9.5 Ways To Make $100 Million

Today I'm going to share with you nine and a half ways to make $100 million. Some of these ideas are unique to me and where I am in my career. And others you could rip off and steal and do yourself if you have a similar goal. I hope at the end of this episode you feel inspired to take inventory of the opportunities sitting in front of you and ask yourself the question, how good could this get? Because I think if you do the exercise that I'm gonna share with you in this episode, you're gonna see that you might be sitting on bigger opportunities than you're giving yourself credit for. Hey, I'm Ryan Daniel Moran. I'm the founder of capitalism.com I help entrepreneurs build brands, get to 100 sales a day, and have a multimillion dollar exit. We have hundreds of success stories of people who have built million dollar businesses. And ever since I was a kid, I had this dream of being worth at least $100 million. No one in my family had ever earned that amount of money. That amount of net worth would have been bigger than anyone I had ever met or even heard of. Because this was before YouTube, before podcasts, before there were people out there who were sharing the playbook, who were normalizing really big success. Today you could tap into any number of multimillionaires or billionaires and learn directly from them. And if you wanna build a business, you have pretty much all the free education you could ever need. But when I was a kid, this was an impossible goal, but I still had it. I wanted to see if it was possible for me. I wanted to see if I could figure out the path. Now I'm not worth $100 million yet. The biggest business I've ever had was about $10 million. I sold that for about $15 million valuation. That was back in 2017. And ever since then I've been teaching entrepreneurs to build million dollar businesses. But a good friend of mine and a coach, Brooke Castillo, challenged me recently in one of her classes. And she challenged me by showing me that I had not really set the hundred million dollar goal and started working towards it. And she questioned if the reason I was not doing that was because I didn't believe it. So I took inventory of that and said, hmm, why is it that I'm not actively moving towards this goal? And the answer was because I couldn't see the path. I just couldn't see the how. I couldn't make myself believe that I was on track for that. And therefore I used that as evidence to not pursue It. So I decided to do an exercise in which I just challenged that belief by listing out as many ideas as I could think of that could make me $100 million. Now, I might have to become a different person to do these. I might have to learn new skills to. To do these. But still I wrote out as many ideas as I could that I could make $100 million. And I'm gonna share them with you right now. So this is my journal. This is where I wrote all of the ideas, all of my hundred million dollar ideas. And I came up with nine and a half of them. And the first one is the following. I could sell a thousand NFTs at five Ethereum each and wait until Ethereum hits 20,000. I have an NFT project called the Capitalist Pigs. This is my mastermind. We get together three to four times a year. They get VIP treatment at our annual event called the Capitalism Conference. And I give them my deal flow that comes from my private network and the exposure that I have to entrepreneurs, they see my deals first. So the Capitalist Pigs is my mastermind. And we launched it in mid-2022 during a crypto winter. We have about 100 people in there right now and the Launch cost was 5 Ethereum. That will go up over time as the demand for it swells. But it made me ask the question, well, if I could sell a thousand of them over the next three to five years and build a really great mastermind, and I had charged an average of 5 ETH, maybe more for that, that would give me 5,000 Ethereum. And if Ethereum went from $1,000, which is what it was when we launched, to, to $20,000, which it could do over the next 10 to 15 years, that would be $100 million. This was interesting for me to write out because it was like, oh yeah, I could do that. If I really put all my focus into filling up 1,000 spots at five Ethereum each. Yeah, that's actually within striking distance of being worth a hundred million dollars. If I'm willing to wait for ethereum to hit 20,000, which it may or may not do, but still, it's one way that I could make a hundred million do. The second way to make $100 million is I looked at my primary business, which is called capitalism.com, and I could get that to a $10 million EBITDA. That's $10 million in profits. If I got it to $10 million in profit, then I could do a raise at a really big valuation. And I wrote down $120 million. Because if I sold 10% of it at $120 million valuation, then I would still own 90% of it, which would be worth about $100 million. Now that would be net worth. It wouldn't be money that I could spend, but it would still be worth $100 million. The faster you can think about the value of your businesses rather than the cash flow you take, the faster you can increase your net worth. If you want to see me talk about this in a full video, I did a breakdown of this called the three types of money and their cash flow, wealth and enterprise value. Cash flow is what we can spend. Wealth is the value of your total investments. And then enterprise value is what you could sell a business for if you decided to sell it. And