Introduction
Discover how Matthew Orlic went from losing $5 million overnight to building a $50 million e-commerce business in just 3 years. In this revealing interview, Matthew shares his journey of recovering from business failure to success, the mindset shifts that transformed his entrepreneurial path, and the strategic decisions that helped him build Curea Skincare into a thriving brand. Whether you’re facing setbacks or looking to scale your business, Matthew’s insights on mindset, strategy, and resilience offer valuable lessons for every entrepreneur.
Founder Success Story QnA
How did you start Curea Skincare with your sister?
I had been building businesses for 18 years and reached a point where I felt unfulfilled despite my success. I wanted to help my sister start a business she was passionate about. She was sending me skincare products, but I wasn’t using them. Instead, I was using a red LED panel I imported from China, which dramatically improved my skin. This gave us the idea to create an LED face mask that would be more affordable and accessible than clinical treatments. That’s where our first product was born, and we spent 2 years developing it into one of the best masks in the world with customizable treatments.
How big is the Curea brand and what’s its growth trajectory?
The business is 3 years old and we recently had our first million-dollar day on Black Friday. We’re on track to make $47-48 million this year. The growth has been pretty impressive, going from zero to nearly $50 million in just 3 years.
What was your first business and how did you get into entrepreneurship?
I started with import wholesale, importing brands and wholesaling them to retailers. Until I realized that the brands I was importing weren’t doing anything that I couldn’t do. I went to China, started developing my own brands, and began approaching mass retailers. My first brand was a headphone brand called “Oners.” I got into mass retailers through what was essentially influencer marketing 15 years ago. I did a deal with Sony Music Australia where I’d give them a percentage of all sales if their artists promoted my headphones in their video clips and in retail shops.
How did you lose $5 million?
I used to develop a lot of brands for Dick Smith, and one day overnight I lost $5 million. When Dick Smith went bankrupt, they owed me about $3-4 million, and the company would have been worth millions in value as well. This happened about 10 years ago when I was 25 years old. It was overnight—boom—just like that.
How did losing $5 million affect your mindset?
I remember like it was yesterday. I was walking around the park in a deep emotional state, almost teary, and the victim mentality starts coming out—”why me, how does this happen to me?” I was so vulnerable. If I continued to have that victim mentality, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get myself out of that rut. So I had to seek validation within myself. I started reverse engineering other founders who had lost heaps of money. I thought, “thank God I lost $5 million because I had to look towards the future, I had to look at the positive in that scenario.” I changed the whole narrative and got myself out of it.
What mindset shifts did you make after losing $5 million?
I learned that people spend 90% of their time on strategy and 10% on mindset, but I’m telling you now it’s 90% mindset and 10% strategy. It’s the “who” not the “how.” The business only grows to the amount that you grow, so if you don’t master yourself, you’re not going to grow the business. I developed daily non-negotiables focusing on mind, body, and spirit, including nutrition, exercise, journaling, and reading personal development material. I had to understand that I am the creator of my own reality—literally, my life is just my thoughts and images expressed.
What was your “quarter-life crisis” at age 29?
Despite my success, I felt unfulfilled and empty. I had built over 20 different businesses in four verticals and nine product categories, but the feelings I had about myself didn’t match the level of success that I had. I just daunted me one day that I wasn’t fulfilled. I realized that if I made an extra million dollars, I would not feel any better. I needed to go on a spiritual journey and work things out for myself.
What did you learn during your 3-year break from business?
I learned the difference between authentic and inauthentic money creation. I was creating a lot of money and wealth inauthentically, meaning there was no meaning attached to it. Money carries data, so it’s more important how you make it, not how much you make. I understood that the stuff I was doing wasn’t intrinsically motivating—it was all to achieve a certain number. If that’s my data point, I’m comparing myself to every other number in the world, and you can’t feel good about your situation when you’re doing that. Now I’m playing a different game where I’m playing against myself because my interests are going to be completely unique to me.
What are the four leverage points for e-commerce success according to you?
There are four different leverage points when it comes to e-commerce to make any brand successful. One is product leverage—you have to have a differentiated product in the market. Two is audience leverage—acquiring someone else’s audience, potentially through influencers or giving them equity in your brand. Three is margin leverage—today you need 70-plus, if not 80% gross margin, you just need it. And four is Opex leverage—operating leverage. I set up the office in Croatia, which has fantastic people at a fraction of the price of anywhere else in the world. Having all four of those leverage points is why we’re successful today.
What’s it like working with your sister as a co-founder?
The highs are very high and the lows are very low. The lows are when you’re arguing, when you’re not on the same level, when I know what’s right for the business and she disagrees, or she disagrees with my leadership style. Then we block each other on WhatsApp and don’t talk to each other for a day or two, and sometimes we live in the same house! But ultimately, the highs are amazing. To do that with your sister, the person you care about the most in the world, is one of the most fulfilling things. Her heart is so entrenched into that brand—more than any other founder I’ve ever seen in my life.
