This Weird Niche Makes Them $7 Million/Year

This business is weird, but it sells over $500,000 per month. 3 years ago, these 2 brothers hadn't even made their first million, but this year they'll sell over $7 million. And here's the weird part. They don't sell $30 supplements or do any sort of white label products. They sell $1,000 radios that you install into your car, and they have huge margins. Juan Ramon and Carlos found my podcast back in 2020, And just like hundreds of other entrepreneurs, they used my playbook to build a 7-figure business, but it took them a full 3 years to get to 7 figures for the first time. But then they went to $2 million, $3 million, $5 million, and now $7 million. Here's the part that I didn't expect. They credit their growth to doing less rather than more. So in this podcast, you're going to hear why focus on a few high-margin products can be your ticket to cracking 7 figures. You'll also discover how you can sell ridiculously expensive physical products and still beat all of your competitors. Juan Ramon and Carlos flew in from Spain for our in-person mastermind to record this podcast. And if you decide to work with us at any time in the future, you'll be invited to sit down at one of these masterminds in the future. Here's the conversation on how these 2 dudes sold weird products to work their way to a multimillion-dollar business.

So you guys are what, at $500,000 a month or so right now?

Yeah.

Okay. And how old is the business? When did you get started?

So we started 5 years ago in 2021.

Okay. So 5 years now, we're at half a million dollars a month, right? You did what, $7 million in the last 12 months? Is that about right?

Yeah.

And then a year ago you did 5-ish, right?

Yeah.

All right. So walk me through how long it took you to get to the million. And then I want to know how long it took you to go from a million to this $7 million run rate. So do you remember when you crossed a million dollars in sales?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was actually in 2024. We reached $1 million per year, like that year. I think it was like 21st of December. He called me. I was in a museum with my girlfriend and he called me and I was like, look at Shopify. And I go in and it's like year to date, $1 million. And that was pretty sick.

I see. I didn't know this. So it took you, it took you longer than the 12 months to $1 million plan to get to the first million. But once you hit the million, then you started seeing a lot of growth into the multimillions. Is that right, Carlos?

Yeah, that's exactly right. It took us, uh, 3 years to reach the, um, the $1 million and then it grew like from 1 to 3. To 5 and now to 7.

Okay. I wanna hear how that all happened, but first, how did you find my little cult to start building your first million-dollar business?

Capitalism?

Yeah.

We found it in 2020, I think. Yeah.

Yeah.

Like from very, very early on, we were like listening to your podcast about how people would like go about the first product scaling, uh, the 100 emails, et cetera, et cetera.

You did not have the business at this point, right? You were—

We had another one. Uh, another one that we just didn't manage to make the cross $10K a month. That was when we were like applying a lot of your stuff to that business. And then eventually we launched a new one and that did very well. Yeah, we continued with your advice just on this other business and that worked very well. And it's the one we have right now.

Now, I didn't know this little factoid before we sat down and recorded the interview. I did not know that they had multiple businesses before they had Merge Screens hit 7 figures. This is very common among entrepreneurs. They're trying to build multiple things that are doing a very low amount of sales. It makes the most sense to just choose one and go all in on that, at least until something is doing at least $100,000 per month. So if you need help cracking that $100,000 a month level, you can get all of our free resources and go through our AI assessment over at capitalism.com/100k. That's our plan and our playbook to take any business to the first $100,000 per month. It's capitalism.com/100k.

Okay.

So started, started that from scratch with the plan in place, but it took 3 years to get to $1 million, but then it's sort of doubled pretty much every year since. It sounds like it's on that track. Is that right?

Yeah. Last year we did, uh, 3x.

Yeah. 3x last year.

Yeah.

So why don't you give like a quick overview of what you guys do at Merge Screens, what you sell, and the price point, because the price point's different than most of the people who come from my ecosystem who are and $50 and $100 things and building million-dollar businesses. Yours is a little bit different. So give a, give an overview of the product line and the price point.

Sure. Uh, so what we sell are basically new, new radios, new screens for cars. So you basically, you take out your old radio with a small screen and you install like a new radio with a huge screen and new technology and new features.

Like a big Tesla screen.

Exactly.

Like a Tesla screen installed into any car pretty much.

