any league... But I didn’t know the first thing about the Dow Jones or the NYSE. We didn’t learn that stuff at home or in school.” But like so many times the odds were stacked against him, Matt switched his major to finance, busted his ass, and took many 21-credit semesters to graduate with a degree in finance from Kutztown University. He landed his first job at Charles Schwab as a stockbroker in Denver. Matt stayed there for a couple of years and managed to simultaneously get his MBA from the University of Colorado. But the finance world, at least as it played out at Charles Schwab, wasn’t all that Matt dreamed it would be... “Schwab kind of sucked... It just wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t for me. They were very corporate, and my interactions with clients were so scripted... I went into this line of work to help people, to teach people, but when clients would call and ask for my opinion or my help, I wasn’t free to speak my mind or tell them the raw truth – I had to stick to the script.” Matt started going out in the evenings with his then-boss, and the two of them became “investment junkies” – huddled at the bar, jotting notes on sticky cocktail napkins for various options strategies and how to play different market scenarios. FRASIER AND TUNA HELPER Eventually, he left Schwab and joined a startup called Wall Street Radio that had a
national radio show in various major cities around the country. Within a year, Matt worked his way up to president of the company. One fateful day, the radio host was sick, and Matt was asked to fill in. Even though he had never done a radio show and felt extremely anxious about speaking live on the air, Matt jumped in and helped... “By the end of that first show, I was like Frasier – my feet up on the desk, taking live calls, answering investment questions.” He then became co-host and spent the next couple of years traveling around the country doing shows and live conferences. “I loved connecting with people, engaging with them in real time about the stock market,” he says. In 2004, Matt decided it was time to begin his own venture and fulfill his entrepreneurial dream of starting and owning his own company. He founded Penn Financial Group, eventually growing it to a multimillion-dollar advisory firm that worked with individual investors to help them achieve their financial goals. But it wasn’t all gravy at first... “I lived in Denver at the time, and I didn’t leave the kitchen – which was my office. I was just writing free newsletters every day, trying to get my name and ideas out to the world. Trying to get people to give a 27-year-old no-name money for investing isn’t easy. I ate Tuna Helper every meal – 49 cents for the can of tuna, 99 cents for the box of Tuna Helper.”
American Consequences
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