PodCrash with Matt Ebert

Matt Ebert
  • 4.7 (24)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Bimonthly

Matt Ebert, founder and CEO of Crash Champions, sits down with industry leaders to discover the powerful synergies between different walks of life and businesses. Matt believes in a Champions Mindset. It’s how he took a single collision repair shop and turned it into over 650 locations across the US. Listen in while he unlocks the thought processes of successful leaders, and learn how he Champions People to empower them to grow.

  1. 22h ago

    Jamba Juice CEO Reveals How He Grew The Company 500% - After It Ran Out Of Money

    In December 2008, James D. White took over a public company that had almost no cash left. The previous management team had burned through $100 million, made a string of bad real estate deals, and left the market cap heading one direction. He walked into the Great Recession with a smoothie chain that didn't sell anything hot, in cities where it was winter. He told the board he needed six months to figure it out. Inside 45 days he'd moved on two executives. Inside seven years the market cap was up 500%. In this conversation he goes through all of it: how he raised money for a company with none, the anonymous index-card exercise he ran in his first week, the pitch he made to get the job in the first place — "you can give me any 10 people and I'll get more out of them than nine out of ten people on the planet" — and the executives he admits he kept far too long because he's loyal to a fault. Before Jamba: Coca-Cola, Ralston Purina, SVP at Gillette, and an $8 billion business at Safeway. Since: twenty-plus years in boardrooms, including Cava, and two books written with his daughter Christa. 🎧 Subscribe for new long-form interviews every week. Want more Matt in your life? Of course you do!  (https://www.instagram.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.facebook.com/MattEbertCC) (https://twitter.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.tiktok.com/@mattebertcc) (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ebert-7169a5180/) Get paid while you learn on the job at Crash Champions: https://step.crashchampions.com/ 00:00 "You can give me any 10 people" 01:30 The résumé: Coke, Purina, Gillette, Safeway, CEO 05:00 The fifth-grade class that almost decided his life 08:00 Why he hunts for the superpower, not the flaw 09:30 Running a team 15 years older than him at 24 12:00 Being the boss vs. actually being followed 15:00 The pitch that got him the CEO job 17:30 How he reads a company in his first week 20:00 120 anonymous index cards and four questions 23:30 Taking over a company with no cash in December 2008 25:00 The $100 million his predecessors burned 27:00 Selling oatmeal in a blizzard to stay alive 29:30 The executives gone inside 45 days 32:00 "Loyal to a fault" — the call he should have made 35:00 When your management team outgrows the company 37:30 Human capital is financial capital 40:00 The bathroom test 41:30 Picking up the trash in the parking lot 43:00 Culture when you're not in the room 46:00 "Good intentions don't drive outcomes" 48:30 Coaching CEOs who don't know what their people think 51:00 Bad boards, useless directors, and "shadow government" 54:00 What he tells people who want the chair 56:30 The books he's handed out by the thousand 59:00 His father worked as a skycap until 89 62:30 The sister he'd put up against anyone

  2. Sep 22

    Meet The Homeless Man Who Sold Patrón for $5.1 Billion

    John Paul DeJoria started John Paul Mitchell Systems with $700 while living in his car with his two-year-old son. Thirty-eight years later he sold Patrón to Bacardi in a deal valued at $5.1 billion. He tells Matt what actually happened in between: foster care at nine, on his own at eleven, homeless twice, selling encyclopedias door to door for $150 a week, and the string of jobs he says made the whole thing possible — "I couldn't have started John Paul Mitchell Systems in 1980 with $10 million, let alone $700, if I hadn't learned what I learned first." Also: why the first check he wrote after the Patrón sale was for $50 million and went straight to charity, why he locked Paul Mitchell into a 360-year trust so that nobody — including his own family — can ever sell it, the number he threw out that made the buyers laugh at him, and how a guy who rode with the Hells Angels ended up building a $5 billion tequila brand. ▶️ Subscribe for more PodCrash 🎧 Apple Podcasts · Spotify · wherever you listen Want more Matt in your life? Of course you do!  (https://www.instagram.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.facebook.com/MattEbertCC) (https://twitter.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.tiktok.com/@mattebertcc) (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ebert-7169a5180/) Get paid while you learn on the job at Crash Champions: https://step.crashchampions.com/

