The Launch Box Life with Matt Priest

At The Launch Box, we are entrepreneurs serving entrepreneurs, but we took very different journeys to get here. In this series, learn more about how we each live #thelaunchboxlife every day.

Matthew brings 13 years of professional experience and expertise in finance and operational leadership, strategic planning and analysis, and both front of house and back-office operations.

Explain how you came to be a Founding Partner at The Launch Box

I grew up in a small family business that my dad ran in my hometown, where I learned the power of working with people every day to solve problems and make things better. I began my career in commercial banking at a mid-regional bank based here in Houston and later advised businesses of all types and sizes as both a consultant and investment banker. Through these experiences, I fell in love with working side by side with founders, leaders and management teams. In my role, I get to be a trusted advisor to our entrepreneurs every day, and that’s what I love.

Describe your personal self

I grew up in a town of 7,500 people, where every person is someone you care about, and that mentality pervades itself into everything I do personally and professionally. For our clients at The Launch Box, I want each of them to be successful, and I want to help them when and how they need it.

I think my upbringing continues to be a focal point in the way I live my life. It’s a sense of loyalty and community and passion for seeing people be successful. It’s a genuine care for the people around me and a desire to see them win.

What are your personal values?

Trust and loyalty. I also appreciate someone who can follow through, who possesses a ‘get things done’ mentality and persistence.

I love people who get excited about and have a passion for what they do. Something that gets them excited to wake up each day.

I like people that have a curiosity for life. They are interested in a wide-variety of topics and have opinions or thoughts on the “why” of life – and they take time to investigate and explore these things and learn.

What is a typical day at The Launch Box?

There is no typical day at The Launch Box. But I generally spend more than half of my time working with the founders at our client firms. I help them engage new clients, develop new practices, structure commercial engagements, balance sales pipeline with resource availability, understand their growth and investment options, hire the right people, and more.

I help them think through all those day-to-day challenges of how to run a business and serve clients while also planning for the future. We are looking for high-growth firms, so I get to help them build the capacity and the engine to run fast.

What is one thing you wish founders understood?

Many founders and entrepreneurs undervalue themselves in the beginning of their journey. Most of the founders we talk to have expertise in their field and are highly successful in their own right. But when they start their own business, I think there is a natural tendency to cut prices and undercut their value to win new business.

But after they land their first client, then the second, third, and up to the tenth, they realize that they are really good at what they do. That’s why they started their firm, and they don’t have to discount or give things away. They can compete with the biggest and best companies out there—and win more often than not.

It is really fun for me to watch our entrepreneurs evolve, build confidence in themselves and build successful professional services firms.

What is the most fulfilling part about your role at the Launch Box?

Watching these firms evolve as the individuals learn and grow. As they evolve into a network and community of success, these entrepreneurs create value and opportunity for hundreds if not thousands of other people. There is an expansive, exponential effect of getting one successful business off the ground, and that impact is huge.

What are you most excited about for the future of The Launch Box?

I’m excited about the ecosystem we are going to create around these professional service firms. The environment we create will foster an intimate connection with our founders, CEOs and leadership teams.

Most of our entrepreneur founders will have similar needs and will have to deal with the same roadblocks at different points in time. We allow them to learn from each other, grow together, and build a community. Together, iron sharpens iron and they will help each other grow, develop and meanwhile open doors for each other.

Anything else you’d like to add?

New professional services firms are hard to run. It’s hard for founders to do this on their own, and it’s scary. But being a founder doesn’t mean you have to operate in a vacuum. You don’t have to do this on your own.

Our job is to take things off your plate so you can focus on what’s really important and what you are good at. We can connect you to hundreds of folks we’ve met along the way, and we can help you go from 0 to 100 as fast as you can go.

Anyone can go get an LLC and start selling services. But if you want to be as successful as possible as fast as possible, then come join us. We will be in your corner from Day 1 and help you fight above your weight from the very beginning.