Exactly. So like you kind of update like the interior entertainment system of your car. You make it feel modern. So you keep your F-150 from 2017, but it's as if it's from 2026. And the price point is between $1,000 and $2,000.

So Carlos, what in the world made you decide to get into that market? You followed my playbook to a T, except for the fact you decided to launch a $1,000 physical product. What in the world made you go into that space?

Yeah, so when we started e-commerce, we started selling $10 objects, but we kept starting to sell more and more expensive things. The company we had before, we started with an $80 product and we moved up to $500 and people kept paying for it. So we just said, let's go up because it's the same work to sell like one small item than to sell like a $1,000 item. And so we started to look what we could do. in that higher range. And we found technology for automotive worked like amazingly.

So what is your margin on a $1,000 or $2,000 physical product?

It's around, uh, 40, 45%.

Uh-huh.

That's the average.

Why do you think it took you a full 3 years to get to the million, whereas now you tripled in the last year? What did you do differently in the last year Versus the first 3 years when you were grinding your way to the first million?

I mean, you gotta make mistakes, don't you? And like learn from them. So that's basically what it was. We did mistakes, we didn't learn, we make a mistake again, and then we learned. And then with 100 different things, I mean, we still do that, to be honest, just at a higher scale. It's new problems and depends how fast you learn, then you scale further.

Actually an interesting thing. this has not been an overnight success. Recently we got the 10,000 orders milestones from Shopify.

Yeah.

That took us 7 years. So it took us 3 years of losing money on other e-commerces to start making some money. And all that time we got new things that we learned. So when we launched merch screens, all that we have learned like came like That mainly, I think the reason why it grew so fast as well.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's good for a lot of people to hear because when you see the headline that you're running a half million dollar a month business with 40 to 50% margins, it's easy to just think, must be nice. Okay. That's the way to do it. But in reality, there were years of failures leading up to it before you really cracked pay dirt.

Yeah. Yeah.

So how long were you guys trying to be entrepreneurs before Mergestream I remember it was January 2019 where we bought our first e-commerce course. And from then on, it was, I think a year and a half of like just plainly losing money, trying to figure it out. And then for a year and a half being breakeven. And then for another year, maybe making a little bit of money and then a bit more. And then like now the last 2 years, it's where we have done like 95% of all of our—

Walk me through the, how you acquire customers because there's not, you're not throwing these on Amazon trying to rank for keywords of people looking for new screens, right? You have a, you have a different way that you're acquiring customers. So walk me through how you're acquiring new customers.

So we started mainly on Google because surprisingly people look for these things. They're not happy with the the infotainment system they have on their vehicles. So they try to find a new one. So today we do basically 50% Google, 50% Meta ads, and we have like some organic traffic now. People start to know us and 10% of our, you know, sales come from referrals. So that's basically what we do.

You guys mentioned that you've tripled in the last year, you, you 3x'd, but I hope it's okay me saying this. You guys have also expressed that you don't always feel like you've made it, right? It still like surprises you that it's been this successful. I think, Carlos, I think it was you that said that a year ago, if you had told me that I had a half a million dollar a year business or a half million dollar a month business, you would've just been absolutely blown away beside yourself, right? So would you guys comment a little bit on how this has surprised you and if you feel successful running a $7 million business?

I do not feel successful. I think I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just doing my best, uh, for the people that work with us as well. I would have never thought this was possible. In my mind, the amount of money we make a year now, I just, I don't know. The words don't come out when I think about it.

Yeah. It's, we often talk about it. Like, I think we don't, we are not processing what is actually happening. We just like, Are like, okay, we need to grow. Like, let's try to grow on another $100K a month. And like, we focus on that, but very few times we actually stop and think like, it's half a million a month. It's quite crazy.

So do you just not think about it because it would freak you out?

I think we just don't know what to do with the information, to be honest. We're just like, okay, yeah, it doesn't seem real, but it seems to be. So let's just keep going and make it bigger.

It seems like a game. So we, at this point, this is a game. Now I say like, it does look like we live in a simulation. So, you know, let's keep playing. Let's see which level Well, we, we reach and that's it.

Yeah.

That's how we take it. We always say that it's a game.

