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Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Experience Podcast Inside the business buzz and brilliance of Black Entrepreneurs. Here is your host, Dr. Francis Arlene.
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Quick note before we get into today's episode. If you're a small home health agency owner, you already know this. Most agencies don't fail because of census they fail because of continuity and compliance gaps that don't show up until it's too late. I've been working directly with small agencies around continuity, planning, compliance, readiness and operational stability, especially owners who are wearing too many hats and don't have a real plan if key people, systems or processes break. This isn't coaching and it's not a course. It's hands on consulting to help you reduce risk and build something that can actually survive audits, turnover and growth. If that's you and you want to talk, you can find me@drfrancisrichards.com all right, let's get back to the show. Innovative thinkers, episode number 558, Innovative Thinker. Thank you for joining us as we elevate the black entrepreneur experience by interviewing CEOs, thought leaders, innovative thinkers and black entrepreneurs across the globe. I'm your host, Dr. Francis Arlene. Today's guest is South Florida attorney Matthew for Narrow. He helps entrepreneurs cut through the legal noise, contracts, IP structures so that you can focus on building your business. If the legal side has ever felt overwhelming, this episode is for you. Welcome, Matthew.
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Thank you doctor. I'm glad to be here.
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I've given our audience such a brief bio. Why don't you fill in the gaps and share with our audience what you'd like them to know about you and your business.
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I have been practicing law for 23 years. For the last 10 years plus I've had my own law firm. I focus exclusively on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups with their legal needs, whether it's litigation or transactional. I am in Coral Springs, Florida, where I've been most of my life. Been here since I was 6 years old. I'm now an old man, so it's a long time. And you know about me personally. I've been married for 20 years. I have two kids. One's about to go off to college, which I can't believe that happened because I remember him being born like it was yesterday. I hang out with my family, hang out with my dog. We go on trips and I like watching Netflix and that's pretty much it.
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And let me ask you this question. There are so many specialties that you can do in law. Why did you pick business law to Focus on.
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As I stated, I've been practicing law for over two decades. I previously worked for two large AmLaw 200 law firms and I did predominantly like commercial litigation, representing like banks, insurance companies and big business. I had the opportunity to move to an even bigger law firm and continue to do that. But I had like a metaphysical kind of thought slash change of heart and wanted to go start my own law firm. So that was almost 11 years ago now. So what I wanted to do was I wanted to focus on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups because I thought that they were A, underserved by big law firms because they don't think they're big enough clients or whatever and B, I thought they were underserved by like local attorneys out in the suburbs because like representing entrepreneurs, startups and businesses like really isn't their focus. So I wanted to bring my experience and stuff out to the people and that's kind of what I did. And then also as kind of a background thing growing up, my dad had a small business and I saw like the issues that he dealt with and I thought that small businesses from his perspective, like he was underserved by like the legal industry, accounting industry and you know, other professionals. So I wanted to focus and help people who are like in my dad's situation just now as opposed to in the 90s and early 2000s. And that's kind of how I got into this space and that's what I've been doing now for over a decade.
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So because you've been working in startups and entrepreneurial ship for the last 10 years and you are your own entrepreneur, I want you to say what is something you wish you knew before starting your own practice?
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I had no real business training or business experience from being a business owner or running a business for my entire life. I represented businesses when I was a attorney, but most of them were big businesses. And I didn't really know the machinations or the obligations or the responsibilities or anything that went into actually running or owning your own business. So I've kind of learned, I think I've learned most of what I needed to know over the last 10 plus years. I've had help along the way and I just wish I would have had the business knowledge, the foundation knowledge and things that I have now back when I started, because it would have been a lot easier, I think now. You know, obviously starting business is never easy and being an entrepreneur is never easy. But based on the prevalence of technology now, as opposed to not even just 10 years ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago. I think it's not easy, but easier to start a business because the information, and not just the information itself, but the accessibility to people who can help you is a lot easier now than it was previously. And I wish that would have been there when I started out, even though it was just 10 years ago.
