A brief YouTube #shorts monologue by Matthew Kelly describing how he recognized product–market fit for his brand Gleeman, sold his property portfolio to free up cash (via his accountant Jono), and started Gleeman with roughly $500,000 in liquid funds. He reflects that having that cash allowed rapid scaling but led to poor early cash-management habits and unnecessary spending.
I realized that there was product market fit with Gleeman, changed the brand and I realized I needed cash. So I actually ended up selling all of my properties at the time to my accountant who was helping me manage the finances of the company that had the properties. Just because they were positively geared, right? They were making like 800 to a grand per week, like net profit. I called up, his name is Jono, and I said, hey, I need to sell all these properties because I need the cash, because I've got this opportunity in front of me with this brand. He said, oh, me and my business partner can buy them from you. And within two weeks, he was able to help me pull my cash out of, you know, that portfolio. And essentially he just bought the whole portfolio. Still have the gym today. And then I used that cash to fund growth and gleaming. It was a double edged sword, you know, like I had about half a million dollars liquid in the bank when I started Gleeman. It was great. Obviously I had cash to scale, but it was a double edged sword because I did not learn proper cash management strategies. It basically felt like I had unlimited cash. I wasn't focused on being extremely profitable from the start. Like I was bleeding money and unnecessary press.