the faster you can raise the enterprise value, the faster your net worth goes up. So if I could get my primary business to $10 million in EBITDA would put me in striking distance of $100 million net worth. That was fun to think about because I could totally get capitalism.com to a $10 million EBITDA. In fact, after writing this down, I was like, it would be sill not to get this to a $10 million EBITDA. I have the plan in my head. I could just 100% believe that and go after that. And I could hit this goal. I could totally hit this goal. Seeing that on paper sort of gave me a vote of confidence that I was on the right track. And you know how it is when you feel like you're on the right track, it makes you want to double down. And that's what writing this out did for me. Okay, the third way that I could make $100 million is this one takes a little bit of explaining. I wrote I could own 10% of bodybuilding.com and I could sell it for a billion dollars. Now I'm an investor in Bodybuilding.com, i own like 1% of it, but I've been talking with the management team about becoming more involved because the bodybuilding and supplement world is part of my background. And I've been talking with the management team about how this company should be or could be a billion dollar company. So If I owned 10% of that as a result of investing more capital or earning equity by getting more involved in the company or by expanding a new division of that business, and I was able to help take that to a billion dollars, that would be worth $100 million. Now, just for full disclosure, that hasn't happened yet. It's just an idea that came up when I wrote this down. And now I can say, hmm, do I wanna pursue something like that? Do I wanna get more involved in that project? Is that the most obvious way for me to make $100 million? Or do some of the other ideas on here stand out as more obvious? The fourth way that I could make $100 million is I could sell Sheer Strength, which is a company that I own, for $150 million, because at the ownership that I have, that would give me $100 million exit. And I also wrote down what would need to happen in order for me to sell this company for 150, $50 million. And the answer is, I would need a top line revenue of about $50 million. Now, this is where my brain really started to get creative. In case you don't know, I started a company in 2013 called Sheer Strength Labs. It was a supplement company that took about 60% of its sales on Amazon, 40% of its sales through retail stores. And I sold that in 2017 at a valuation of $15 million. The private equity group that bought it ran it into the ground. So I bought it back last year in 2022 for less than $1 million. And I'm intending of building that back up to a great company and having another exit or just holding it long term. And so if I know that a $50 million top line equals $100 million net worth for me, what would have to happen in order for me to have a $50 million top line revenue business? Now, my first thought when I wrote this down was, well, I've never done that before. I've only ever taken this business to $10 million. So what makes me think that I could take it to 50? But then I started writing down some numbers and here's what I figured out. If I had a group of supplements on auto ship and the average customer value was $150 a month, then I would need 20,000 people at $150 a month to have a 35 million per year company. Then if you factor in other product sales and also sales from Amazon or other sources, that would put that business in striking distance of being a $50 million top line business and thus be worth, for me, over $100 million. Now, it was really helpful for me to run those numbers because it gave me one singular point of focus. If I go to the team when we set our goals and say, hey, our only goal is to build up an auto ship program that's so good that people wanna pay 150 to $200 a month. And then we're gonna go run advertising until we have 20,000 members. That's a very clear goal. When I started teaching e commerce and helping entrepreneurs build million dollar businesses, I kind of got mini famous for one simple math formula. It's four products times 25 sales a day is 100 sales a day. And at a $30 price point, that's $3,000 a day or just over a million dollars a year. Seeing it broken down, that simply gave a lot of people permission to pursue that as a goal. Which is why so many of our students build million dollar businesses. Because they see the path. They just know they need four products at 25 sales a day at a $30 price point. That's kind of what happened for me when I wrote down that 20,000 people at $150 a month is a $35 million a year top line business. Because now I say, okay, I need to figure out that. I need to figure out what the product is that is so good that people wanna buy it every month for 150 or $200. And then I need to put 20,000 people into that funnel. That was really freeing and very helpful for my focus as I plan out the next steps of this company. Okay, idea number five. To make $100 million, I could help 10 brands get to a $10 million valuation and then exit. I have an investment fund called the Capitalism Fund. We invest in businesses that are doing about a million dollars in top line that are run by solopreneurs or small teams, and we help them get to five to $10 million by bringing in capital and advice and relationships and systems. Well, if I had 10 brands at $10 million, that would be worth $100 million. Now. I