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Right. And speaking about dealing with small businesses and startups, can you nail it down to three specific problems that you see consistently in dealing with startups or entrepreneurs?
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The people are very excited and want to get into business as quickly as possible. And I don't blame them. Obviously it's a very exciting opportunity. You know, you're going to put your all into it and you want to succeed. But they don't do the necessary due diligence from. Or many people, I should say, don't do the necessary due diligence from the inception of the business going forward. So one of the biggest things is as a business owner, you need a written business plan which is essentially the foundation for your entire business. It answers the who, what, when, where, why, how about your business. It talks about what kind of business organization you're going to have, what kind you know, how you're going to add people, how you're going to subtract people, what you're going to do with money, what your business is going to do. Your business isn't going to do all those things. And it's a ongoing document that you should update throughout the life of your business. It's not just they do it when you start out or whatever. Like I have a written business plan that I update monthly that includes new information. So a lot of people don't start out with that and that's an issue because that's the foundation of your business and they kind of skip over that step and just want to get started. Second thing is closely related to that issue where they run out and just arbitrarily get into business. Like here in Florida. In order to start a business, all you have to do is go on the Secretary of State's website and input some information and hit click and it gets approved and you're in business. But the issue is, is that people don't have the necessary governing documents that are supposed to go with the business. So they'll start a corporation or, or they'll start an LLC or start a partnership with no articles of incorporation, with no operating agreement, no partnership agreement. And just like how starting out before you even get into business with no written business plan, now you're in business and you have a business organization, but you don't have the governing documents. And you're going to run into real problems because the governing documents are the legal documents that say everything about your business, how you run it, who, what your responsibilities are. It's like a more refined version of the. An official version of the business plan. So a lot of people skip over that, and then later on down the road, they don't have those documents and they run into trouble and they get sued or they have the people who they're in business with want to separate and they don't know how they're going to do it because they never wrote it down, or they're going to add people and they don't know how to do it, or they're not even. They're also. They're successful and they can't grow because they don't have the paperwork that says how you take out loans or how you receive loans or how you do things like that. So that would be problem number two. Problem number three would be that as a business owner, you don't have to go it alone. You can have a cadre of professionals who help you do things even from before when you start your business. So instead of having to figure out everything yourself or go on the Internet and try to figure it out, or, you know, ask a friend or whatever, you should be reaching out to a business law attorney like me. You should be reaching out to an accountant, you should be reaching out to a business banker. You should be reaching out to, like, you know, depending on what kind of technology or online stuff you're doing, you should be reaching out to the people who specialize in that area, and they're there to help you with your business. They focus on their area and help you so that you can focus on the business itself. So a lot of people just try to do things themselves or wait till something happens and then go seek out those professionals. But they should be on board from day one going forward. So I would say those are probably the three biggest issues that I see ongoing with all entrepreneurs and startups with when they start out their business.
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Thank you for that. And you mentioned that, number three, that they should don't go it alone. And I know that you are a business attorney in South Florida. Do you only practice in Florida or are you practicing in other states?
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I have clients in other states, but my focus is predominantly in Florida because business laws are. There's federal laws that regulate business, but there's also state laws that regulate business, and they're very subjective. And specialized. I focus on where I am, Florida. And try to, you know, be as proficient in, know what to do there. But you should, as a business owner or an entrepreneur or startup, make sure that your business law attorney is familiar with the actual jurisdiction that you're in. Because it's not one size fits all. It's totally subjective and it's totally specialized depending on where you're located.
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I want you to have a monologue and I want you to name this person, living or not, and they've impacted your life so much. Who is that person and what are you saying to that person?
