It means when I'm talking to my, my finance administrator about our decision on what property we might have to purchase or what loan we're going to give out to a business owner or what inventory we need to purchase. Those things actually are important conversations. They're important decisions that we're making because they impact eternity, they impact the people around me for eternity. And every one of those little conversations is a building block in this relationship that I'm. This multiple year relationship that I'm a part of. And typically it's those long, deep relationships that actually result in people coming to understand the kingdom and understanding what it is to follow Jesus. I just think every one of those conversations is important. There isn't a time for spiritual conversations and a time for business conversations. They're all together. They're all wrapped up together. It's part of the same conversation I'm having ongoing with my co directors or one of my staff members. They're part of a very long. A long series of conversations that God uses to call people to himself.

That's really good. I was talking to somebody yesterday. I was doing a Q and A and somebody brought up a good point. It was like, if that's true, which I believe it is, doesn't that lead us to more carefully consider how long we are staying parked at one place professionally? Right. Like we're living in this day and age. You and I are roughly the same age, Matt. Right. Where this is my story. Jumping from one thing to the next every 18 months, not staying anywhere long enough to really build deep relationships. You spent 10 years in the same place. I got to imagine you have a different perspective on this and what time can do in terms of building depth in relationships. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, I mean, I think our generation has to hear this, that really great things come when you give them four or five or 12 years or 20 years. We do as a generation jump from one thing to another. And that, you know, all of that a lot of times is about building our career and expanding our resume or our CV and getting, you know, really great personal development opportunities. And that's, I think that's reasonable and honorable. And there's a reason our whole generation has done it. But also it can be incredibly fruitful to stay in the same place with the same people for extended amounts of time. And, you know, one thing I notice, I live in Myanmar. I've lived in Myanmar. I moved there in 2008. I've lived there and I come back to the States regularly. And one thing I've noticed is there are less and less people out together with others. And I'm not just talking about in the pandemic for the last year. Obviously this is a different kind of situation, but it isn't brand new. We were already moving that direction as a society. And it feels to me like we really benefit if we consider our relationships intentionally and purposefully. And over the course of the long. Of the long haul, it's just incredibly impactful to develop deep and lasting relationships.

Can you tell a story, obviously, without using names of just make this practical for us. What's that look like for you? Like, can you think of somebody within the organization that's like, oh, yeah, over the course of five years, I saw this person go from X to Y. And it's only because of that, you know, just discipline over time. And the Lord working.

Yeah, for sure. I have a really. Someone who's worked with us for eight years. I've been in the country for a long time. I have relationships at this point that are a decade long. One of them was heading into a marriage decision and we were able to work through a book together and actually have conversations about what it is to be married. And myself, I was all of seven years married at that point when we started having the conversation. So I considered myself an expert, which I am definitely not an expert about marriage, but I was, you know, I was able to build on a few years of relationship to start to talk about what it is to submit ourselves to each other and build a long and lasting. The foundations of a long and lasting marriage. And for them to see how that's actually related to what God sees in his church and his bride. And those are, you know, those are conversations that I was able to have because of years spent in conversation. And it's just another building block and an ongoing conversation that I'm still having. So I think. I don't know if there's an end. Right. We talked about from point A to point B or point point X to point Z. And that's just. It doesn't exactly work like that. There's not an endpoint. There's not a finish line or a line to get someone across. It is an ongoing conversation. We're becoming more and more like Jesus. And so I've got a bunch of those examples, but that's one very tangible one with a book study included.

Well said.

I love that that was the meaning of marriage. Tim Keller that we went over.

I figured it was. I was going to ask, but I love it. You're talking nt right?

You're.

And Keller, man, you're always welcome here at the Golden Mastery. So you guys are working on solving this massive problem really of poverty and economic opportunity in Myanmar, which is a very poor country. You guys have had this great impact, but in the grand scheme of things, it's only a dent. Right. I think all of us can say that about our work. Right. We will all look back on our work and realize that we have died with unfinished symphonies, as Carl Ranner said. Right. So how does the biblical narrative give you hope in the face of that reality?

