Matt Matros

Founder

National Cleaning Collective (NCC)

NCC is micro private equity providing capital and support to owner/operators in the commercial cleaning & janitorial industry.

Portfolio includes:
- Cleaning Pros of America (Bradenton, FL)
- American Flooring Solutions (Sarasota, FL)
- WeClean WestCoast (Sarasota, FL)

Founder and General Partner

BrandRock

BrandRock helps consumer brand founders and executives sleep better at night by making sure their business has the insurance coverage that they think they have. We read the fine print.

Co-Founder

McKinsey & Company

External advisor to client service teams and clients in consumer-based businesses with an emphasis on innovation.

Senior Advisor

Qurate Retail Group

'Acqui-hired' by CEO to build new digital businesses for global leader in vCommerce. And according to my final review, I "achieved what many thought was impossible."

SVP and Founder, Qurate Digital Ventures

Keurig Dr Pepper Inc.

Consulting for Keurig Dr Pepper on LIMITLESS and other innovation as part of exiting LIMITLESS in January 2020.

Consulting Entrepreneur

LIMITLESS® (acquired by Keurig Dr Pepper)

I started LIMITLESS® in March 2016 and sold the business to Keurig Dr Pepper (NASDAQ: KDP) in January 2020. I work with KDP on a consultative basis on LIMITLESS and other innovation. 

The LIMITLESS signature product - Lightly Caffeinated Sparkling Water - is helping people all over the country to #ditchdietsoda once and for all. Each can has zero calories, zero sugar, zero artificial flavors and 35mg of clean caffeine.

Available nationwide at Walmart and other fine retailers.

Protein Bar and Kitchen (acquired by L Catterton)

Founder and Board Director of healthy-food quick serve chain. I sold the business to private equity firm L Catterton in winter 2013. Protein Bar & Kitchen® (PBK) focuses on helping people everywhere live the healthy lifestyle they want to live through a balanced menu of blended drinks, wholesome quinoa bowls, salads, raw juices, and our signature Protein Bar-ritos.

Founder & Board Director

Shopflix

I dreamt up Shopflix as a "modern day QVC." Ultimately 'aqui-hired' by QVC parent company, Qurate Retail Group.

Kraft Foods

Sr. Associate Brand Manager

L'Oreal USA

Marketing Intern

Founder with 3 exits in B2C now playing two hands in B2B (insurance and commercial janitorial). | I post daily lessons & learnings that are your shortcuts.

Founder with two 8-figure exits plus an ‘acqui-hire’. My lessons & learnings are your shortcut.

Currently building unsexy B2B businesses in commercial cleaning and insurance. 

My inspirations are Scott Galloway and Fareed Zakaria and The Economist. 

I’d aspire to be the “Rick Rubin for entrepreneurs.”

These opinions are purely my own and not of any of the companies I am affiliated with.

NCC is micro private equity providing capital and support to owner/operators in the commercial cleaning & janitorial industry.

Yesterday in therapy, I admitted something I’ve been hiding for 28 years.

In 1997, when I was a freshman at USC, I did what a lot of freshmen do: I pledged a fraternity.

Two months into the semester, I got “dinged” — kicked out before initiation.

For almost three decades, I’ve told a different story:

 “I left the fraternity to take an internship at a sports agency. Always kind of regretted leaving…”.

That wasn’t true.

I didn’t leave.
I was asked to leave.
I don’t think my mom even knows that.

On paper, it’s a small moment in a long life. 

But for an 18-year-old who had lost his dad at 11, who was craving belonging and male connection, it was a setback.

Worse, there was no explanation. No feedback. No “here’s why.”

Just a brief conversation on a beer-stained floor where an older brother (dude name Blair, from Solana Beach) told me I didn’t belong.

So I filled in the gaps myself:

Maybe I was too chubby
Not attractive enough
Bad at drinking
Too awkward

Whatever the reason, the conclusion I absorbed was:

“You don’t fit in. And that’s your fault.”

For 28 years, I’ve chased belonging in different forms — companies, groups, labels, titles, achievements. 

I’ve also found myself in places where, again, I just didn’t fit: big PE firms, large public media companies, YPO, certain rooms where I felt a little “off.”

Yesterday, finally saying this out loud, I arrived at a different conclusion:

It’s okay not to fit.

“Fit” is not a moral judgment. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. 

It just means that environment, that group, that culture wasn’t built for you — and maybe you weren’t built for it.

The strange irony is that, as an entrepreneur, I’ve had to make these same “fit” calls about employees, vendors, even customers (not to mention ex-girlfriends). 

I’ve told people, “This just isn’t the right fit” — without always appreciating how loaded that phrase can feel on the other side.

I’m 46 years old and just now using a LinkedIn post to say:

I got dinged.
I felt ashamed.
I lied about it for years.
And I’m finally okay with not fitting in.

If this resonates with you: you’re not alone, and you’re not broken.

Sometimes, it’s just the wrong room.

Oh - and in case you were wondering, my usual "Therapy Thursday" was yesterday because of the holiday lol 

📷 Me as a 19 or 20 year old with my closest buddies from USC. It wasn't part of a fraternity, but we def belonged in Vegas that weekend lol

Founder with 3 exits in B2C now actively buying SMBs | I post daily lessons & learnings that are your shortcuts.

One of the big myths American entrepreneurs love to repeat:

“Saudi Arabia (and the Gulf) are overflowing with capital just waiting to be invested in U.S. startups.”

Reality is almost the opposite.

The serious money in Saudi — whether it’s private investors or sovereign wealth vehicles like the PIF — is overwhelmingly focused on Saudi Arabia itself.

It’s not a giant ATM for the rest of the world. 
It’s fuel for a national transformation.

The mandate is clear:
- Build infrastructure.
- Create jobs.
- Support a young, fast-growing population.
- Enable a real middle class and family formation inside the Kingdom.

That means capital going into housing, logistics, tourism, entertainment, healthcare, education, advanced manufacturing — all the pipes and platforms a modern economy needs.

So if you’re an American founder dreaming of “Saudi money,” here’s the mindset shift:

Don’t think, “How do I get Saudi capital to fund my idea back home?”

Think, “How can my company bring capabilities into Saudi — technology, know-how, jobs, training — and help build what they’re trying to build?”

Saudi Arabia isn’t just a pool of capital. 

It’s a country in the middle of a massive buildout. When I was there it made me imagine what it was like in America in the early 1900s. 

If you stop treating it like a checkbook and start treating it like a partner, the conversation changes very quickly.

📷 My in Riyadh last year with the Saudi Ministry of Investment, which oversees the Saudi sovereign wealth fun (PIF)

#entrepreneurship #SaudiArabia #emergingmarkets #startups #mbs #vision2030

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