profile

The Quarter

She Got Paid for Her MBA Instead

Published 1 day ago • 2 min read

She Got Paid for Her MBA Instead

Matt Gira

July 1st, 2025

This deep dive was an adventure to create. I was prepped to record and then a bunch of Stuart Little's decided to take over my recording studio at home.

So, you all get to see what my childhood bedroom was like in this one.

No, my high school trophies are not still in my bedroom. Sorry for disappointing.

Enjoy this week's deep dive with Layla Pomper! Let me know what was most helpful.

"By saying it's my MBA business, I basically gave myself permission for the first three years to just focus on learning and getting paid anything to learn is great when you compare it to an MBA where you're paying to learn."

That's Layla Pomper, the founder of ProcessDriven, a company that helps small teams clean up their operations so they can turn their messy chaos into control.

Layla has bootstrapped ProcessDriven to over $250,000 in annual revenue and over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. But here's the thing - ProcessDriven was never supposed to be like this.

It was supposed to be just a business that she would run for maybe two or three years. Well, seven years later, and Layla still hasn't applied for a new job.

In this deep dive, we'll explore the mindset that helped Layla grow ProcessDriven initially, the three different chapters or pivots of ProcessDriven, and how Layla has used YouTube to grow ProcessDriven to where it is today.

Secret

Affiliate

This email/section contains affiliate links. I earn a commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost.

There are tons of software tools out there, and all those costs add up fast. One tool that helps simplify things and makes costs a bit more manageable is Secret.

Secret offers software deals for all kinds of founders. It also makes it easier to discover tools you might not have heard of yet, and there could even be some free credits waiting for you to use.

A Secret membership might actually pay for itself depending on which tools you sign up for!

​

Recommendations

​Midwest House Summit​

Midwest House is one of my favorite groups building the ecosystem around the Midwest. So excited that they'll be hosting their own summit in December with Bamboo. If you're close to Grand Rapids, highly recommend putting it on your calendar!

​We all need a laugh?​

There's a lot going on in the world at the moment. I don't know about you, but I'll always take a good laugh and this clip definitely made me chuckle. Especially as someone who wears Lululemon more and more 🤷‍♂️

​

Matt Gira

Connect with me on LinkedIn!

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
​Unsubscribe​

The Quarter

Matthew Gira

How bootstrapped businsses go from $0 to $250k in annual revenue.

Read more from The Quarter
Kylen Blom sitting on a couch in his bright, art-filled studio space, wearing a dark button-up shirt and baseball cap, gesturing while speaking during an interview

Sleeping in Boats Led to This $300k Studio Matt Gira June 3rd, 2025 Quick idea I'm testing: What if I did a monthly report on bootstrapped companies? Different focus each month. Examples could be data on how founders spend their time, growth channel deep dives, the most popular tools among bootstrapped companies. Similar vibe to The Bootstrapped Report 2025. Would you pay $20/month for something like that? Would you pay $20/month for more reports on boostrapped businesses? YES. I'd buy this!...

29 days ago • 2 min read
Brandi Bernoskie, founder of Alchemy & Aim, with NASA logo representing her journey from NASA writer to million-dollar business owner.

NASA Writer to $1M Founder Matt Gira May 20th, 2025 Hello! The newsletter has an updated look :) Reply to this email and let me know what you think? Brandi Bernoskie didn’t set out to build a million-dollar business. In 2011, she was writing content for NASA and running a small blog on the side, mostly for herself. As she taught herself to code websites and friends started asking for help, a small side project grew into something more. A couple of key mindset shifts turned that side hustle...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Marko Saric, the co-founder of Plausible Analytics, smiling in front of the Plausible dashboard with the word 'GOOGLE' crossed out - embodying their core positioning as the anti-Google Analytics alternative

Hi friend! Welcome to The Quarter! Yep, the new name for this newsletter. Thanks, all for your help on this! And yes, I'm working on these deep dives as official podcasts. More on that soon :) What hurdle are you trying to overcome with your business? I'm happy to help! Here's this week's deep dive: In 2018, when Uku Täht was asked to set up Google Analytics for his company, he asked a key question: "Can we just use something other than Google Analytics?" At the time, the answer was no. But...

about 2 months ago • 2 min read