I believe that entrepreneurship is the best way to achieve financial prosperity, gain more personal freedom and fund charitable efforts around the globe. I’m on a mission to teach others to leverage the power of entrepreneurship in their lives by my example and through my books, my private equity investments, and my community-building efforts.
My own entrepreneurial endeavor, MarketBeat, is an Inc. 5000 financial media company that empowers individual investors to make better trading decisions by providing real-time financial information and objective market research. We do this through our daily newsletter, which has attracted more than 1 million subscribers and through our suite of web-based research tools on MarketBeat.com. We also operate a network of financial news websites which attract more than 8 million page views each month, including American Banking and Market News and Ticker Report. MarketBeat was recognized as the fastest-growing privately-held company in South Dakota in 2016 by Inc. in its annual Inc. 5000 rankings and has made the Inc. 5000 list for the last four consecutive years.
I am also the co-founder of GoGo Photo Contest, which provides web-based fundraising software to animal welfare groups. The company has helped animal shelters and humane societies raise more than $10 million since it launched in late 2013 through its donate-to-vote photo-contest fundraising software. I co-developed the GoGo Photo Contest software platform with Jason and Stevie Shea and currently manage the company’s financials and marketing efforts.
In 2016, I brought together 31 investors to launch Falls Angel Fund, the first new angel investment fund in Sioux Falls in more than a decade. Since then, I’ve raised more than $3 million in seed-stage venture capital to invest in scalable companies located in South Dakota and surrounding states. I have also personally invested in more than 60 startups, including Buffer, Cafe X, Dollar Shave Club, Lyft, Ripple, and Wikia.
In 2019, I founded Startup Sioux Falls, a community organization which aims to connect founders with each other and with our community’s startup ecosystem. Startup Sioux Falls now boasts more than 6,000 members and holds bi-monthly events to foster connection and collaboration within the startup community.
I also am the author of eight personal finance and entrepreneurship books, including Online Business from Scratch, Email Marketing Demystified, The Ten-Year Turnaround, and Automatic Income. I serve on the Board of Trustees at Sioux Falls Seminary, on the Board of Directors at the Zeal Center for Entrepreneurship and on the organizing committee for 1 Million Cups in Sioux Falls. I live in Sioux Falls, SD, with my wife Karine, and my two children, Micah and Adylin.
Connect with me on social media:
You can find me on AngelList at https://angel.co/matthewpaulson
You can find me on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewpaulson
You can find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/matthewpaulsonpage
You can find me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MatthewDP
You can find me on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/MatthewDPX