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I would say that would be my grandfather who passed away in 2014. He was 92 at the time, so I was very lucky. I was able to have him in my life for over 30 years. He's able to see me get married, able to see his great grandchildren. And he was influential in, I guess you want to say my uprooting. Obviously my parents were, but my grandfather was like a, I don't want to say exalted figure, but like a special figure in my life because my parents, I love them, they did a great job. They obviously had a huge influence on my life. But my grandparents in particular, my grandfather did because it was always like a benevolent relationship with him. He never criticized me, never yell at me, you know, even though parents, whatever. He always just gave me a lot of great information. He had a lot of interesting, varied life experience because he was part of the greatest generation and he was in World War II and he did a lot of diverse stuff in his life for 92 years. And a lot of that instilled a lot of different things in me, probably more than any person I ever met. And that's why I was lucky to know him, was lucky to hang out with him as much as I did. I probably hung out with him a lot in my childhood. Probably a lot. I spent a lot more time with my grandparents than most people do voluntarily I might add. Not like my parents went out and they left me out. Like I want to go to my grandparents house. So I would just thank him and tell him I miss him.
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What problem exists in the world today that you would like to solve?
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There's so many issues in the world that you know, I mean worldwide, locally, whatever. I would think an issue that should be, I don't want to say eradicated, but would be the lack of accessibility to education and information worldwide. I think that in 2026, with all of the technology we have and all the things that are available that there should be. Literacy should be 100% worldwide, access to information should be unlimited and people should have as much knowledge as they want. And I think that whether it's political issues or economic issues or whatever, that's preventing it. I think that that is a pretty good goal to have as a unified planet, is to make sure that everyone can read, everyone can write, everyone has access to information and data and everyone has access to knowledge. So that sounds corny or. But the world is a better place and it's not things like you want democracy in a non democracy country. Not talking about that. I'm talking like how do you do math? Like how do you read a book? Like how do you deal with like self help issues or whatever. And I think that that is an issue that we can easily address in 2026 and it should be addressed on a worldwide basis. I think it'd be done. I don't want to say it's not easy, but I think it's very doable, particularly now.
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Advice you wish you had followed.
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I would say some of the things my parents told me growing up about saving money and how to comport myself doing certain things or whatever. Just general parent advice because your parents are normally always right and my parents were. So I wish I would have taken a lot more of that advice, particularly in my late teenage and early 20 years.
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Okay, I want you to talk to a younger Matthew. What advice are you giving a younger you?
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One of those things where I don't want to affect the future too much and get into a bunch of nerdy sci fi like changing the feature things or whatever because I like where I am right now. I like business wise where I am. I like where I am with my family. I like where I am pretty much across the board. So I would just tell my younger self to just believe in yourself and follow the course and listen to your parents. Like I just said in the last segment then those people who want to help you, don't be afraid to ask for help. You have people who will help you no matter what it is in your life and just follow the course forward and that's it. And don't doubt yourself.
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Let's go back 10 years ago when you decided, almost 11 years ago you decided to go out on your own and open your own practice. What was that defining moment and what caused you to pull the trigger and do it?
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Like I had said, I had the opportunity to go to an even bigger law firm and do what I was doing and get an in raise, pretty significant raise or whatever. And it was like a metaphysical, metaphorical crossroads because I was thinking to myself, well, that's great. I'm going to be doing what I've been doing. I'm going to make more money, be slightly different, metro market, but still near my house. And, you know, I just thought, is this going to be my life professionally, where basically I go and work at this big firm and then I kind of plateau and then I got to figure out what I'm going to do next, if I'm going to buy into this firm and be like an equity partner and essentially be married to it for the rest of my life, or do I want to try something different and see if I can start my own business and be successful? It's kind of a lot of thinking about that over the course of not that long. It was only a few weeks. And then talking to my parents, where obviously my dad had a lot of experience in business himself, speaking to my wife, who obviously supportive, and then also thinking at the time, my kids were obviously younger than they were in elementary school and preschool, so they weren't old enough. Where had a lot of super commitments with them, where I couldn't go do my own thing and had to have like, quote unquote, normal job. All those things weighed together. And I mean, I've seen attorneys go out on their own before, and a lot of people who, respectfully, I don't really think are great attorneys, who are successful business people or whatever. So I'm like, if I'm. I think I'm a pretty decent attorney, I wonder what kind of business person I can be. So it all kind of came together and I was like, I will do my best. I will give it a shot. I'll get as much information as I can, learn as much as I can, talk as many people as I can, get as much help as I can, and either I'll succeed or fail. And it's because I succeeded or failed because either I wasn't good enough and tried my best or whatever. And if not, then I would just go back to what I was doing. And that's kind of how it all came together.