  3. Sep 15

    Cameo Founder: $0 to $100M in 4 Years With ZERO Marketing Spend

    Steven Galanis had the idea for Cameo at his grandmother's funeral. Four years later the company had gone from roughly $300,000 to $100 million in revenue with no marketing spend, was the fastest-growing consumer marketplace in the world, and hit a $1 billion valuation. Then the vaccines came out, demand dropped 60% almost overnight, and a banker sat him down in Miami with a binder he called "the sea of red." In this conversation he walks through all of it without spin: the launch night where nobody bought anything and his only investor quit, the board member who told him to cut half the company and was right when he only cut 25%, what $165 million of preferred stock does to your employees' equity when the valuation collapses, and what it actually takes to recapitalize and get profitable again. Plus why the internet created a generation of people more famous than rich, why 15 minutes of fame now lasts 15 years, and the line from a board member that changed how he ran the company: "You've been Michael Jordan. It's time to be Phil Jackson." Want more Matt in your life? Of course you do!  (https://www.instagram.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.facebook.com/MattEbertCC) (https://twitter.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.tiktok.com/@mattebertcc) (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ebert-7169a5180/) Get paid while you learn on the job at Crash Champions: https://step.crashchampions.com/

  4. Sep 8

    The Man Behind Tony Robbins' Business Empire | How To Grow

    Jay Abraham has consulted in over 1,000 industries and 7,124 niches, almost all of it on the front lines rather than from a stage. He got married at 18, had two kids at 20, had no education, and nobody in his family had ever made more than $25,000 a year — so the only people who'd hire him were entrepreneurs who paid on results. That's where he found the thing that made him: nobody in any industry has a clue how any other industry actually works. In this conversation he walks through how that one realization grew Icy Hot 21,000% in a year, pulled $9 million out of Entrepreneur magazine's dead archive, and quintupled a PVC pipe company's sales by giving salespeople 100% of the first sale. He explains the 30 leverage points hiding in a business you already own, why a bottom-line 10X should always come before a top-line one, and why he thinks almost every company is using zero of the 125 referral systems that exist. Then at 68:49 the interview flips, and Jay spends the second half interviewing Matt — the wrecked car at seventeen, the $100,000 in credit card cash advances that went into four Subway franchises, and what actually happened in the room when he stopped looking for debt and started talking to private equity.

  5. Sep 1

    "Boredom Is A Lie!" Navy SEAL Psychologist On Why You Sabotage Yourself

    Dr. Doug Brackmann is a psychologist who works with Navy SEALs, PGA pros and founders — and he teaches meditation by putting a rifle in your hands and asking you to hit a target a mile away. He was a high school dropout living in a car. Now he's the guy those people call when the money arrives and the emptiness doesn't go away. In this conversation he explains the genetics behind the entrepreneurial brain, why 87% of lottery winners are bankrupt within five years, why hunting organizations physically cannot scale, and what happens to a founder's identity the day the phone stops ringing after an exit. Matt gets into his own version of it — what he's watched happen to sellers through the Crash Champions acquisitions, and why the check was never the hard part. Find Dr. Brackmann and take the driven assessment at iamdriven.com. Books: Driven and Sheep and Wolves. Want more Matt in your life? Of course you do!  (https://www.instagram.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.facebook.com/MattEbertCC) (https://twitter.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.tiktok.com/@mattebertcc) (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ebert-7169a5180/) Get paid while you learn on the job at Crash Champions: https://step.crashchampions.com/ 00:00 INTRO 01:50 Why entrepreneurs are unemployable 04:43 High school dropout who lived in a car 07:48 The alcoholism gene and the genetics of "driven" 11:05 Inside the driven brain: 9 to 13 thoughts at once 15:12 Hunters vs. farmers, and why school was built for farmers 18:54 The boredom gene and reward deficiency 21:46 What happens when you ask a driven person who they are 24:51 Why you can only scale a farm, never a hunt 28:21 Hiring farmers around you, and talking to your CFO 31:38 The wolf pack, the herd, and why drivens end up alone 35:32 Self-sabotage: 87% of lottery winners go bankrupt 38:37 Losing your identity after you sell the company 41:30 Trauma, somatic healing, and what the body records 45:36 Boredom is a lie 48:04 Sleep, willpower, and what meditation actually is 51:09 Energy, intuition, and the spidey sense 54:02 The shadow, Carl Jung, and the midlife turn inward 56:42 Where to find Dr. Brackmann and the driven assessment 58:33 Closing: the person he'd champion