Do you believe in the 10,000-hour rule?
I do believe it exists, but I wouldn’t want to have it in like one skill. I believe in being a generalist has a lot of benefits today, and you need to have a large skill set in a number of different areas. The reason Curea is built today so quickly is because I had 10,000 hours in different avenues—not just marketing or not just product development. I understand the whole spectrum, which gave us a unique point of view that no one else had, which enabled us to create a brand that no one else could.
What core skills do you think founders should develop?
Creative strategy is the most unique skill set that any founder can have—so much so that I believe you can build a $10 million business today of organic creative, not even paying for ads. That’s how important creative is for e-commerce brands. Our big initiative next year for Curea is to go organic first and not paid ads. We’re going to humanize the brand and invest so much money in content creation organic. I’ve seen it done—Victory is a great example, HiSmile have done it extremely well. It was their organic marketing engine that drove their business.
How should entrepreneurs approach coaching and mentorship?
The biggest skill any entrepreneur can learn is the art of prioritization. You have to apply the theory of constraints and understand where the constraint is in the business and solve that one problem. Once you have that problem you’re looking to solve, you reach out to someone who has solved it, who has two steps ahead of them, and you get coaching from that person. You do it per problem, not holistically like a life coach. You want to find someone that’s done what you’re looking to do, a couple steps ahead only, and pay them to help you solve that problem.
What is the theory of constraints?
Jeff Bezos gave this book called “The Goal” to his leadership team. It’s based on the theory of constraints, which is about finding the constraints in your system in order to unblock them and produce a better outcome. You look at your outcome—whether it’s product sales or marketing—and you find the constraint by asking yourself, “Why can’t I 10x the business today? What is the one thing stopping me from 10x-ing the business today?” Once you find that constraint, you solve it with internal resources, AI, or external help. That’s essentially strategy—utilizing your limited resources against unlimited options by finding the one option that’s going to accelerate you forward.
What’s your biggest constraint right now?
Time. I don’t doubt I’ll build a $100 million year business—it’s just time. I’ve learned that putting time constraints ruined me when I was younger. You can’t decide when it happens; you can decide the how and what, but you can’t put a timeline on when because there are too many variables. If I stick to my daily non-negotiables in terms of what I need to do as an individual every single day, detach from the outcome, and live in a moment of peace knowing I’ve done what I need to do, that allows me to operate at a higher frequency and attract that stuff into my life.
How do you plan your goals?
I have a goal for the year, a revenue target—top-line. Then I unlock resources to achieve that goal. For us, it’s like if we post four reels a day across all channels, is it unreasonable that after a year we won’t grow to hundreds of thousands of followers? I create standards and input/output equations, and then I focus on those daily standards and disconnect from everything else. You don’t rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your standards. So it’s important to raise the floor. On a bad week, I do twice a week working out; on a good week, I do seven. My job is just to raise the floor—make it four on a bad week and seven on a good week.
What’s your advice for early-stage founders regarding marketing channels?
If I was going to give advice to any founder at the start, it’d be unlock organic before you go to paid, and then put paid behind what’s working organically. I just don’t think a lot of people are doing it. Look at Midday Squares, they’ve done fantastic with founder content—personality behind the brand. There’s this chick in Australia, some clothing brand, she’s done the same thing where she gets the office involved and builds personalities into the brand. If I was starting again today, I’d go organic first, build the audience, especially if you have no money. It requires zero money, just time, which is what you have in terms of resources.
How many businesses did you have at your peak?
I had 13 businesses at my peak. I had the manufacturing for Umbro, their apparel brand. I had Pro Sports Group, which was the largest in football equipment in Australia. I had Skywalkers, electronic bikes. I had the Easter eggs for Manchester United and Liverpool. I had the tattoo removal laser clinic. I had the digital marketing agency. I had a headphone brand called Sports Beats. I had an iPhone accessories brand called Juice Up. I had Air Beats, which was a Bluetooth speaker brand. I had a retail supplement store called Elite Supps. That’s 10, and I’m missing some. It was a perfect example of when you’re not right internally, it extends to your business externally—how chaotic I was internally reflected that by doing a million different things.
How were you able to manage 13 businesses?
Through transformational leadership. There are two different types of leadership—transactional and transformational. Transactional is how I started: I hire people, I tell them what to do, I check if they’ve done it, and then I tell them what to do next. You get burnt out. Transformational is: I give you an outcome, we measure the results, and then I coach you. With transformational leadership, you can manage a huge team. Before, I was like, “I hire people to do the job I tell them to do.” Then I upgraded that mindset to “I hire better people that are better than me to tell me what to do.” But what I understand today more than ever is that millionaires build systems, billionaires build people. My job is to create the container and build the people to build a business.
What beliefs might be holding you back from building a billion-dollar brand?
