Matt Kantor
Over 20 years working on startups (mine and other peoples), automating marketing and operations. Multiple career holder. High school drop out, masters work in Physics. I write every week to help you grow and automate your startup.
The weird trick that made me like selling (and be better)
You know who never hesitates to ask for what they want?My kids. They’ll ask. Then ask again. Then keep going until you cave.They don’t take “no” personally.They just see it as part of the game. But most business owners avoid rejection like it’s contagious.We agonize over what to charge, how to pitch, whether we’re being “too much.” Why “No” Is Good for You I’ve started running an experiment: Collect 100 rejections a week Because when rejection becomes the goal, things change: You stop playing...
Overfeeding a Chihuahua doesn't make it a Great Dane
Automation Doesn’t Fix Broken Sales It just makes bad systems faster — and more expensive. Several months ago, I saw someone talking about building sales automation. “This GTM stuff is cool. If I automate outreach and follow-ups, I’ll save time and close more deals.” I was already testing out these tools so I understood the journey.. I didn't hear back - but I saw that his tagline and ICP had changed quite a bit. As someone who tends to keep adjusting until I get it right - I understood this...
AI tried to help with my wife’s labor
It’s 1 AM, and in five hours, this newsletter goes out. An hour ago, my wife gave birth. In our bedroom. At 7 PM, the contractions started. I suggested we call the midwife. But the contractions were light. So my wife hesitated. So as a typical father, I did what any other birth partner would do. I asked ChatGPT what we should do. "GO NOW!" was the answer. Helpful? Sure. It didn’t ask for details. Getting more context would have been helpful. It didn’t check how far apart the contractions...
No News is Good News
In December took a hiatus from the news. For context, I've read political news multiple times a day for over a decade. Not a day goes by when my fingers don't type cnn.com. But now I avoid the news. I blocked most of it. I'm no longer visiting those sites - X, drudge, cnn, even Reuters. I still catch the occasional story about White House Foreign Policy Meltdowns. And I have a general idea about what's going on. This avoidance - and mushrooms - has been great at reducing anxiety. (I won't get...
Your content is being buried alive by AI. Pick up the shovel.
Something is happening and it's burying our content alive But hope it just one shovel away. The online world is becoming super crowded. Every day, millions of GPT made articles fill our screens This flood of content is changing how people read things online. People are growing tired of looking one more emoji-riddled article . they are reading less - and in some cases not reading at all. All this generated crap is creating reader burnout. And It's depriving your content of eyeballs. The...
LinkedIn Just KILLED His Account.
It's a snowday! That's why we're late. We're up at the lake digging out of another foot of snow and I didn't schedule this to go out. Here's something that happened this week. A founder I know lost everything on LinkedIn. Years of networking, connections, and conversations—wiped out in an instant. Like many, he turned to sales automation tools to send "authentic" connection requests at scale. More and more there are tools out there to automate bothering you into buying something. I know...
The Algorithm Did It.
People are blaming "The Algorithm." Something I read often. Not because their post was a brilliant insight that deserved to go viral. And definitely not because LinkedIn has some secret vendetta against them. They blamed the algorithm because their post didn’t get the likes they expected. It wasn’t the algorithm. It was their writing. Mine included. I spent November reading article after article trying to sort it out. And oh were there articles to feed these misguided ideas. Why We Love to...
The train is coming
My fourth child is coming like a freight train. Five weeks to go. "Are you ready?" Same question I got for the other ones. You are never ready. Even after three home births We forgot 100 things from the last time. Fact: The baby takes nine months. You can't do it in 15 or 30 months It forces you to act, be ready and do what you can to figure it out. You don't need much: Diapers, car seat, swaddles, formula, bottles, crib. I'm probably forgetting something but Walmart is close by. One of the...
How do you like my new look?
Last year I purchased a trial to generate headshots of me. I'm not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea, The results were… let’s call them “creatively unsettling.” Some looked like me but others were like staring into a distorted mirror. Loving the weight loss. My wife has not laughed that hard in a while. Out of 200, I got a 15 that actually looked like me. 7% . Still some work to do there I guess. I see similar stuff in people selling A direct message, written for a million people. All...
Helping
I used to extract people from wrecked cars with the Jaws of Life. I even trained EMS workers on how to do it. It was always exciting when you got to use these this powerful tools. It does one thing super well: open cars in safe ways to remove injured passengers. Here's the thing It's not "exciting" for the person in the car. It's terrifying for them We often lose sight on the problem we are solving. We focus on our own excitement around the solution. How cool and amazing it is and what it...
Over 20 years working on startups (mine and other peoples), automating marketing and operations. Multiple career holder. High school drop out, masters work in Physics. I write every week to help you grow and automate your startup.