wouldn't own all of that. I would own only a small piece of that. I might only take home 20 or 25 million dollars only. So I took it one step further and said, well, what if this same business launched brands internally that I had more ownership in and we took five brands to a $25 million valuation? That would be over $100 million and I would own most of that. So that would put me closer to $100 million. So that makes me think, okay, what systems or opportunities or people would I need to bring in to make it possible for us to have 10 brands at $10 million or five brands at 20 some million dollars? It's a really interesting question to ask your brain. Okay, what would need to be true in order for that to be Possible because it takes yourself out of it. Right? I know that I alone can't sit here and make five brands, run them, and see them be worth $25 million. I don't have that kind of capacity by myself. So what would need to be true in order for that to be possible? That is a useful question. Okay, idea number six is kind of funny. I simply said, well, I could raise $1 million from 100 people and then go buy something at 50% off. So here's what I mean by that. If I could raise $100 million and go buy an apartment building in the next crash and turn it around so it was worth $200 million, that would be $100 million in profit. Now, who knows how that would break down in terms of ownership. But if I could raise $100 million from people and then go make a really big purchase and flip it, I mean, that's actually possible. I mean, people do that all the time. And it made me think, okay, what would need to be true for that to happen? Well, I'd need a bigger audience. I would need to be in front of richer people. I would need to have a really compelling offer that made people want to put in a million dollars. But I could do it. I mean, Graham Stephan could do that tomorrow, right? He could go raise $100 million by making a video about it. So if I had an audience like that, okay, that would be totally possible. So if I wanted to make that a reality, I would need to get really serious about the type of content I'm creating and. And how fast it's growing. Number seven is similar. I said, I could buy $100 million, double it, and then flip it. I actually really like that idea. Go out and find a business that's worth $100 million and raise the capital for it, partner with a private equity group, be chairman of the board, double it, and flip it. Which means I would need to buy a business that was within my skillset and within my network. It would need to be in a growing and emerging market, and it would need to have great products and a great team, and then we'd double its value and flip it. That's actually how Gary Vaynerchuk told me that he was gonna buy the New York Jets. When I was sitting on stage with him in 2015, I asked him what his plan was to buy the Jets. I know he wants to do it, but how is he gonna do it? And he said, I'm gonna build the machine. I'm gonna buy a company. I'm gonna flip it and make.

I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Not easy, but if you've got the right team for it and you've spent 10 years preparing yourself for it, then, yep, that is one way you could make $100 million. I know I've lost half of you at this point because you're like, Ryan, I can't do any of these things. I'm not like you. I'm not handsome and charismatic like you. Look, the purpose of this exercise was just to get ideas flowing and start to train my brain to see these types of opportunities. Because if I can see the opportunity, then maybe I'll believe it. And if I believe it, maybe I'll do the actions that are in alignment with it. And if I do the actions in alignment with it, then I could make it happen. I realize how much energy I give to the negative thoughts in my brain that say I can't or I'm not good enough. How often am I feeding the fire in my brain that says it's totally possible? It just breaks down numbers. You just need to know the right people, have the right skillset, and put in enough time, and it's possible. I want to feed that thought. I want to feed that belief, and that's what this exercise is doing for me. Okay, idea number eight needs a little bit of explanation. I could launch a business with my friend Jimmy Dartz, and we could sell it for $250 million. Jimmy Darts is a friend of mine who actually kind of came from this audience, and he has a huge following, just going around doing acts of kindness for people. He had the number five most watched TikTok video in 2022, and he has over 10 million followers. Now, Jimmy and I have been talking about launching a business to his audience of 10 million people. And with that kind of an audience, I mean, you could get a business into nine figures. I mean, if you've got a million people that are buying from you because you have a great product and they're spending $100 each on average, that's $100 million a year business. You could sell that for $250 million. So what would need to be true, what would need to be possible in order for that business to become worth several hundred million dollars that, when I sold it, gave me 100 million bucks.

Now, once again, this is just an idea. This hasn't launched yet. We don't even have the paperwork on this business yet. It's just an idea. But it's really fun to think about how it could be possible, rather than all the doubts and fears that I might have surrounding that project in my brain. Number nine is so simple and stupid.