This is a great question. Some of it, I think, goes back to what traditionally we think that we have to be the one who plants the seed and waters the seed and harvests the seed. And if we haven't done the whole thing, then we're a failure. And some of it goes back to thinking that we are actually responsible for reaching people completely, when actually across the arc of history, it's amazing to me to see that God uses all of his people. He asks all of his people to come alongside him and what he's already doing to bring his kingdom. And that to me is actually. It took me a while to get there, but it's actually freeing. It means that I'm not responsible for anything other than obedience, and I'm not responsible for anything other than expecting that God is doing something. And it's just really an honor to be a part of it. If you realize that you're called into something much bigger than yourself, it's such a cool thing to be a part of. As a business leader, I'm actually like, this is one of my jobs to tell the story to my team of what our team is accomplishing, and they're playing important roles in it. But it's not as if any single one person, that all rests on any single one person. It's like, if you would put yourself entirely into it, it's incredibly rewarding. But if you find times when you're just down and not able to really work at your best, it didn't bring the whole. The whole enterprise down. And I feel like that's just really, you know, it is a little bit of a switch of perspective, but it's a really freeing perspective to realize that whatever we try to do, it's beneficial, but it doesn't all depend on me. That's pretty freeing.

It's recognizing that God alone produces results. We are ones of billions of actors in this grand kingdom, building drama that he alone is orchestrating, and we just get to be a part of it. And ironically, that's the biggest story for work. Like, a lot, you know, I think especially the millennial Gen Z kind of Narrative of work is okay. My parents didn't think work was important. Work was just a meaningless means to an end. But for me, as a millennial, work is the ultimate thing. Like, what I say I do is the core of my worth, the core of my identity. And on the surface, that looks like a really big story for work until you lose your job in a pandemic or until your venture fails. And now the story that you built around your life crumbles. The epic story of work is being one of billions of actors in Building 4 the Kingdom. So, Matt, you guys have had an incredible impact. No doubt. You're an exceptional business leader, founder. You guys have helped kids, right, like young people, launch, you know, more than 500 businesses. What do you feel like you guys have really gotten right as an organization in order to have that type of impact?

Yeah, we've gotten the team right. We've gotten the sense that our real job is to care for our people that are working alongside with us in this vision. We've gotten some technology right, and we've definitely helped a lot of business owners launch their own businesses and do a lot of amazing things. But we have a team of nearly 50 people who are so bought in to a shared vision for their country and for helping underserved business owners. And there's really a tight. A tight community, a tight family that's very Diverse. We have 12 languages spoken in our office. Wow. In multiple different people groups. And that's an amazing accomplishment in a place that has traditionally and historically faced a lot of strife as far as ethnic matters are concerned. So I think that's an amazing accomplishment, and I think it comes from having. We're weird, right? We're foreigners working in a Myanmar company, and that means we're a little bit strange, but they've come along for the ride and have benefited from it, but also really are looking to pour into other people around them. The new staff member that comes in is welcomed in and cared for and immediately made to feel a member of the team. Not by me, but by a lot of our staff members that have been with us for 2 and 4 and 5 years and 12 years. And, I mean, I think that's just. That's a really amazing thing to watch it, really, as a leader. I am a person who wants to work with others. I am an entrepreneur, and there's this idea that entrepreneurs are solo, but that was never the case with us. We went into it as a team, and I have a great founding team, and we have a strong. Definitely a strong senior leadership team. But we also have great managers and great staff members who all feel like they're at the table together. That's a really incredible thing to be a part of.

As a leader of an organization like this. How do you look for that X factor of just whether or not somebody's going to be all in on the mission? Right. And not just look at skillset and like, can they do the job? Like what are the indicators to you throughout the hiring process of like, oh yeah, this person's all in and they're excited about what we specifically are doing?

