Matteo

Experiences in my life & lessons

[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

This is the famous saying said by Theodore Roosevelt. It’s become very important in my life, but it’s also something I struggled with a lot in the past.

It means that once you start comparing yourself to other people, you completely forget to focus on your own journey, and you lose all joy in life. Everyone’s journey is different. You can start the same thing at the same time as someone else and be 10 times further ahead within 3 months. Of course, it can also work the other way around.

I started my entrepreneurial journey alongside several other people. Half of them quit within the first month. Of those still in business, some have scaled 10 times bigger than me, some are at my level, and some look up to me. That’s life: you can’t compare yourself to anyone else, because everyone is on their own journey.

A journey is shaped by so many factors:

- Mindset
- Where you work from
- Relationships
- Money
- Who you are as a person
- Discipline
- Motivation
- Positivity
- How you solve problems
- Confidence

Many things influence your journey, including things that are out of your control. That’s why I never compare myself to anyone else. I only compare myself to the Matteo of 6, 12, 18 and 24 months ago. If I’m a better person than I was then, or at least working on it, I know I’m doing a good job.

[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

Another thing that’s helped me a lot is meditation. It can take many forms:

- Following a guided meditation in an app
- Sitting quietly with your thoughts
- Sitting with your eyes closed
- Lying in bed and listening to sounds

As long as you’re focusing on one thing, that’s meditation.

It’s a great way to train your brain. It stretches your attention span and helps you see what’s going on inside yourself. Try it before bed, or in the afternoon when you need a quick break. You can actually feel your mind getting stronger. Meditation has improved my concentration a lot and made me a calmer, more composed person.

[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

Reading has been one of the biggest unlocks in my life, not just in business. Being able to sit down and read a book says a lot about you as a person.

It’s obviously far better than doomscrolling. It trains your attention, and it teaches you about the world. Fiction, nonfiction, a biography: any kind of reading is good.

I read when I wake up, whenever I need a short break from work or before I go to bed. Most people grab their phone on a break and keep their mind busy. When you read, you focus on one thing, and your mind gets a chance to calm down.

Three of the best books I’ve read:

- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike. An amazing story with great business lessons. I loved it.
- Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. A book about mindset. What he’s done is incredible.
- Time Wise by Amantha Imber. Less well known, but it’s all about optimising your work and boosting your productivity.

Make sure you read, even if it’s just one or two pages a day. It develops you not only as a business owner, but as a person.

[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

In business and in life, it’s important to always have a why.

For years, I didn’t have one. I was running around like a headless chicken. When you suddenly lose your motivation or discipline for a while and don’t know why you’re doing it anymore, you can easily fall back into old habits and routines.

As long as your whys are there, you always have a reason to keep pushing.

I have five whys:

- Freedom: I want to do whatever I want, whenever I want.
- Enjoyment: I want to enjoy the life I’m living. Nice vacation spots, nice hotels, nice food.
- Health: I want a healthy body. I want to train a lot and eat good, healthy food.
- Providing: I want to provide for my family and the friends around me.
- Impact: I want to make an impact and leave my mark on the world.

There were days when I didn’t know what to do, when I felt lost, when I had no discipline or motivation. But I always knew that as long as I remembered my whys and the reasons I’m doing this, that period wouldn’t last long. I’d always find my way back to working for them.

One of the biggest lessons in my life, not just in business, is to find out why you do what you do. That applies for everything you can do in life. Whatever your career choice may be.

For me, these five whys fit the entrepreneurial life I’m living right now. I couldn’t really achieve them any other way. Whatever position you’re in, in business or in life, make sure you know why you’re doing what you do. That way life stays fun, and you always have something to fall back on.

[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

To keep growing in life, you need to accept your past. I learned this very late in my entrepreneurial journey.

If you can’t accept your past, or the person you used to be, and you just keep working, building discipline and evolving, sooner or later your past will demand your attention.

You need to accept the old version of yourself: the one who was broke, who did nothing on weekends, who spent his time gaming, who honestly felt like a loser with nothing else going on in his life.

I always tried to run from that version of myself as fast as I could. But then you’re building a house without a solid foundation. Sooner or later, the cracks show, and you realise the house needs a stronger foundation. So you have to look inside yourself again.

What worked for me was accepting who I was. Don’t ignore that person, because that person led you to who you are today. And your past doesn’t have to define your present or your future.

For years, I looked back on my past with contempt. I couldn’t believe I’d done nothing with my life, that it was all partying, smoking, drinking and drugs. I couldn’t believe that version of me ever existed. But the older I get, the more I accept that he was part of my life too. He shaped who I am today.

Until you accept that, you can’t move forward. Who you are right now isn’t only about the present. It’s shaped by how you see your past, your present and your future. All three need to be aligned with where you are now if you want to grow. Otherwise, sooner or later, your past wins, and you feel worse and worse.

So accept who you were, who you are, and who you’re going to be.

[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

In life and in business, there are so many pitfalls, setbacks and negative moments. Everyone hits them. The successful ones learn from the lows, and the very best turn them into something positive.

I’ve always been a positive thinker. I try to see everything as either a lesson or a blessing. Whenever something bad happens, I remind myself: “This won’t last forever. One day I’ll look back on this and smile.” I ask myself what I can learn from it. I write down how I feel, every possible outcome, and all the positive things that are happening too. This has helped me enormously.

I’ve seen it all in business & life: betrayal, multiple six figures on hold, businesses failing, angry customers. None of it made me stop. None of it made me want to quit, because I knew better moments were coming. However hard things get in the moment, if you stay positive and focus on the outcome and the solution, nothing can stop you. The sky’s the limit.

