What We’ll Focus On

Most rooms for business owners pick a side. They either drill tactics and ignore the human running the show, or they go deep on mindset and never touch the actual work of building a company. This one does both — on purpose. The strategy and the skills are real, and you'll build them here. But the thing actually in your way is usually you: the fear, the identity, the trust, the worth. We work both, because that's the only thing that moves you.

Outer Game — Strategy

• Learning to lead — knowing who you are as a leader, clarifying your role, and gaining the skills you need to fill in the gaps.

• Hiring, delegating, and developing people — picking the right people, handing off the right things, and building a solid culture.

• Selling honorably — or becoming the kind of owner who can sell without it feeling like a betrayal of who you are.

• Vision, priorities and execution — getting clear on where you're going, building the path that gets you there, and letting go of what doesn't fit.

Who This is For

This room is for small business owners who:

• Build for something bigger than themselves. You want the business to grow — and you know the growth is about who you're becoming, not just the revenue line.

• Look inward first. When you're stuck, your instinct is to ask what you can't yet see — not to hunt for someone with the answer.

• Choose the work over the workaround. You're not looking for a hack. You're here to develop — to become the kind of owner the next chapter requires.

• Lead people, not just run a company. You feel the weight of the humans counting on you, and you want to carry it well.

• Carry a big vision — and the gap between where you are and where you want to go can feel overwhelming. The ambition isn't the problem. It's the daunting middle, where the vision meets the day-to-day work of building it.

The intention: a room where business owners stop performing the "I've got it handled" version of themselves and bring the real questions — the ones they can't say out loud anywhere else.

Questions you might be asking:

• "I've gotten good at the thing my business does — so why do I feel like I'm in over my head running it?"

• "Who am I if I'm not the one doing all the work? What's left when I let go?"

• "Everyone treats me like I have it figured out. Where do I get to admit I don't?"

• "I keep hitting the same wall, and no tactic fixes it. What if the thing in the way is me?"

Who I Am

I'm Matt. I live in Dexter, Michigan, a few minutes outside Ann Arbor, with my wife Kristen and our daughter Opal. I spend most of my working life in one of two seats: across from a leader who's trying to figure out their next move, or inside the messy middle of building something myself.

I came to this through coaching. I started Golden Bristle in 2015, and over the last decade I've worked with founders, executives, and a lot of other coaches — helping people lead from the inside out, get out of their own way, and build companies that don't quietly cost them their lives. I trained hard at the craft for years, and somewhere along the way I started teaching it too. I've trained hundreds of coaches, built and run a program specifically on how to coach small groups well, and led those small-group programs for rooms full of founders and investors. I even wrote a book about all of it. So by the time the next chapter showed up, I'd already spent the better part of a decade learning how to help leaders actually change.

Then I took the seat myself. In 2021 I stepped in as CEO of a small company and ran it full-time, and that's where the real education started. I grew the team and we beat our targets, I served clients I genuinely loved — and I made just about every mistake there is to make. I hired the wrong people, I had no real sales engine to speak of, and I chased too many goals at once and told myself it served our mission. Eventually I burned out, broke down with my cofounder, and walked away from something the two of us had built together.

That chapter didn't teach me how to coach. It taught me what you can't learn from the outside — what it actually costs to sit in the seat, hold the weight, and keep going when it's hard. And it changed how I coach.

That's why I'm building this room for small business owners here in Southeast Michigan. Not theory from someone who only studied it, and not a tidy playbook from someone who got lucky once. A room run by someone who's been on both sides of the table, and knows what each one actually feels like.

How Logistics Will Work

• Two 90-minute sessions per month for 6 months. One in person in SE Michigan (that’s the goal — final logistics set with the group), one virtual. Twice a month, every month.

• A 1:1 kickoff call with me. Before the group starts, we get clear on what you're working toward — so you show up to session one with a thread.

• A reflection form before each session. Short homework: wins to celebrate, what you're working on, where you're stuck, what you want to work on in the room. It keeps sessions honest and helps me see what's actually live for you.

• A small, hand-picked group. 6–8 SE Michigan business owners, selected for fit. Small enough that everyone is known, everyone is heard, and no one hides.

• Peer accountability, real relationship. This isn't a lecture series. You're in a room with other owners carrying the same weight — people who will hold you to what you said you'd do and call you on what you're avoiding.

• The whole you, not just the business. We work with the human running the company, not just the org chart. The blocks in your business usually live in you first. We go there.

• Coaching, not consulting. I won't hand you my answers. I'll ask the questions that surface yours — and bring frameworks when they'll actually move you.

• No fixed curriculum. We respond to what's live in the group. The agenda is built from what you're actually facing this month.

• What's said here stays here. Full confidentiality — nothing is recorded, nothing leaves the room.

Investment

This group runs on trust. Here's how I've set it up.

$500/month, on a sliding scale. Six-month commitment.

• Pay above the base ($500–$650) if your business is in a strong, stable place and you want to invest at the level the work is worth to you. Paying up helps hold the door open for someone who can't.

• Pay the base ($500) if you're funding this yourself and it's a real-but-reasonable stretch. This is the number most people land on.

• Pay below the base ($400–$499) if money is genuinely tight right now and the full amount would keep you out.

No proof required. You know your situation better than I do — I trust you to choose honestly. And no one is turned away for lack of funds. If $400 still isn't workable and you're meant to be in this room, talk to me.

Your investment covers everything listed above. If you have another request, please bring it to me.

How We Show Up

Be Human You don't have to perform "founder" in here. Bring the whole self — the win, the dread, the thing you can't say out loud anywhere else.

Be Integrity Say the true thing, even when it's awkward. We'd rather hear what's actually going on than a tidy update that protects your image.

Be Leader Nobody's coming to save your business but you — and that's good news. You take ownership in here the way you do out there, and we hold you to it.

Be Ecological Your business doesn't live in a vacuum. We look at the whole picture — your health, your relationships, your energy — because a win that wrecks the rest of your life isn't a win.

Be Generous and Generative Share the playbook, the contact, the hard-won lesson. What you give to the room comes back to you, and the group gets smarter every time someone does.

Be an Artist Your business is a creative act, not a spreadsheet. We make room for the weird idea and the gut instinct, not just the safe move.

Be Fun This is a serious thing we take lightly. Brag without it being a brag, panic without shame, and laugh about it — because building something is too hard to do grim.

Ready to get in the room?

If you run a small business and you want a room of people doing the same hard thing — thinking out loud, getting honest, figuring it out together — this is it. Fill out a quick application and I'll be in touch about whether it's a fit.

Not sure yet? Email me. I'd rather have a real conversation than have you guess.