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Did you marry law or did law marry you?
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I grew up, believe it or not, liking certain stuff about the law. Like, I really liked the People's Court back in the day when I was a kid. Like, I love Judge Wap and like, I like that aspect of the law. I wasn't like a big, like, To Kill a Mockingbird kind of like, do good law thing. I was much more practical about My relationship with law and I kind of always knew I wanted to go to law school, so it was kind of like I always liked certain aspects of law. There's certain aspects of law obviously I really don't like, but my niche I like. So I kind of. I sought it out and adapted it at an early age, I guess we could say. So I married it.
C
Okay. Who is your ideal client?
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My ideal client is a entrepreneur, a startup or a small business located in Florida, but particularly South Florida, and they're at any point in their business, whether it's before they even start up, their starting up, or they're active and they are willing to trust my judgment and trust me regarding their legal issues and the legal aspect of running their business. And that would be my ideal client.
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And what would you say your zone of genius is?
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My zone of genius, outside of being professional, would be trivia. I'm awesome at trivia to the point where, like, I like. It's dangerous for me to get involved in like, a trivial perceived game or whatever because I take it very competitively and want to do whatever in the professional sphere. My zone, James, would be business litigation, helping businesses who are involved in lawsuits extricate themselves from lawsuits in as timely a fashion as possible, whether the plaintiff or the defendant, and as with little impact to their business as possible. And as with them, making the best business decisions as possible.
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Talk about your top two mentors or influencers in your life or business and tell us, what lessons did they teach you?
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I wouldn't say. I wouldn't call him a mentor necessarily. I will call him a friend and facilitator. That would be my boss went. Before I worked at a big law firm, I worked at a small law firm. And that would be my boss, Andrew Schwartz, who's in Boca Raton. And he essentially, I worked for him for five years and I learned everything I needed to learn about being an effective attorney, particularly a business law attorney from him. And he has been my friend since then and I speak to him almost every day. And it's interesting because now I'm in like, the position where he was in the same position when he hired me years ago. So it's interesting because, like, we've come full circle and he's kind of winding down his career, but tremendous influence on me, tremendous help for me professionally throughout my professional life. And then another, like, mentor type figure would be going back to my grandfather for the same reasons I stated earlier.
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Okay, Matthew, if you lost everything and you had to rebuild in 30 days in what Industry and why?
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If I lost everything and I had to rebuild in 30 days, what industry and why? I would probably say something. If we put. Let's, for argument's sake, let's just throw a law out the window and put it aside. Okay, so I can't be a lawyer. I would do something AI related in servicing businesses with relevant, accurate AI and that would probably be where I would jump back into business and hopefully do something within 30 days.
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Let's talk about mental wellness and running a business. How do you maintain your mental wellness?
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It's interesting because attorneys have such a high. Many professionals have such high rates of depression and there's a lot of mental health issues with being an attorney. I know. Unfortunately, one of my good friend's friends who is an attorney in South Florida actually took his own life a few weeks ago and it was kind of out of the blue. As an attorney, we have a big mental health, I don't want to say epidemic, but problem. I know that the Florida bar, especially since I've started to be an attorney, has addressed it and has a lot of programs out there and is very helpful for helping attorneys and brings out more and more stuff every year. It makes it a lot more accessible and a lot more mainstream and a lot more like non taboo. It's great that they have that. That really wasn't there when I started out, but for me personally, it's just disconnecting from being in business and being an attorney and going and being like, focusing on being like a son, a husband, a father, and doing things with my family and then also doing things that I like personally and being able to shut it down professionally and then when necessary come back in and that's it. And make sure I watch my YouTube stuff that I want to watch, I watch my movies that I want to watch. And I take my vacations regularly and I make sure I get the most out of my vacations and focus solely on being on vacation. And that's kind of my personal mental health formula.