Yeah, we definitely like to hire green people. We like to hire people in their first job. We're actually 50% migrant. 50% of our people come from another village, a small village to the city. And Yangon's not small. Yangon is 7 million people. So when they come to the city to find their first job, they're bright eyed and not really sure what's about to happen. And we love to hire that type of person to give them a chance to learn and shine and grow. And that definitely takes some patience because they're honestly not going to be very productive for a little while. And we've just had to be okay with that and accept it because that's sometimes that's our aim and that's what we would love to do. But also the budget constraints sometimes require that. I think we're looking for number one, a young person who's come to the city. That's a huge step. They're already kind of setting themselves apart from some of their peers. But then number two, are they ready and willing to join in with a group of people without, you know, we have, sure, we have job descriptions, we definitely have job descriptions, but there's a lot of blur between those descriptions and they need to be okay with exploring different options and being willing to try some things out until they find where they really are going to place professionally. So it's an art. I wouldn't say there's not a science to hiring people effectively, but we're looking for green people and they usually respond to our willingness to invest in them with dedication and commitment to the team, but also some longevity. That's a strange thing to find in this market. So we've been really thankful for the way that we've been able to hire. God's brought us some really amazing people.

If you can convince people that you're serious about investing in them and coaching them and developing them, you can recruit some pretty extraordinary people. Because everybody says they invest in their people and develop their people, but very few people do and do it well. Yeah, it's interesting. So hey, I'm curious. You guys have launched 500 businesses out of this incubator. What sorts of businesses are we talking about? Can you give us some examples?

Yeah. So they're definitely small, micro to small, very small businesses. Usually they're starting with anywhere from 500 doll to $2,000. So we're not talking about major investments in general. They may on average they have one to two employees. So they're not necessarily alone. But they're not big either. Though we do have some that have 10 to 15 employees. So there are some larger ones. About 60% of them would be trade businesses. So they may have a, they may launch a small grocery store on the corner to serve a neighborhood that doesn't have a grocery store nearby. 30% of them are going to be service type businesses. So they may have a beauty salon that they open or a barber shop. They may do motorcycle repair or they do like a transportation, distribution or a delivery service. And then maybe 10% of them are going to be what we would call micro manufacturing businesses. They may set up, you know, they may purchase 10 sewing machines and set up right next to a factory and do some of the small accessory sewing that's necessary for T shirts or for tennis shoes and those kinds of things. It's pretty amazing to see a 26 year old young woman employing 10 people on a bunch of sewing machines. That's pretty incredible to see that happen in an economy like this. You're always going to see an ag business where usually it'll be some kind of vegetable trading or fish trading or processing. And we had one especially that was an eel farm. That was a very strange experience to write a business plan for eels which like to escape.

That's amazing. That's amazing. I would have loved to have seen that business plan. So we get a lot of entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs listening. So big question for you. You guys have helped launch 500 businesses from EEL farms to sewing businesses, like all across the board. What's the best advice you can give to somebody listening about bringing their idea to life and building a sustainable business around it?

I think the thing we've learned the most is that it's gradual until everything happens. It can take a long time, a lot of iteration. You know, in one case we do a lot of technology development. We've been working on iterating our technology for the last five years and it wasn't really until a year ago that we cracked how to do it. And then once you figure out how to do it, a ton of growth happens. So I think you have to be willing to stick it out for a while to achieve some gradual results. Testing the market and constantly watching if people are really tapping into what you're looking for, constantly tweaking and then watch out, because when it takes off, you may not be ready for it. So I think I would say to an entrepreneur, take your time for a little while, constantly iterate, test the market a little bit at a time, and then be. Be ready. Because when the rocket goes off, you mean you may be surprised a little bit.

I want to underscore this for everybody listening, because I think this is some of the best advice that's ever been shared on the podcast for entrepreneurs. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, actually, like a lot of entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs expect that the hockey stick growth curve, right? You know, x, y, Z axis, you got your line going way up and to the right. They think that that curve starts immediately, but more often than not, it doesn't. The curve, the line is very, very steady, right? For the first couple months, quarter, sometimes years. But then everything happens, right? There's that inflection point, there's that tipping point, and then things start to grow. But the lesson, regardless of whether you're an entrepreneur or not, is something we talk a lot about on the podcast. It's just discipline over time, right? Discipline over time. Faithfulness to craft, Sticking with something long enough.