I think that is a very healthy perspective to have. Most people, when they get to the level that exceeds their expectations, it just becomes about more because they, it's exceeding their expectations and they don't feel different. And so maybe more will get me there. But this mentality of it just being a game at this point, it's like house money. Right? We exceed our expectations. Like, all right, like how good can it get is a very healthy perspective to have. And I think at some point it will go from, okay, how do we add an extra $100K to how do we add another $5 million in enterprise value?

Yeah.

Like how do we make this $5 million more valuable to the potential acquirer of this business?

Right.

Do the two of you think about an exit For a pile of money and what comes next? Or are you so focused on taking this from $5,000 to $600,000 a month that you don't think about that yet?

We have found out that the less things you focus on, the more you grow.

Where'd you hear that?

I don't know, maybe some guy, Ryan, I think, at some point.

Sounds like a jerk.

Um, so we just focus on one thing at a time. And that's not one of, uh, one of them. I, I also believe that building enterprise value and building a company that's worth selling, it's basically making a company where you are more comfortable. What do you think?

I mean, I think it's definitely in the horizon. We just don't know when or how. So until the moment comes, we'll just try to build something great and big and that someone actually wants to buy.

Do either of you worry about it all going away at this point?

Like stepping away from the company?

No. Do you ever worry that all of the things that you've been building and what you've been growing is all gonna go away?

I mean, yeah. We had like an issue a couple of months ago and we lost like in 10 days, 30% of our revenue. And I felt like I was dying. Like we were going to go bankrupt. Um, my mind was, I, I couldn't sleep. And then, um, you take a step back and you think like, where was I 2 years ago? Dude, you are gonna be fine.

Tell me more about that. This, you, you told me that you were, you were right at $500,000 a month, right? You just had your first $500,000 month and then you had this pullback to like $350,000. That was keeping you up at night and you were worried about going bankrupt. Tell me what was going on in your brain when you had that drop in revenue?

Just pure anxiety. I sleep like a baby always. So for me, not sleeping, I was worried first for the people that work with us because I feel like we're a bit responsible for taking care of them. Also because we have spent like years in the making and the thought that it could disappear, my deepest fear would be like, I would be like a failure, not to anyone. I don't care about that, but to myself, like, Carlos, I thought you could do this and you failed.

Hmm. What was going through in your head when you had that drop in revenue?

Honestly, I was like way less worried, but because I trusted him, like it was his area, it was like a marketing thing and I do operations, so I could not, I figured the best thing is like not really to intervene because like, what am I gonna tell him?

Like, so what, so what was the situation that was the reason for the pullback in revenue?

So basically we changed, um, the Google account. Uh, we had an issue with the person we got to do the job that disappeared overnight. So that was like $40,000 a month in ad spend that disappeared. And then we had to start a new account. And then in Meta, they disconnected the pixel from Shopify. So basically it didn't know whether we were making sales or not. So we dropped, like the ROAS dropped 80%.

And all of the ads stopped to work.

Yeah.

Like, and they didn't went back to working when we connected it. So we also had to like start over with the campaigns there.

Okay. So basically your advertising accounts got smashed.

Yeah.

Both algorithms had to be reteached.

Good news. We do have organic sales. Yeah. Yeah, it's true.

We've invested for years in SEO and we never really knew if it worked.

Now we know.

You said something interesting, which is that you trusted Carlos and you basically thought the best thing was to not intervene.

Yeah.

That says something about your partnership.

Mm-hmm.

And your relationship. So you have very distinct and defined roles.

Mm-hmm.

And you seem to stay out of each other's way.

Mm-hmm.

Tell me about the individual roles that you have at the company.

Mm-hmm.

What your jobs are and how you work together. Seemingly from the outside, so well together. Carlos, let me start with you.

So basically I do marketing and then the finance side, and I always say Juan Ramon does everything else.

So, uh, yeah. You're basically in a growth role.

Yeah.

Right. So advertising, split testing, conversions.

Yeah.

Marketing and sales is your domain.

Yeah.

Is that right? Okay. And you're everything else, which is?

Operations mainly. Yeah, to operate product and operations.

Let's put it that way.

And what is, what does that mean? What do you oversee?