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Talk about marriage and managing a business.
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My wife is also an attorney. We met in law school, but she works for the government and she's been in private practice for a few times. And we thought about working together, but our personalities are very competitive. And I don't want to say clash, but like, that wouldn't be a good idea. So we just kind of never thought about working together or doing anything. But obviously the main point or the main thing of any marriage, particularly when you have a business or whatever, is total trust and total transparency. With your partner. And I'm lucky I have that with my wife. I mean, there's new secrets between us. We're just totally open books with each other. And even though she's not in my business, I seek her advice in her counsel and bounce ideas off of her all the time. And before I make any major decisions or whatever, I consult with her because I value her opinion as my wife, as an attorney, and just as a human being. So I think that that's important, that even if your spouse isn't involved in your business, whatever, you always don't go to them to complain about your business, but always let them kind of know what your business is about and what you're doing. So they kind of have a clue of where you're hiding during the days or whatever and just seek their advice just as a person regarding your business, because they may not know specifics about your business, but they know about human experience and things like that, and they're very helpful. So that would be my advice regarding business and marriage.
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Thank you for that. What's a common strategy or rule that you've broken in your industry and why did it work for you?
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This would go back to my. If I was out on the street and I have 30 days to do something, it would be recently, like in the last three years, my adoption and use of AI in my legal practice, in my running my business and business development. And with that being said, I take full ownership over all AI stuff that I do. I don't arbitrarily just put AI stuff out there. I review everything, I verify everything, I make sure I approve everything. I make sure I'm in control of everything. And there's a lot of. Well, in the legal industry, there's a lot of, like, AI taboo, because people don't take responsibility for it and just blindly use it and blindly take the work product and put it out into the legal atmosphere or whatever. And it's turned out pretty bad for a lot of people because it's been hallucinated, it's been inaccurate, it said crazy things, and a lot of people are looking down on AI or whatever. But I embrace AI and it's made my life just like the proliferation of technology in general, like I was talking about earlier, has made starting of a business easier. It's made running a business a lot easier. And it would be my use and adoption of AI but in a ethical and responsible manner, which a lot of people just cut that part out and just put the AI in and do it. And that's where they run into problems
C
in business there's a lot of risks, but there's a lot of rewards. Can you talk about an area of opportunity where it was a wound in business, your first wound in business, that first opportunity. And what did you learn from that?
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Well, obviously the opportunity in business in general is to go out on your own, be your own person, be your own boss. Earning money and keeping 100% of the profits is a great. When there are profits, I should say is great. And that's probably the biggest opportunity is that you're not every two weeks you just don't get a paycheck. You get to be figure out what your cash flow is, figure out where your income is and be in charge of it and figure out how you're going to spend your budget and do everything. You're not kind of just along for the ride as an employee. But the issue with that too is, is that you're in charge of making the money. And if you don't make the money then you've got big problems. So it's kind of a double edged sword. That would be probably the first business opportunity, whatever is dealing with money, the lack of money and when there is money, how to manage it, how to pay all your bills, how to balance everything, how to take your own salary and how to deal with all that stuff.
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What is your biggest achievement so far in business?
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I would say it is being able to survive for a decade where Covid and stuff like that, just all kinds of wacky stuff that you wouldn't think about. Where fortunately, out of nine of the 10 years that I've been in business, my revenue has grown every year and the one year it didn't was because I totally revamped a lot of things and reconfigured things and spent a lot of time on infrastructure and stuff like that. But that would be my biggest achievement is from my own business standpoint is being here 10 years later. As far as achievements that my business itself had made. It would be helping hundreds at this point of entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses in their journey towards viability and success.
C
And speaking of that, give us a success story and only share what you can legally about that specific client or a success story from one of your clients.