Right.

To get great at it. Right. In order to see that inflection point. And that's just. That's just rare, right, Matt? Like, I gotta imagine that's one of the hardest parts of your job, is convincing these founders, say, hey, stick with it for another quarter. Stick with it for six more months. So, like, what advice do you give to people on the ground there in Myanmar of, like, how do you convince them to stick with this thing?

Yeah. So I think helping them understand that sometimes success and failure is external to them. I want to help them have their internals, right? I want to make sure they have good systems internally, that they've taken every step they can to make sure that their. That their company is set up to handle growth or even to trigger growth. But sometimes the market just takes a long time. Sometimes the market isn't there yet. Sometimes you haven't quite found it. And so as long as they have good systems internally, it gives them a better chance to take off. That's the reality of business, is it's a Risky investment. Because a lot of times we don't fully understand those intricacies of the market. And if I have them constantly iterating on their internal systems and making sure that internally that they're doing the best they can to set their company up for success, then they can really meet the opportunity when it shows up. Some failures just external to the company. It had nothing to do with a decision you made. It had nothing to do with your business, your product, or your market. It just happened. And I think helping entrepreneurs understand and learn from that helps them to iterate and helps them to recalibrate and helps them be ready for when the market does come around. So, yeah, it's time and attention and dedication and patience and failure and all of those things wrapped up into. Into what a business actually. When a business actually succeeds, a lot of times you see all those things happening prior to it. So helping them understand the internals are important, but it's not everything. Some stuff just you can't control.

Yeah, it's a really good case study of what I talk about and called to create, right. This idea of trust, hustle and rest. Right? We are called to hustle. And in the context of a venture, it's getting those internal systems right, right. Like doing everything to the product and customer relations and whatever operationally to get the thing really sound and just trusting the Lord to work out everything externally. Market conditions, political conditions, economic conditions, whatever that you have zero control over. And that is so crucial for venture kind of finding its footing. So that's a, that's a really good case study. Hey, Matt, I'm curious. You know, we talk a little bit about daily habits and routines on the podcast. When you were back in Myanmar, what did a typical day look like for you from the moment you woke up to the moment you went to bed?

I was really, I was really fortunate to have a kind of normal day over the last three or four years. As our team grew, my role started to look a little bit more traditional. I shifted from being the typical startup founder that had to do everything to being a lot more focused on partnerships and strategy and making sure the organization was running well. So, you know, I would wake up in the morning, I would jump on my motorbike. Because you're in Asia, you get to have a motorbike.

Exactly.

I would take the motorbike to the office, usually passing through a section of a factory zone. I live in a factory zone where literally every morning thousands of young women cross the street from the north to the south, where all the Factories are. And I would ride my motorcycle kind of right through that into the office work the day. In a lot of conversations, my favorite part about our office is our office culture is that it's a very collaborative environment. So I get to create with people as I do the, you know, the normal boring stuff that a managing director has to do. I also got to work closely with the creatives on our team. And then at the end of the day, I come home on my motorbike, heading back the other way, and all these thousands of women cross the street again back home from the factory work. So it's a daily reminder of the women that were actually working with and targeting to help them launch their own businesses. And back home, we've got a little yard. My boys and I will throw a baseball. We'll play a game of badminton. We'll hang out around the neighborhood. Some of our neighbors, there are a few young people around, so our kids get to play with them. It's just a fun in the middle of Asia. Somewhat of a normal life at this point. So you might even recognize it. Similar to some of some lives in the US except the motorbike and the people crossing the street in droves.

The motorbike thing is a culture shock in Asia. Yes. Seeing all these motorbikes on the road, I love it. All right, three questions we wrap up every conversation with. Number one, which books do you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to others?