Okay, well, exactly. I oversee our 4 employees who are on the phone, who deal with customers, who make sales, who do tech support. I oversee right now our product manager, who I'm training to be responsible of product and product page and CRO testing. Uh, which he's not doing right now. I'm doing it yet because I'm training him. Uh, which means all the organization of like the people who make it, things work from when a sale comes in until it arrives to a customer and it works correctly and then getting a review. So he gets the customer in the door and then like we process it.

So what's, um, interesting about our company and it's not as other e-commerce is that we are a service company. that sells products. Because once we sell the product, it's super heavy on post-customer support because people need to install it and then they have like questions. So we are super heavy there.

To be fair, we decided to be that way because we saw competitors that were not that way. They would sell the product. We saw, we would see a lot of people complain about there not being someone behind the product. So we were like, okay, there's an opportunity here. And we decided to go all in into that. And that's an analogy we use a lot of times. Like we're really like a service company that just like sells a product.

Did you agree to those roles from the very beginning? This is very typical of what Gino Wickman calls rocket fuel of somebody who is a visionary in charge of growth and somebody who has all the bases covered, making sure that nothing breaks. This is textbook. Rocket Fuel partnership. But I've never heard you guys mention that. Was this planned? Was it just an accident? How did you guys figure out the roles and keep them so well defined?

First, I always say I would have never achieved what I have achieved without him because when we started, every 2 months I came up with 10 ideas and I wanted to do all of them. Uh, and he was like, dude, Carlos, Let's do 2 and then in 6 months we can talk about new things. So, you know, I was like, okay, now I have this checklist. Uh, so he kept me more on the ground.

Which one of you is older?

I am.

Okay. So, so this is, this is, has this been going on your entire lives that you're coming up with ideas and you're the brake who keeps check on reality?

I don't know, to be honest. I mean, it's also very good, of course, because he has a lot of divergent thinking. It's great. Like otherwise, like I'm in my box and I don't get out of the box and, and with new ideas, like, yeah, 10 of them might not work, but one of them might be very good. And then like that unlocks a new part of revenue or of, or good things happening. And about our division, honestly, it's, it's kind of like by accident that we fell into these roles. I used to do marketing in the other store and he operations, but then I got blocked from Facebook.

That's true.

And he didn't. So he started to do marketing and eventually evolved in a way where I just fell into operations and he fell into marketing.

That's just a total happy accident.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that, that's, that's interesting because I thought you were gonna say that these were just natural reflections of your abilities.

Yeah.

And your, your, your personalities. But what actually happened is that you both learned them. You learned operations.

Yes.

You learned marketing.

That was not the plan at all.

Yeah. Yeah.

So these were skills that you just developed Through a lot of trial and error and studying because you committed to something, knew you had somebody who had your back, and you developed the skill.

Definitely.

Am I summarizing you accurately?

100%. Like, I'm actually—

That's really good to know.

Yeah, yeah, no, 100%. I used to love Meta ads because it was all about numbers and tables, and I love that stuff. And I didn't like to deal with people, and I had to learn how to not deal, like how to relate and have a relationship with my employees in a healthy way. So over time, it's going to be good for everyone. And I definitely had to learn it. And I think he also had to learn how to like stick to be on with the numbers and like just that. So I think you summarized it perfectly.

Yeah, that's really good to know that it was a skill to be developed rather than just a natural inclination and a reflection of your personality. I think that's really encouraging for people. I want to ask you about the product line itself, because I actually don't know if there's one SKU or if you have to have a bunch of different variations of the product for every different type of car and truck. So tell me about the product itself and how complicated the supply chain is.

The product. So there's a lot of SKUs. We used to have, how many do we have in the store? Maybe 100, because we thought, Well, of course, the more the better. Turns out not a great idea. And eventually we narrowed it down to like 10 or 15, and that's working pretty well for us.

Is that 10 to 15 models of car?

Is that—

No, it's like 6 models of screen. It's 6 models of car, and each model of car has like 3 screens.

I see.

Because like dashboard for a Ford from 2009 to 2016 is different than from 2017 to 2020. And the supply chain, well, we have Chinese manufacturers. Uh, we went through a lot of them and then settled for 2, uh, after a lot of trial and error. They produce for us and we get it shipped and then we sell it in the US.