And remember: you decide your future. The only person who can shape it is you. Stay positive, attract positive things, and live from a mindset of abundance, not scarcity. Believe things can go your way, and they will.

[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

I’m Matteo, 24, and I’ve been an entrepeneur for almost 4 years. Here’s how I started:

In early 2023 I was working full-time for a boss, and I wanted more out of life: the freedom to set my own schedule and live on my own terms. So I started selling on https://t.co/s6MGJnQOln, basically the Dutch version of Amazon.

Dropshipping wasn’t an option there because you had to hold stock in the Netherlands. So I put €30,000 of my own hard-earned money into inventory. It was a disaster. The product quality was poor, and https://t.co/s6MGJnQOln lets customers return items for free. In total, I lost around €10,000. That was a lot of money for me back then. The upside: I still had my job and lived with my parents, so I could keep saving.

In the summer of 2023 I quit my job and went all in on e-commerce. Around the same time I joined a dropshipping course, without really knowing what dropshipping was. For the next six months I tried everything:

- Fashion dropshipping
- Dropshipping in my own country
- Every niche I could think of
- Shopify stores
- ABO testing with interest targeting

Then I found Samuel Ecom’s YouTube channel and discovered health and beauty dropshipping on Funnelish That became my main lever to the next level, about a year after I started.

Afterwards I joined his mentorship, and it was amazing for me. Before that, my record day was €1,000 in revenue. Within 3 months of joining, I scaled to €10,000 a day, with profits I had never seen before. That was life-changing: for the first time, I could fully live off what I earned as an entrepreneur.

In the summer of 2024, with the knowledge I’d gained and the team I’d built, I really grew as a person and as a leader. At our peak we did around €20,000 a day, and I had a team of 20 people. In half a year, I went from nothing to that.

That might sound scary, but it didn’t happen overnight. It’s not like I had nothing on day one and €20,000 a day with 20 employees on day two. It came gradually, and you grow into the role:

- You learn to take responsibility
- You learn to run team calls
- You learn to communicate your vision to your team
- You learn what your quality standards are
- You learn how to train people
- You learn how to make sure everyone in the company understands the plan

One lesson that helped me a lot: hire slow, fire fast. Take your time hiring, talk to 10+ candidates, and if someone turns out not to be trainable, let them go as soon as possible. We hire based on personality rather than past experience. Someone open and eager to learn is far easier to train than someone with a fixed mindset who isn’t interested in learning anything new.

Back to the story. After that summer, the payment processor bans hit. Everyone in dropshipping knows how that goes. By the fall of 2024, around 99% of my net worth was on hold. My last money was in one bank account, and then that account got blocked too. I had to borrow money just to pay my team and my bills.

At the same time, I was moving from the Netherlands to Portugal, so everything was crazy and hectic at once. Borrowing kept my head above water and gave me time to fix the problems.

In the spring of 2025, most of the money on hold was released, and I rebuilt the business. Around then I also partnered with two other entrepreneurs. That summer we broke records again: around €40,000 a day, with a really good profit margin.

That was when my life truly changed, and I got to enjoy the fruits of my labour: lots of holidays, partying, nice restaurants and nice hotels. I really enjoyed the luxury life.

But I quickly found out it isn’t fulfilling. If you can’t fill the empty voids inside yourself, a luxury lifestyle won’t do anything for you. Those good feelings are built on emptiness. It sounds cliché, but money doesn’t buy happiness. If things aren’t right on the inside, money won’t fill that void.

That’s why it’s so important to stay in touch with yourself: know what you’re feeling, reflect, write a lot, read a lot, and keep working on your mindset. Know who you are. If you build on a fucked-up foundation, what happens to many people when they make money (me included) is that, slowly but surely, that lifestyle wins and devours you.

After the summer of 2025, we hit another dip: more payment processor bans, and I split with my business partners. Meanwhile, I starting building a brand, because I was done with health and beauty dropshipping and wanted to build something sustainable. I teamed up with a new business partner, and at the start of 2026 we launched a titanium cookware brand. It went really well, and we put all our marketing knowledge into the brand and everything around it:

- Setting up Facebook and Instagram accounts
- Keeping a consistent brand tone everywhere
- Getting customer service fully dialled in
- Making the website fully branded
- Investing in packaging
- Investing in product development

After almost 7 months, we decided to sell it. With that money, we started a new brand and a coaching program.

Now we’re fully in learning mode, and that’s my biggest takeaway about entrepreneurship: the more you learn, the more you realise how much you don’t know. That’s the challenging part.

Being an entrepreneur is special. Nobody understands what you’re feeling or going through, except other entrepreneurs. If you don’t talk to many of them, it can get very lonely. You’re behind your laptop 7 days a week, your team is online, every call is online, and every day, week, month and year can start to feel the same.

As you grow into that role, you also discover there’s more to life. You get into meditation, writing and developing your mind, and you start noticing how closed off most people are. You see the difference between yourself and your parents, your family, even your partner, and how fixed everyone’s mindset is. That’s lonely too. Most conversations are about the weather or last weekend, while you’re constantly thinking about growing your business, where to take it next, and how your team is handling everything you’re responsible for. That can feel isolating.

Anyways let’s end on a positive note. On this account, I’ll share the lessons I’ve learned and the things I’ve been through in my journey.

[Luke Belmar 👽 @lukebelmar]

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[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

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[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

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[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

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[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

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[Matteo @Matteoclaa]

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