Yeah, so I am an avid reader. I read a lot of things, and I also have a lot of range. So I read things that are in my wheelhouse, and I read a lot of things that are not in my wheelhouse. Actually, the one I'm recommending most often right now is a liturgy book. I sometimes, especially in the midst of this coup, find myself lacking in words, things to pray, things to think, and ways to process what I'm going through. So right now I'm recommending the book Every Moment Holy quite a bit. It's by a guy named Doug McKelvey. Just an amazing set of liturgies for any activity, for any moment in life. Every moment holy. And the other one, the classic one I like to refer to and refer people to, is called Engaging the Powers, by an author called Walter Wink. Engaging the powers, this sense that there are bigger forces than the people around us and the way to counter those dominant forces is really self, self sacrifice and humility and to give ourselves on behalf of the people around us. And I think we see that in Jesus and his model. Quite a bit. And of course, surprised by Hope, by N.T. wright, of course.

So glad to be on the list. So glad you mentioned that. Yeah, it's one of the ones I give away the most and I reread frequently. All right, Matt, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel shapes their work?

Oh, it's really interesting. I was trying to think about this. I've been trying to think about this question and I feel like it doesn't really. Maybe you'll be surprised to hear it. I am a big St. Louis Cardinal fan and one guy that I follow, his name is Adam, Adam Wainwright. He's a pitcher for the Cardinals. He's been a pitcher for the Cardinals for a long time, most of my adult life. And I would just love to hear how he talks about how he talks about faith and work and how he maintains his high level of competitiveness but also loves the people around him really effectively. Adam Wainwright, There's a famous guy. I don't know Adam. So, you know, if you could get him on the podcast, that'd be awesome.

Yeah, that's a good answer. I like that a lot. I'm sure our producers can track Adam down. They're really good at that. All right. Hey, one thing from today's conversation that you want to reiterate, that you want to highlight before we sign off. What is that one thing you want to underscore before we leave?

I talked about technology and we talked about the importance of really investing in people over time. I don't think we've really dealt with the issue of bringing capitalism into reaching people and the danger of that. It's very dangerous to consider our job with people similar to efficiency, to consider the relationships around us being more efficient. You know, the idea of a factory being very effective or efficient or business being very effective or efficient, it gets really dangerous when we start to think about people the same way. So I think never trade off touch, never trade off longevity in relationships for just trying to get a quick win with somebody. That's really dangerous. And I think we're called to love people over time and put in the hard work of loving people over time. I think God honors that and that impacts the kingdom. So that's what I would reiterate or at least add a little stress to.

Yeah, no, it's really, really well said. People are the crown jewel of creation and it can be very easy in the day to day grind of work when we're trying to optimize our schedules and optimize processes to try to optimize people and make relationships really efficient.

But.

But we're called to love sacrificially and over a long period of time. It was Jesus's model right in the gospel. So yeah. Hey Matt, I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I I just want to commend you for the exceptional redemptive work you have done in Myanmar and, Lord willing, will continue to do for a really long time. You know, thank you for loving the least of these through the ministry of excellence and for just following the Call to mastery and your pursuit of mastery as a leader and in such a sacrificial way. Hey guys, you can learn more about Opportunities now@ohnow.org Really easy to remember oh now.org Matt, thanks again for joining us.

Wow. Jordan, thanks so much. It's been a lot of fun. I appreciate the time.

Love that episode. It's one I'm definitely gonna go back and listen to myself. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Hey, if you are enjoying the Call to Math, make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever, so that you never miss an episode in the future. And if you're already subscribed, do me a huge favor. Go to Apple Podcasts on your phone, on itunes, on your desktop, and go rate the podcast on a one to five star scale. Hopefully towards the upper end of that spectrum, but wherever you deem fit. You guys would be shocked at how important those ratings are to helping new people find this content, find these episodes. So please do me a huge favor and go do that right now. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in to the Call to Mastery. I'll see you next week.