Carlos, what happened last year when you tripled?

You obviously did something different. You don't go trucking along towards the first million for 3 years and then triple, you know, with everything staying the same. So something had to be different.

Yeah, we did less, um, surprisingly. Uh, we always, as he mentioned, we always thought the more the better. Um, it turns out it's not a good idea. Um, so we focused on the 5 models that made the most sales and revenue because we targeted so much better on paid ads. Those 5 models, we grew like way like faster and also We could serve our customers more and better.

Mm-hmm.

Because we were more specialized. Uh, what happened before is we made maybe one sale of one model a year or a month. And so we didn't really know how to help that person. The less we, we have done, the better.

So before last year, you had more products that you were selling.

Mm-hmm.

And you had more types of customers that you were targeting.

Mm-hmm.

And you cut a good number of them. Did you say you cut like 80% of them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you cut 80% of your products and your SKUs, and you focused on the ones that were highest margin and highest volume. And as a result, you were able to target them clear— clearer, and you're able to serve them at a higher level.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

And so removing products and focusing on a few people Was a core part of what allowed you to triple over the last calendar year.

Yeah.

All right, hang on. I wanna make sure that you caught this. Juan Ramon and Carlos tripled the year that they cut 80% of their products. They exploded the year that they removed products rather than added something new to the plate. I work with entrepreneurs every day who are struggling with growth and they have 9 different products. 9 different ideas and 4 different sales channels, and they're wondering why nothing is working. It's because they've got too much stuff going on. Now, this is really hard as an entrepreneur because you have put in a lot of work on a lot of different things, and it's okay to have lots of different products and lots of different ideas. But for a while, until you're at 7 figures, you have to make 1 or 2 things great. And so it's not about cutting things all the time. It's just about choosing where you put your focus. And in this case, once these guys focused on making a few things work, they cracked 7 figures and then they could expand and do things better that took them to multi-7 figures. Some people will look at this and say, ah, they have all these different SKUs and all these different things going on. That's the secret to getting to over $5 million. But the way that they got here was by simplifying first. And if you're under 7 figures, It makes the most sense to cut down on the things that you focus on until you crack that first $100,000 per month.

We, we had 2 major outbreaks where we had the most revenue. What first, when we decided to close one of the 2 stores we had, that was the year we went to a million.

You had another business?

We had another e-commerce. Yeah.

Oh, which is, so you were, you had the first business going?

Yeah.

For the first 2 years until your, your attention was split in 2 different, in 2 different. Oh, so the year that you closed the one. That's when you were able to put all your focus into merch screens and that's when it hit a million.

Yeah.

And we tripled the year we decided to focus only on 6 products instead of 30.

Oh damn. There's a lesson in there.

Yeah.

So what do you learn from that, Carlos?

Focus.

Focus.

We wanted to do at the beginning 3 stores because we would make more money.

Yeah.

And you make more money, but less profit. So you make no money. And then we went to one store and we started making money, but we wanted a lot of products 'cause we would make more money. Mm-hmm. But less profit. And last year we went to less products and we finally, uh, had our break— outbreak, as he said. Yeah.

Yeah.

Juan Ramón, walk me through why you think that's the case, that doing less significantly impacts how much money that you make.

Well, just from a pragmatic perspective, if you focus on 5 products instead of 30 a week, you're gonna dedicate more time to those 6 than to those 30. So instead of dedicating 1 hour a week to 30 products, you're gonna dedicate 5 hours to each of those 6 products. So more attention, more focus, you get more ideas, more time to implement those ideas. It narrows complexity. It's just, just way better. It's, it's much easier. It's, Uh, I like this quote of like, focus is saying no to other things. So if you say no to other things, you say yes to what is important. It's like this breakthrough.

