Default Profitable

Matt Nettleton
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  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Are you an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner looking to sharpen your skills and grow your business? The Default Profitable podcast delivers powerful lessons from real bootstrapped business owners who have navigated the ups and downs of starting, running, and scaling their ventures. Join Matt Nettleton and tap into a wealth of knowledge and firsthand experiences, learn to avoid common pitfalls, and stay ahead of industry trends. Whether you’re launching your first venture or optimizing an established one, each episode provides actionable insights and fosters a community of support, helping you achieve sustained, profitable success.

  1. 10 hrs ago

    Ep186 Nobody Gets Into Insurance on Purpose: Jenna Romens, Owner of Martin & Martin Insurance

    In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Jenna Romens, owner and agent at Martin & Martin Insurance in downtown Noblesville. Jenna spent 16 years at Erie Insurance, moving through customer service, marketing, and agent roles before being promoted to district sales manager over agents across Hamilton, Marion, and Tipton counties. Then one of the agents she supported asked her to come to the agency side as part of a perpetuation plan. It took three asks before she and her husband Andy sat down and weighed the company car, the health insurance, and the steady paycheck against the chance to own something. Nine years of working side by side with the owners later, they retired, and last July she took over an agency that had been in business 37 years. The insurance part she had down. What she didn't expect was everything else: payroll, the bills, hiring decisions, and a line of people asking her to sponsor things she now had to fit inside a marketing budget. The thing she got right early was the team. Before the purchase closed, she and Andy sat down with every employee to make sure they were on board and staying, then found ways to pay them better once they owned it. Matt runs his usual question about whether there was an actual business plan, and this time the answer is yes. Jenna and Matt also get into why the agency competes on coverage instead of price, what she tells people thinking about leaving a steady paycheck to run their own shop, and the one thing she'd tell herself on day one as an owner. Learn more about Jenna Romens and Martin & Martin Insurance at https://martinandmartin.biz. Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.

  2. 28 July

    Ep187 Real-World Grad School: Bob Fasick, Certified EOS Implementer

    In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Bob Fasick, a Certified EOS Implementer based in Fishers, to trace a path that runs from a corporate career at Charles Schwab to a property management company he and a friend started without either of them knowing how they'd get paid. Bob moved to Indianapolis in 1992, spent about a decade at Schwab helping the firm transition from discount brokerage to advice provider, then took his first entrepreneurial leap in 2003 — one manufactured housing community in Urbana, Illinois, grown to roughly twenty-five inside two years. Then the 2008 downturn hit, occupancy covenants got missed, the banks moved, and the portfolio had to be sold. What came next is what ties the story together. Bob landed at Defender Direct to lead a division, got handed a copy of Traction, and watched what happens when a fast-growing company gets everybody rowing in the same direction — rocks, scorecards, a weekly meeting pulse, and the most accountability-focused environment he'd ever worked in. Years later he became an EOS Implementer himself. He and Matt get into the gap between an MBA and what Bob calls real-world grad school, the delegate-and-elevate problem he still hasn't solved (he likes ordering the lunch), and the advice he'd hand his 2003 self on day one: don't do anything stupid financially, plan for uncertainty, and remember that leaders eat last. Learn more about Bob Fasick at https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/bob-fasick/. Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.

  3. 21 July

    Ep186 The Worst Timing on the Planet: Gerry Bailey of Corvano

    In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Gerry Bailey, founder of Corvano, a veteran-owned technology consultancy in Fishers, Indiana. Gerry spent twelve years in the Air Force before landing at Sprint, where he learned what a P&L actually was, then spent nearly a decade helping grow someone else's consulting firm across South Africa, Brazil, Australia, and the UK. He founded Corvano in 2016 while still employed, named it for Core Values Now, and left to run it full time on December 31, 2019, with plans to take a quarter off first. Three months later the market he'd built the whole plan around stopped buying anything. Gerry is the rare guest who answers yes to all three of Matt's prerequisites — the strategic plan, the savings, the clear read on what customers would pay — and the episode is mostly about what happened next anyway. He and Matt get into why no plan survives contact, why you need a fallback to your fallback, and the discipline Gerry credits to growing up poor in Marion: never let your lifestyle expand to meet your maximum income. His advice to anyone about to start something is blunt. A good idea is not a business plan, whatever timeline you've got in your head is a third of the real one, and when the opportunity shows up, stop protecting your pride and go sell. Learn more about Gerry Bailey and Corvano at https://www.corvano.com. Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.

  4. 14 July

    Ep185 Build It Like a House: Jon Meeks, Owner of the Jon Meeks Agency

    In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Jon Meeks, owner of the Jon Meeks Agency, to trace an entrepreneurial path that winds from fixing tanning beds and running a tanning salon to a mortgage company, a construction business, and the Farmers Insurance agency he's run since 1999. For most of those years the agency simply bumped along in the background, until Jon had the realization that changed everything: build the business the way you'd build a house, by handing the work to people who are great at it. Jon shares the mindset shifts behind that turnaround, from why surrounding yourself with confident people beats trying to do it all, to how the "birdcage theory" gets others invested in your goals, to what he means when he says you're either part of your own plan or part of someone else's. Founders and operators will pick up practical lessons on delegation, recruiting people who buy into your vision, and why his number-one piece of advice for anyone opening a business comes down to one thing: keep selling. Whether you're launching your first venture or breathing new life into one you've run for years, it's a candid look at how vision, people, and a little stubbornness add up to sustainable success. Learn more about Jon Meeks and the Jon Meeks Agency at https://agents.farmers.com/in/anderson/jon-meeks Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.