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Sure. Fortunately I have a few to choose from, where it's businesses who started out or even before they started out, their inception and guiding them through the things. I have one in particular where I represent an entrepreneur who started a social media app, which obviously that's a heavily saturated space Very dangerous to get into or whatever. But he started a social media app that's. It's a hybrid social media app and like rating system for local businesses. So it's very unique. There's not really anything out there like it because it's like a hybrid of multiple things in one platform. So he came to me before he even finalized the name or any of the software or anything, and I helped him start the business, the actual business organization. I helped him register the trademark, I helped him do all his contracts and everything. I helped him figure out how to go out and meet with the businesses in order to get them on the listing. And now he's successful. And it's a app that you can get on the Apple Store and the Google Play Store and all that stuff. And it's growing. It's got thousands of users now. So it's something where I have other business stories like that. But this is one where it's. It can be anywhere because it's an app, so it can be global. But, you know, I'm glad I was able to help him deal with the legal issues so he was able to make the business in the app successful.
C
Congratulations, That's a great story. What can we do right now to support your business, Matthew?
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I am heavy into social media and you know, like when I talk about one of the things I wanted to solve was like the proliferation of knowledge and information. I've got tons of information on my website that I would love to share with everyone and I've got white papers, I've got logs, I've got videos, I've got podcasts, I've got articles support using my resources that I have available, which helps you as a business owner or
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entrepreneur and give them your website.
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Sure. It's for narrow legal.com. it's just my last name, legal.com and then it's got all my contact information. If you have any questions or need to reach me, just call me or email me. And then it's got all my social media stuff where I post all that stuff on social media to get it out there for people so they can, you know, read about whatever. They don't necessarily have to speak with me or speak with an attorney. I talk about all kinds of issues facing entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses.
C
What have you not done in life that you dream about often that you would like to do?
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I would like to vacation more and go to Western Europe. In particular Italy and Ireland. That would be something, believe it or not, my entire life. That's something that I want to do.
C
What is the takeaway? Someone's listening to this podcast. What do you want them to take away from this podcast?
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As a entrepreneur, startup or small business, you're not in it alone. There's professionals who can help you and it's never too soon to get those professionals involved, even before you start your business, because you want to start it off on the right track and throughout the life of your business. And it's not just a business attorney, it's an accountant, it's a banker, it's whoever is involved in the industry you're in. And don't be afraid to reach out to them because they want to help you and they can help you.
C
If you conducted this interview, what is the one question you would have asked yourself? I'd like you to ask the question and answer it.
A
As a business owner, what was we'll just say initial because obviously maybe you've made some mistakes along the way. What was your initial biggest mistake you made? And then my answer would be dumping tons of money into useless advertising.
C
Thank you for that. We've come to the part of our interview, it's called Rapid round of fun. I'm going to ask you a series of questions and I'd like you to give me very quick answers. If there's something you desire not to answer, feel free to say pass. Are you ready for the rapid round of fun?
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Yes.
C
What is your favorite comfort food?
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Pizza.
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The last movie you saw.
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A Lifetime movie. I love Lifetime movies.
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You relax. Doing what?
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Watching Lifetime movies, believe it or not, videos and hanging out with my family.
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Your favorite singer, Michael Jackson.
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Now and forever.
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Your favorite dance song.
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My favorite dance song, Billie Jean.
C
What food you eat every week.
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No matter what pizza, it's always pizza.
C
And your favorite month?
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I would say November because it's starting to get even though I'm in South Florida where it doesn't really change that much. It gets a little cooler. But it's the kickoff to my favorite holiday, which is Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I could eat Thanksgiving food 365 days a year. It's my favorite holiday. And then it's the gateway to the December holidays. So it would be November because it ends with awesome holiday with family and friends, best meal of the year, and then takes you into the December holidays.
C
And speaking of Thanksgiving, tell us what you're thankful for.
