# Matthew Howells-Barby: Growth for the frontier of finance

Growth for the frontier of finance, where there's no playbook to copy.

I founded and sold a company, then spent years running growth at scale in crypto's most volatile, heavily regulated markets. Now I'm building an AI-native, agent-driven growth org from the ground up. I'm back in the trenches with the team, doing what I do best.

[The operating record](https://mhb.xyz/operating-record/)

Right now I'm building a fully agent-driven growth org in crypto prop trading, at Breakout. Not a team that uses AI tools. A growth system where agents do the work a growth org used to throw people at.

Breakout, under Payward / since Feb 2026

## Essays

[![Cover illustration for the Traffic Think Tank sale essay](https://mhb.xyz/assets/bootstrap-to-buyout.4195b651bdb5.webp)](https://mhb.xyz/essays/bootstrap-to-buyout/)

Growth / 24 Oct 2023

### [From Bootstrap to Buyout: How We Sold Our Side Hustle to a Public Company](https://mhb.xyz/essays/bootstrap-to-buyout/)

The Traffic Think Tank sale, told from the founder side of the table.

[![Cover illustration for the product-market fit essay](https://mhb.xyz/assets/incentive-systems.e2556bc64d12.webp)](https://mhb.xyz/essays/incentive-systems/)

Growth / 6 Feb 2024

### [You Can't Buy Product-Market Fit](https://mhb.xyz/essays/incentive-systems/)

[![Cover illustration for the Going All-In essay](https://mhb.xyz/assets/going-all-in.77446ebc1eb2.webp)](https://mhb.xyz/essays/going-all-in/)

Career / 27 Apr 2022

### [Going All-In](https://mhb.xyz/essays/going-all-in/)

[![Cover illustration for the This Time It's Different essay](https://mhb.xyz/assets/this-time-its-different.3211f2554776.webp)](https://mhb.xyz/essays/this-time-its-different/)

Economics / 16 Feb 2024

### [This Time It's Different](https://mhb.xyz/essays/this-time-its-different/)

[![Cover illustration for the Traffic Think Tank community business essay](https://mhb.xyz/assets/1mm-arr-community-business.a780b5b2980d.webp)](https://mhb.xyz/essays/1mm-arr-community-business/)

Growth / 29 Aug 2019

### [Growing a $1mm+ ARR community business: The story of Traffic Think Tank](https://mhb.xyz/essays/1mm-arr-community-business/)

[![Cover illustration for the crypto cult-problem essay](https://mhb.xyz/assets/cult-problem-in-crypto.8a37d3999f06.webp)](https://mhb.xyz/essays/cult-problem-in-crypto/)

Crypto / 16 Nov 2022

### [Our Fearless Leader: the Cult Problem in Crypto](https://mhb.xyz/essays/cult-problem-in-crypto/)

[Read the essays](https://mhb.xyz/essays/)

Source: [https://mhb.xyz/](https://mhb.xyz/)