I heard Alex Becker say recently that the big swings in business come from those 1% better ideas when you have space to think about them. And people think that it's in the activity, in the, in the doing more of something that produces Revenue and profit, but it's actually being just creative or better than everything else that is happening. And you need space in order for that to come through. And so by removing the focus of all these other things, you've created space to make that ad campaign better than the last one, or make that marketing sequence better than the last one. And as a result, you have the room to be able to make it better and better. And that is what allowed you to triple in a calendar year. That is absolutely insane. So am I, am I understanding what you're saying? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, as we have grown also, so before I used to do everything marketing related myself, so I had zero time to think. When we got our first person on email marketing, I was suddenly, you know, I had time and I could tell her like, Could we try this? And she would implement it. And 80% of the times it would not work, but the 20% that does, it sticks. And, you know, um, I think getting the headspace for creative thinking, the more time we have for that, both of us, the better the business gets. Yeah.

At some point you guys started building a team. It was just the two of you for I think in the first 3 years or so, right?

Of Merch Screens for— no, it started out with one per— one person that we had in the other e-commerce. We moved to 2 Merch Screens.

Okay.

So we had one part-time VA.

Yeah. Customer support.

Yeah.

All right. You had a part-time customer support person for years, but apart from that, it was just the 2 of you.

Yeah.

But at some point you started building an actual team and I forget how many people you have working for you now, but that's a, that's another skill that you had to develop. That's a hard one.

It's a tough one.

So, and that's ongoing forever, right? But how did you start to build that muscle of bringing on team members? Because you had to do it in order to go from $1 million to $7 million in a couple of years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Um, what was the first hire you made?

Another customer support. Okay. And—

Yeah, SEO.

SEO. Don't ask us why.

Oh, yes, ask us why, actually. Because when we were making $70K a month, we were like, we are rich. We are gonna sell this company for millions. And we started looking like, what do people want from a company? And we saw like different like sales channels. So let's do organic, you know, SEO. We're gonna be rich. We are gonna sell, you know, and we'll go to the Bahamas. So that's why we started with organic, basically. Yeah. Yeah.

Not a great choice as, I mean, first marketing hire to do because it takes like 2 years for it to pay off.

Yeah.

That's just a long time to hit pay dirt. Okay. So what was that like learning that skill and starting to build the team and learning how to relinquish control so that other people can build the business? That's a big learning curve.

How did we learn to do it? I mean, learning by doing. We made a lot of bad hires, of course. Some were good, which is a blessing. I mean, we always wanted to do a company where in other places, like employees complain about their bosses. And I was like, I don't want to be that person. Like, you know, I want people to have a good time, to have meaning, to find fulfillment in their job. Like even if it's answering to customer support email. So we really put a lot of effort to making them feel like they have a purpose in the company and to treat them well and to treat them with respect. Uh, which seems self-obvious, but apparently it's not. And that's been just ongoing to learn how to do better hires, to do how to do a better interview process, um, and to keep going.

There's kind of this underlying theme with the two of you of you've learned by doing.

Yeah.

You've just learned by setting it out and making it happen. You didn't, you didn't plan for much. You learned by making mistakes. And then adjusting. And I can't help but wonder if you're able to do that because the two of you know that you have each other's back. And I remember having that same mentality with my business partner, Matt, because I knew if one of us screwed up, the other was just gonna be there to catch the other.

Yeah.

It's not something that is automatic in a, with a solo venture, with a single founder. who's doing it all themselves, I don't know that they always have the same ability to say, we're just gonna learn by doing.

Mm-hmm.

Because there's not this understanding that someone has their back.

Hmm.

I'm, I may be projecting or making up a story, but I'm curious if that lands for the two of you of, because of your relationship and because you've worked together for long enough that you trust each other, if that gives you some cover To make mistakes.

I remember when we started, the first thing Juan Ramón told me was like, Carlos, if we have to choose between money or our relationship, we should both be very clear that the relationship comes first. I think that's what gives us security.

You wanna comment on that?

That's what we said at the very, very beginning when we We didn't even make our first sale. We were just setting up the Shopify store. I think that's very good to have clear, like you can get money sooner or later, but you cannot, it's very hard to fix a broken relationship, especially among family or very close friends. And it's definitely not worth it. And we had that clear from the beginning and that has set up our relationship during work. I have fucked not done it right a lot of times. And he has not been super mad at me. And I mean, The first 5 minutes, yes, he'll insult me, but then like, we'll go and fix it. And then likewise, he'll do something wrong and like, I'll be like, sheesh. Uh, and then we'll get at it.