It’s just belief systems. What does someone who has a nine-figure brand believe that I don’t to be true, and how are they operating? That’s all it is. Richard Branson has assistants that run his life, literally filter all information, high-level things, and make decisions for him, where this founder who’s doing a million dollars a year can’t get an assistant to read the emails. It’s like, “Oh, it’s too private, they’re not going to know.” But that’s just a mindset shift. These are things that are just belief systems and unlocks that I’m not aware of yet that I don’t know what’s stopping me.
What framework do you recommend for unlocking limiting beliefs?
If you have a limiting belief, like “I want to make a million dollars a year,” ask yourself three questions. First: how do I know this is true? Where do I have tangible evidence that this belief is true? Second: when did this belief start? Sometimes you can reverse it back to a moment in time where we acquired the belief. One experience can change our belief and our thought patterns forever. Third: what will need to happen for this belief not to be true anymore? I self-sabotaged myself for a long time from being ultra-wealthy because I had the belief that ultra-wealthy people are miserable. I went through this framework and realized I acquired that belief from meeting a billionaire in Greece who told me how he made $900 million, bought a yacht for $100 million, parked it in the bay, saw the yacht next to him was bigger, and got depressed. I had to re-engineer that belief system.
Matthew Orlic Business Stats
Matthew Orlic has built an impressive e-commerce empire after experiencing a devastating business loss. His current main venture, Curea Skincare, has demonstrated remarkable growth since its inception. Below are some key statistics that highlight his business success and the scale of operations he has achieved through strategic mindset and diversified approaches.
- Lost $5 million when Dick Smith went bankrupt overnight at age 25
- Built Curea Skincare to $47-48 million revenue in just 3 years
- Achieved first million-dollar day on Black Friday
- Currently operates with less than 50% reliance on Meta for sales
- Focused on transitioning to organic-first marketing strategy
- Established operational base in Croatia for cost efficiency
| Business Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Years in Business | 18+ years |
| Businesses Started | 20+ businesses |
| Current Main Business | Curea Skincare |
| Annual Revenue (Curea) | $47-48 million |
| Growth Timeline | 3 years (0 to $47M) |
| Team Size | 25+ team members |
Matthew Orlic Method
Matthew Orlic’s approach to business combines mindset mastery with strategic execution. His method for recovering from business failure to success focuses on internal growth as the foundation for external achievement. By implementing these core principles, he transformed his entrepreneurial trajectory from devastating loss to remarkable success.
- Mindset-first approach: 90% mindset, 10% strategy
- Daily non-negotiables focusing on mind, body, and spirit
- Theory of constraints: identifying and solving the single biggest business bottleneck
- Four leverage points: product differentiation, audience acquisition, high margins, operational efficiency
- Transformational leadership: building people rather than just systems
- Organic-first marketing: building audience before paid advertising
Matthew Orlic Tools
Matthew leverages a combination of mindset tools and business systems to achieve his entrepreneurial success. His approach to tools focuses on both personal development and operational efficiency, creating a comprehensive framework that supports sustainable business growth and personal fulfillment.
- Daily journaling for separating identity from thoughts and gaining clarity
- Personal development reading to acquire new belief systems and philosophies
- Croatian operational base for cost-effective team and office management
- Creative strategy framework for organic content creation and audience building
- Targeted coaching for solving specific business constraints
- Mindset reprogramming techniques for overcoming limiting beliefs
Key Notes
Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, Matthew Orlic has discovered several fundamental truths about business success and personal fulfillment. His insights are particularly valuable for founders navigating setbacks or seeking sustainable growth. These key notes encapsulate the wisdom he has gained through both failure and success.
- The business only grows to the extent that the founder grows personally
- Authentic money creation (with meaning) is more fulfilling than inauthentic (just chasing numbers)
- Life is about being and becoming, not acquiring and possessing
- Comparison is the thief of joy when your validation is tied to external metrics
- Focusing on daily standards rather than outcomes creates sustainable success
- Organic marketing can build a $10 million business without paid advertising
Get Started in Just 5 Steps
If you’re looking to follow in Matthew Orlic’s footsteps of recovering from business failure to success, these five steps provide a roadmap for transformation. By implementing this approach, you can build a foundation for both business growth and personal development, creating a sustainable path to entrepreneurial success.
- Identify and reframe your limiting beliefs using Matthew’s three-question framework
- Establish daily non-negotiables that focus on mind, body, and spirit development
- Apply the theory of constraints to identify and solve your single biggest business problem
- Build organic content and audience before investing in paid advertising
- Implement the four leverage points: product differentiation, audience acquisition, high margins, and operational efficiency
Conclusion
Matthew Orlic’s journey from losing $5 million to building a $50 million business demonstrates the transformative power of mindset in entrepreneurship. His story shows that business success isn’t just about strategies and tactics—it’s about personal growth, belief systems, and resilience. By focusing on authentic money creation, implementing the theory of constraints, and prioritizing organic audience building, Matthew has created not just a successful business but a fulfilling entrepreneurial life. For founders facing challenges or setbacks, his approach offers a proven path to recovering from business failure to success.