  6. Aug 25

    The Founder Who Sold His Company for $17M: Make the Wrong Decision

    Mick Hunt - USA Today bestselling author, host of Mick Unplugged, and founder who sold his first insurance agency for $17 million three years after starting it from scratch - sits down to talk about where emotional intelligence actually comes from. For him it wasn't a leadership seminar; it was being ten years old and learning to read his father's moods to protect his mother and sister. He makes the case that your "why" is meaningless until you find your "because," that composure is a trainable skill rather than a personality trait, and that the whole cult of the difficult journey is a trap - if there's an elevator, take it. Plus: how he landed Damon John, Chris Voss and Robert Irvine as mentors by simply asking, why he'll never use AI to replace a person but will replace the parts of their job they refuse to automate, the interview question that reveals who someone really is, and why he'd rather you tell him no fast than yes slowly. Want more Matt in your life? Of course you do!  (https://www.instagram.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.facebook.com/MattEbertCC) (https://twitter.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.tiktok.com/@mattebertcc) (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ebert-7169a5180/) Get paid while you learn on the job at Crash Champions: https://step.crashchampions.com/

  7. Aug 18

    "Don't Follow Your Passion!" VC Investor Jack Raines on Getting Rich in Your 20s

    Jack Raines - writer, Slow Ventures investor, and author of the new book Young Money - built his career by going viral making fun of LinkedIn, then turned it into a job helping invest over a billion dollars in startups and creators. In this episode he makes the case against "follow your passion," explains why he backpacked the world at 24 on purpose (with an exit ramp built in), and lays out why creators with engaged audiences are the next generation of startup founders. He also tells the story of the satirical post - claiming he ate free at 527 Manhattan hotels - that got him tagged to the NYPD and summoned to his business-school dean's office. Part career playbook, part comedy, part contrarian investing thesis on where money and media are headed. Want more Matt in your life? Of course you do!  (https://www.instagram.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.facebook.com/MattEbertCC) (https://twitter.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.tiktok.com/@mattebertcc) (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ebert-7169a5180/) Get paid while you learn on the job at Crash Champions: https://step.crashchampions.com/

  8. Aug 11

    "My Heart Wasn't In It" - Ralph Barbosa on Hosting His Own Show

    Netflix comedian Ralph Barbosa sits down for one of his most honest interviews yet.  He gets into his blue-collar roots learning auto body in his dad's Dallas shop, how wrecking his own cars pushed him into the trade, and knocking out every comedy goal he ever set.  Now he's chasing something completely different - cars, his YouTube channel Formula Bean, and starting his career over on his own terms. It's a candid conversation about ambition, knowing when you've "made it," and why the grind everyone glorifies isn't always worth chasing. Want more Matt in your life? Of course you do!  (https://www.instagram.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.facebook.com/MattEbertCC) (https://twitter.com/mattebertcc/) (https://www.tiktok.com/@mattebertcc) (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ebert-7169a5180/) Get paid while you learn on the job at Crash Champions: https://step.crashchampions.com/

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4.7
out of 5
24 Ratings

About

Matt Ebert, founder and CEO of Crash Champions, sits down with industry leaders to discover the powerful synergies between different walks of life and businesses. Matt believes in a Champions Mindset. It’s how he took a single collision repair shop and turned it into over 650 locations across the US. Listen in while he unlocks the thought processes of successful leaders, and learn how he Champions People to empower them to grow.

Information

  • Creator
    Matt Ebert
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    52
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 PodCrash with Matt Ebert
  • Show Website
    PodCrash with Matt Ebert

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