He'll manage me.

Uh, but yeah, no, I, I think that's, that's it. It's like, okay, like we're, we both don't know what we're doing. So let's have some compassion for each other because at the end of the day, we're heading in the same direction.

Yeah.

I think it's pretty cool to have a business partner if you can. where you can like insult each other on that day because you're super mad at him and next day be like, okay, like let's go fix it because we got to fix it. I think that's a blessing because it removes a lot of the pressure. Like he has passwords to my bank accounts and I have his, but you know, like he's my brother. Like what is he going to do? Like I blindly trust him and I believe it's likewise for him. So there's nothing to be afraid of or I'm not afraid of anything. I think we have it back like 100%.

Yeah.

I'm just thinking about how in entrepreneurship it is, it's so riding on our shoulders and there's so much pressure and it is a lot of late nights and like sleepless nights and worry about taking care of people, taking care of ourselves. It's more pressure than the rest of the world will ever understand. I'm just reflecting on how as a, a solopreneur, there's no one to turn to and say, what are we gonna do?

Yeah.

But if you have a co-founder or at least someone on the team that you just implicitly trust, yeah, it really is a difference maker and it makes you more risk tolerant to go run the marketing campaign that may not work or to launch the product that is a home run product that may go to zero because you know that it's gonna be okay. So like someone's gonna have your back.

Yeah.

You're not gonna end up under a bridge somewhere, which is, as silly as it sounds, a real fear that a lot of entrepreneurs have. If this thing doesn't go well, I'm gonna lose everything. I'm gonna go bankrupt and no one will hire me. I'm gonna live under a bridge. It's just, it's just how we're wired as human beings.

Yeah.

It's similar to you saying that when we went to $500,000 a month to $350,000, we're, I'm gonna go bankrupt and I'm gonna lose everything. But when you know somebody has your back, That makes it at least tolerable. So would, would you reflect on when you were having that freakout moment? Was there some solace in knowing that like somebody had your back?

There was peace because we reached that level together and we could do it again. And he did not blame me for anything happening. We just looked for a way out on how to, you know, solve it. I don't know if that answers the question.

That's beautiful.

I think a lot of the times it's not just the fact that we have your back, it's, uh, to have someone who has knowledge about what is happening and who still trusts you. I think that's the big thing. Like last year there was something in operations that was my fault and my responsibility. He made me understand that he trusted me and that gave me also a bit of self-confidence, you know, it's like, okay, like. I might not trust myself, but he trusts me. So like, let's get at it. That's, I think that's, that's a big one.

That's great. I have one last question for you guys, and it's, you're at $7 million a year, and we've been working together officially since January. What keeps you coming from across the other side of the world to hang out in person when you're already at, you know, $7 million a year? Like what keeps you coming back to our in-person masterminds?

2 things. One, the people in the Mastermind. I think, as you said, entrepreneurship is a lonely way. So you come to this place and you meet people that think like you and understand your fears and issues. And also, the first time we came, we only got one idea, and that idea made us like grow so much the last like 3, 4 months. And we came back here 4 months after and I got one idea, which is all I need for, you know, the next 3, 4 months. Um, so I don't come here expecting like I'm going to get like a full notebook with ideas. I just, I'm just looking for one and that's what we are getting. So yeah.

What were the ideas last time and this time?

So last time it was more like for him, basically we wanted everyone in the company to do everything. And so you said, guys, one person, one job, which is simple, but it's not. And this time, because of what we went through, I became kind of a micromanager, which is something I hate, to be honest. And I learned we need to give up control and trust the people you work with to tell you what their job and targets should be.

Mm-hmm.

Because that's the kind of company you want to, you know, grow.

Okay.

Now that idea made me very happy. These guys fly in from across the world to get the one idea that is going to move their business forward. That one idea is what they implement over the next 30 to 90 days to grow their sales and their business. In the most recent mastermind, it was about a way that they managed their team and they implemented that and their business grew. For you, it may be the business idea or the growth strategy that you need in order to get to the first $100,000 per month. We love to consume ideas as entrepreneurs, but it's the one idea that we implement that actually grows our business. Once a month, we sit down with clients and we teach one idea that you can implement into your business over the next 30 to 90 days that will grow your sales and grow your profits. And we do that as a bootcamp live. If you wanna get on the waiting list for our next bootcamp so that you walk away with the one idea that will grow your business, go over to capitalism.com/bootcamp to get on the waiting list for our next live workshop.