  5. 7 July

    Ep184 Build It Like You'll Sell It: Jason Swathwood of Indiana Equity Brokers

    In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Jason Swathwood, a corporate attorney turned entrepreneur turned business broker at Indiana Equity Brokers. Jason traces his path from practicing law at a mortgage company to building and selling the Perfect Wedding Guide franchise in Indianapolis, then crossing to the other side of the table to help founders exit the businesses they spent years building. Jason gets candid about what actually makes a business sellable — and why so many owners are stunned when they hear what their company is really worth. He and Matt dig into the difference between selling a business and selling a job, the risks a buyer spots before you do, and the moves a founder can make years ahead of an exit to protect the payday. If you're building something you might one day want to walk away from, what would a buyer see when they look under the hood? Learn more about Jason Swathwood and Indiana Equity Brokers at https://indianaequitybrokers.com. Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.

  6. 30 June

    Ep183 Ed Gunnell, Founder of Gunnell Financial: Launching a Financial Firm Right Before the 2008 Crash

    In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Ed Gunnell, founder of Gunnell Financial, to dig into what it takes to launch a financial firm at the worst possible time—Ed went out on his own in early 2008, just before the market crashed. He shares how he built a holistic, one-stop practice that brings taxes, investments, and insurance under one roof, why his financial-planning background makes him a more proactive tax advisor, and the one early partnership he says he'd undo if he could. Founders and aspiring business owners will walk away with grounded takeaways on landing those first clients, knowing when to bring on help, and why the attorney and the accountant are the two things you never cheap out on. Learn more about Ed Gunnell and Gunnell Financial at https://gunnfin.com. Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.

  7. 16 June

    Ep182 Hunter Beale, Executive Director of High School Hustle: Why the Buffalo Runs Into the Storm

    In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Hunter Beale, Executive Director of High School Hustle, the Indianapolis nonprofit that teaches teenagers to build real businesses—gutter cleaning, car detailing, power washing, thrift flipping—and turn a summer side hustle into something that lasts. Hunter traces his own path from a fifth-grade snow cone stand through the Orr Fellowship and the Jiffy Lube system, then breaks down how the program uses incentives, mentorship, and a gamified leaderboard to push thousands of students past the one thing that stops most people from ever starting: fear. His whole philosophy comes down to two words: action provides information. The kids who get it learn more from knocking a hundred doors than they ever would planning the perfect launch, and founders at any stage will recognize the lesson—stop perfecting the logo, get in front of a customer, and let the work teach you. Whether you're raising a future entrepreneur or just trying to get out of your own way, it's a reminder that a structure and a scoreboard will take you further than waiting for permission. Learn more about Hunter Beale and High School Hustle at https://highschoolhustle.org. Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.

  8. 9 June

    Ep181 From Asbestos Removal to a 30-Year Coatings Business: Clayton Tomasino of Scorpion Protective Coatings

    In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Clayton Tomasino, CEO of Scorpion Protective Coatings, a family-owned manufacturer of spray-on truck bed liners and window film based in Cloverdale, Indiana. Clayton shares the company's gritty origin—from a family asbestos-removal business, to his father's low-cost batch-mix coating system built to undercut the steep buy-in of the big bed liner franchises, to his own return from Hawaii in 2007 to "help out" and his takeover of the company by 2010. He walks through how a four-product automotive add-on program eventually narrowed to the one offering with the demand and margins worth building a business on, and how that focus carried Scorpion through 30 years and counting. Listeners will gain grounded lessons on the financial literacy most founders learn the hard way—the gap between net income and actual cash, and how a growing business can still run itself short. Clayton and Matt get into why hitting a revenue milestone can quietly stall a company, why revenue is a lagging indicator rather than a measure of health, how to give your team metrics that aren't just dollars, and the regret that catches a lot of owners off guard: chasing new customers while neglecting the ones they already have. Perfect for bootstrapped founders who'd rather make new mistakes than repeat the same ones. Learn more about Clayton Tomasino and Scorpion Protective Coatings at https://scorpioncoatings.com. Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.

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About

Are you an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner looking to sharpen your skills and grow your business? The Default Profitable podcast delivers powerful lessons from real bootstrapped business owners who have navigated the ups and downs of starting, running, and scaling their ventures. Join Matt Nettleton and tap into a wealth of knowledge and firsthand experiences, learn to avoid common pitfalls, and stay ahead of industry trends. Whether you’re launching your first venture or optimizing an established one, each episode provides actionable insights and fosters a community of support, helping you achieve sustained, profitable success.

Information

  • Creator
    Matt Nettleton
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    201
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 All Rights Reserved
  • Show Website
    Default Profitable

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