But it's an idea. I could put $2 million into Bitcoin and wait for it to 50x, which would be a million dollars per bitcoin, which would be $100 million. Now, this I don't have any control over, right? I can't make the price of bitcoin go up, but if I believe that it was going to a million dollars per coin, which, you know, it's possible in the next 10 to 15 years, then I could put $2 million into Bitcoin and just wait for it to 50x. That would get me $100 million. Now, I'm not saying that's a good idea. I'm not saying I'm gonna do that, but it is a way for me to make 100 million bucks. And it's nice to think about ways that are sort of outside my control. Because when you doubt yourself or you don't think you can do it, it's nice to think, oh, it's still possible, even if I suck, because there are some things that might expand so much or there are some things that are so obvious that I don't need to be smart or good in order for me to hit my goals. Okay, so that's nine ways that I could make $100 million. Now, I'm gonna give you the bonus. Nine and a half. This idea anybody could do and this way takes most of the guesswork out of it for me, but it's also really, really boring. So here's the question I asked. I asked, if I just invested everything that I could and I had an unlimited amount of time, how long would it take for me to make $100 million if I just invested in the S&P 500? The S&P 500 has an average growth rate over the last 50 years of 9.4%, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, and who knows what it's going to do in the future? But I asked myself the question, what would I need to invest and for how long for me to make $100 million at that average growth rate? Here's what I figured out. If I invested $1 million per year, then it would become worth $100 million in 25 years. I don't want to wait that long, and I don't want to just invest in the S&P 500. But if I put $1 million a year into the S&P 500 and it average 9.4%. It becomes $100 million over 25 years. It was actually really, really freeing to run those numbers. First of all, what it did is it made me say, okay, yeah, I definitely want to invest a million dollars a year. What needs to be different? What do I need to focus on in order to spit off more cash flow so that I can invest that amount of money? What would need to be true about my business or my life for me to make a million dollars a year that I could invest? And also, am I willing to wait 25 years if I know that it's going to be worth $100 million? I'm 35 years old right now, so that would make me worth $100 million at age 60. Am I willing to do it for that long? Well, when you know something is going to work, you have no resistance to it. You have no doubt to it. So it made total sense for me to say, yes, I want to invest a million dollars a year for 25 years. Because I love the idea of having $100 million basically in a savings account via the s and P500. Now I can hear some people thinking, yeah, it must be nice to be able to make a million dollars a year that you can invest. I don't mean to sound trite, but you can, too. A million dollars a year is just four products at 25 sales a day, at a $30 price point. Or it's 300 people paying $300 a month, or it's 100 people paying $10,000 a year. It. It's possible. So what this exercise did for me is it took me out of scarcity mode. It put me into the mode of, oh, there's lots of ways to make a hundred million dollars. In fact, there's lots of ways to make a billion dollars. I just can't think that big yet. But now I can sort of narrow down this list and say, okay, which of these ideas are worthy of my focus? Cause I'm not gonna do all of them, but I could do several of them. I'm gonna be running capitalism.com anyway, so why not sprint towards a $10 million EBITDA? Why not make that my goal so that I can, say, $10 million EBITDA, $100 million valuation, now I'm worth $100 million. Why not do that? Why not prioritize that and get around the people that can help me do that? Why not tell my team that that's the goal? Why not go as hard as possible in that direction? Because I'm going to do it anyway. Why not sell a thousand NFTs? Why not hold all the money in Ethereum and wait for it to go to 20,000? Why? Why would I not choose to pursue that? Why would I choose not to believe that? Why not take sheer strength to a $50 million top line? Why not shoot for something like that? It helped me realize how many different ways there are to get to this goal and that I don't need a new opportunity. I don't need to find a better way. I don't need to seek a different business. I'm actually right on track. And if I just change the way that I'm thinking about the opportunities in front of me, then I can make any of them as successful as I want them to be. So overall, what this exercise did for me, it sort of aligned my goals and my beliefs. And because I was able to see how it was possible, choose to believe it and then figure out the action steps that I need to take in order to get closer to that goal. Whether your goal is to make a million dollars a year or to make $100,000 a year or $10 million a year, oftentimes the things that hold us back the most are the beliefs that we can't, that it's not possible and that we don't know anybody who's done that before. And that prevents us from hiring the mentor or to get into the mastermind, or to read the books or to try. Because our doubt prevents us from taking the actions that put us on track for whatever the goal is. And I would encourage you to take out a piece of paper and just brainstorm all the ways that you could get to that goal. Because the truth is, what your biggest goal is would be small to somebody else. So why not choose to believe it and go after it full throttle? So Those are my nine and a half ways to make $100 million. I hope it inspires you to think bigger and and to just pick one of your goals and go after it again. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran with capitalism.com See ya. If you found value in this podcast and you're ready to go deeper, here are three resources where we can help you. 1. You can grab my book 12 months to 1 million on Audible or Amazon. It has over a thousand reviews and it's the playbook to building a seven figure business. Second, you can join our community of entrepreneurs who are following a plan to build a 1% net worth by building businesses and investing the profits. You can get plugged in@Capitalism.com One and third, if you're looking to go deeper and build a seven figure business that you can sell, you can work closely with us inside the Capitalism incubator and you can get on the waiting list and find out what we do over at capitalism.com Inc. That's capitalism.com Inc.