Yeah. Can, can I tell that story real quick from—

Of course.

So, so you, you had brought up, how do we know that we're getting the most out of our team? And I, If they make 16 ad campaigns, you know, I feel like I could do 18. So how are, how do I know that we're getting the most out of them? And the discussion we had was that you set targets, but you don't tell them how to get there. You, you set outcome targets, but you do not set process targets for them.

Hmm.

You, you, you tell the team member, this is the outcome that's is desired. How do you think we can get there? And then you empower them to do that. And that seemed to be a big shift for how both of you were thinking. I haven't asked you what that shift was. So what did, what realization did you have when we had that conversation?

That's just a wise decision to tell your team members what is the output you want and to reduce like the mental weight you put on it and how much, well, you, you, you burn a lot of mental capacity just on thinking of it. And by doing it your way, which is like, just give them the outcome you want and they'll figure out how to get there. That's great. Just thinking about doing it gives me a bit more, reduces my stress.

Mm-hmm.

So I can't wait to do it.

A year ago we were sitting with merged screens at like $300,000, $350,000 a month. A year later, sitting at $500,000, $550,000 a month. Where do you want to be a year and 2 years from now? Looking back at this, when we're reflecting on Merch Screens being at half a million a month, where do we hope this is in a year and 2 years? Carlos, start with you.

Because we are playing a game, I feel like the next level, uh, could be $1 million a month. That's what I would, I would love to see it just for the fun of it. Uh, it would mean nothing to me, but it's fun and my mind cannot comprehend what a million a month is.

So let's try.

Let's beautiful.

Onward.

What about you?

I'd like to finish the year at a million a month. I honestly think we can make it. I genuinely think we can. So I would love to do it real quick.

What would need to happen for that to be the case? Can you just crank up your ad spend that much? Like, do you increase your, like, what needs to happen in order to double a business by the end of the year? What would need to be true to hit $1 million a month?

I believe, I mean, go.

No, you believe what?

Finish that sentence.

I believe given like the status quo of the company, operations is completely fine. Scaling has started. And I believe just to double it right now, only with the 6 products we're doing. It's only a matter of doing more advertising. Like our Meta ads account, realistically speaking, is on diapers. It's not very developed. We just got in a creative lead until now. We got to a million a month with him and a video editor part-time. And now we got a guy who came from a marketing agency who is taking over and the video editor is full-time.

Huh.

So my best guess is like, that should be enough to get to a million a month.

Interesting.

Might be wrong though.

Carlos, what about you? What would need to be true in order for you to hit $1 million a month?

I would need to ask my creative lead following your advice. That's my target.

Fair enough.

Figure out how to do it.

That's the perfect answer.

Well guys, it's been such a privilege to be a small part of your journey. I consider it such an honor that My work inspired you to, to go on this journey, and I'm very thankful to be cheering from the sidelines as you guys get to $1 million a month. Thanks so much for being here and for all your hard work, and congratulations on all of your success.

Thank you.

Thanks for you and for your great book.

Give it up for MerchScreen. So what's the secret that Juan Ramon and Carlos used to go from $0 to $7 million a year? Here's the secret. They stuck with something for 3 years and were willing to be bad at it for long enough until they cracked pay dirt. That's how entrepreneurship works. We suck at first, we follow a playbook, and we figure it out along the way. Now, the playbook that they use is the same playbook that I give to thousands of entrepreneurs, and they were willing to suck at it for a while until they cracked 7 figures. It took focus, it took a lot of investment and time, but eventually they got to 7 figures and then $7 million a year. If you wanna see that playbook so that you can run the same play in whatever business you are building or want to build, you can get it over at capitalism.com/100k. My name's Ryan Daniel Moran, and at capitalism.com, we work with entrepreneurs to help them launch, get to their first million, and then position themselves for a life-changing exit. And I appreciate you letting me mentor you on the journey. Thanks for watching. I'll see you guys on the next episode.