A
I am thankful for my family, that I have my wife, my kids, both my parents nearby, my in laws who I love. I have the world's greatest in laws and the fact that Like I said earlier I was able to be with my grand or have my grandparents around until I was in my 30s and that would be it. Without my family the rest is all meaningless.
C
Matthew thank you so much for being on Black Entrepreneur Experience podcast. Before we let you go share with our audience the best way for them to connect with you to be to do business with you. And feel free to leave all your social media handles.
A
So again just go to my website and I'll send you all my it's got all my social media handles on it.
C
Thank you Matthew. That's a wrap.
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Thank you for listening and subscribing to Black Entrepreneur Experience. We would love for you to leave a review and rating on itunes and share with your friends. For show notes and more episodes go to www.beepodcast. join us next Wednesday. And remember green is the new Black so keep your bank accounts and your business in the black.
Protect Your Business the Right Way: Matthew Fornaro on Legal Foundations for Entrepreneurs
Host: Dr. Frances A. Ince, Chief Encouraging Officer
Guest: Matthew Fornaro, Business Attorney
Release Date: March 18, 2026
This episode features an in-depth conversation with South Florida attorney Matthew Fornaro, who specializes in helping entrepreneurs and small business owners establish strong legal foundations. Dr. Ince and Matthew explore the unique legal challenges faced by startups, share practical wisdom for new and aspiring business owners, and discuss the importance of mental wellness, mentorship, and leveraging support networks. The episode is packed with actionable advice, personal stories from Matthew’s entrepreneurial journey, and strategies to protect and grow your business the right way.
“I thought that small businesses from his perspective, like he was underserved...so I wanted to focus and help people who are like in my dad’s situation.” — Matthew Fornaro (04:05)
“Starting business is never easy...but accessibility to people who can help you is a lot easier now than it was previously.” — Matthew Fornaro (05:28)
1. Skipping the Business Plan
2. Missing Governing Documents
3. Not Building a Professional Support Team
“I would just thank him and tell him I miss him.”
“Literacy should be 100% worldwide, access to information should be unlimited...”
“Believe in yourself and follow the course and listen to your parents...don’t doubt yourself.”
“I will do my best. I will give it a shot...and either I’ll succeed or fail. And if not, then I would just go back to what I was doing.”
| Topic | Timestamp (MM:SS) | |----------------------------------------------|----------------------| | Matthew’s Journey and Why Business Law | 02:12 - 04:43 | | Three Common Entrepreneurial Legal Mistakes | 06:27 - 10:26 | | Importance of State-Specific Legal Counsel | 10:43 - 11:23 | | Key Influences and Lessons from Grandfather | 11:34 - 13:04 | | Biggest World Problem: Access to Education | 13:09 - 14:43 | | Advice to Younger Self | 15:17 - 15:58 | | Defining Moment: Opening His Own Practice | 16:16 - 18:27 | | Mental Wellness and Disconnecting | 22:37 - 24:18 | | Navigating Marriage and Entrepreneurship | 24:24 - 25:58 | | Breaking Legal Industry Norms with AI | 26:08 - 27:35 | | Business Opportunities and Challenges | 27:53 - 28:51 | | Biggest Achievement: Surviving & Growing Business | 28:55 - 29:42 | | Client Success Story (Social Media App) | 29:55 - 31:32 | | Takeaway Message for Entrepreneurs | 33:11 - 33:44 | | Biggest Mistake: Useless Advertising Spend | 33:53 - 34:11 | | Rapid Fun Round: Personal Favorites | 34:29 - 36:08 |
“I embrace AI but in an ethical and responsible manner...” (26:43)
“I make sure I get the most out of my vacations and focus solely on being on vacation.” (24:10)
“There’s no secrets between us...even if your spouse isn’t involved in your business, always let them know what your business is about.” (25:08)
“As an entrepreneur, startup or small business, you’re not in it alone. There’s professionals who can help you and it’s never too soon to get those professionals involved, even before you start your business.”
— Matthew Fornaro (33:11)
If you want more tips or support, visit Matthew’s website for free resources geared towards entrepreneurs.