In this interview, Jason Hartman talks with entrepreneur Ryan Moran about his unconventional path from seminary student to e‑commerce mogul. Moran explains how a brief stint in a theological program led him to discover Austrian economics, which sparked his fascination with capitalism. He began as an 18‑year‑old affiliate marketer, mastering SEO, free traffic, and email list monetization. Applying those skills, he launched three product businesses simultaneously—yoga mats, a sports‑nutrition brand, and a generic supplement line—experiencing a “strikeout, base hit, home run” pattern that taught him the critical importance of targeting a specific audience over merely choosing a product. Moran emphasizes that an audience is the primary asset of any business, illustrating this with the Joe Rogan‑Spotify nine‑figure deal, where the value lay in the audience, not ad revenue. He expands the definition of e‑commerce beyond Amazon, noting the rise of Shopify, Walmart’s online shift, and the broader trend toward omnichannel online commerce, predicting that the “e” will eventually be dropped as online shopping becomes the default. Throughout, Moran shares strategic insights on audience building, monetization, and the evolving media landscape.
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Let's talk about your book a little bit. I mean, you. There's so much to talk about with you, Ryan, because you've just done so much at such a young age. It's. It's truly amazing. You know, maybe. Maybe just to get a context, I mean, what motivates you? Give us a little bit of your background. You know, you. You were going to be a pastor. You got out of seminary, I think you were in it, right? You were, actually.
I was, yes.
Yeah. Okay. For how long?
Less than a year. But I finished out the pro. I finished out the program at the institution I was in. I went to Indiana Wesleyan University. They had a degree that was seminary and a degree form, and so I opted out of the degree, but I finished at Indiana Wesleyan University, which is actually where I discovered Austrian economics.
Okay.
And. And monetarist thinking. And so it completely changed my life because it made me fascinated in economics.
Right, right. You went. You went from religion, religion to the religion of capitalism, which we talked about. And capitalism is the most successful religion ever. Yuval Noah Harari, in his book Sapiens talks about that. That's a brilliant book, by the way. Highly recommend it. And the sequel to it, Homo Deus, which is also excellent. Many of you have heard of him. He's a very big author. So what got you interested? I mean, you really started your business career as an Amazon seller, is that correct?
I started my career when I was 18 years old from my college dorm room as an affiliate marketer, which meant that I learned how to get websites to show up high in Google, get free traffic, and sell things on those websites. And I built email lists and monetized those email lists, and I became an Internet marketer, kind of by happenstance because I was in school to be a pastor, thinking I was going to make 30 or $40,000 a year. I was always entrepreneurial, so I was always looking for the new way that always motivated us as kids. Just find the next thing. And what I discovered a few years in was that my Internet marketing skills, when applied to what I would consider a real business, having physical product brands, was a lot more effective. So rather than just trying to make this thing happen on the side, if I took my skillset and applied it to a real business, it was a lot more effective. Amazon was an emerging platform at the time, and so I started businesses that were selling products on Amazon. I'm often labeled as an Amazon seller. I just think of myself as an entrepreneur and a businessman who looks at whatever the modern trend or the modern Opportunity is. And, and right now that is E commerce. And a few years ago it was just Amazon because Amazon was this wide open west that was growing by leaps and bounds. And it still is growing by leaps and bounds, but now all of E commerce has changed with it.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So was the first business selling yoga mats on Amazon after, after the Internet and affiliate marketing kind of thing and getting sites to rank, then it was Amazon. And was that yoga mats?
You know, funny you should ask, I should clarify. I made my first million before ever selling on Amazon and then I took those skills, applied them to Amazon and I decided it would be a good idea to start three businesses at once. Jason, that's not a good idea. Just so you know. So I start with three different partners, by the way. So I started a yoga mats business, a sports nutrition company and a supplement business all at the same time.
That's right. I forgot about the sports nutrition and supplements. Yeah. Okay.
So the yoga mat company I built and sold within a year, the supplement company was a disaster failure. And the sports nutrition company I started with $600 took it to about $10 million a year and sold that for an eight figure exit. So I kind of had a strikeout, a base hit and a home run.
What's the difference between supplements and sports nutrition?
You know what, that's a great question. Who it's for, that's the biggest thing. And one of the things I hammer home over and over and over in a book, in the book is that your business is determined by not what you sell, but who you sell to. And it's kind of like content marketing. Like we could be having this same conversation and if it was a religious podcast, might not be as popular. But since we're talking to entrepreneurs and capitalists and people are interested in the direction of the world, we can have this nice conversation that covers a variety of topics. So who you target determines how successful a business is, no matter it is what you're selling. So I had a supplement company that sold generic fish oil and things that everybody takes, which you don't have a target market when you're doing that. That business failed. Where? On the other side, I had a business that sold similar types of products like pre workouts and post workouts and, and testosterone boosters and branch chain amino acids. Very specific to a sports and athletic market. And it was wildly successful. So the only, really the only difference you could make an argument, yes, we sold different products, but the main thing that was different was who it was that we targeted.
That's Excellent. You know, Ryan, one of the things you said on your podcast a long time ago that really influenced me is that the game is about building an audience quickly and monetizing to that audience. And I love that. That is just a fantastic philosophy, if you want to call it that. Can you expand on that idea a little bit?
Yeah. And I would say the audience is the primary asset that all businesses are doing. At the time that we're recording this, Joe Rogan just announced that he signed a nine figure deal with Spotify to bring his content over to the Spotify platform. And we all know that the reason Spotify paid $100 million to Joe Rogan was not because of the sponsorship revenue. It was because of the audience that was being brought over. He just legitimized Spodcasts.
You should call it Spodcast. I love it.
It's not a bad name. So Spotify just legitimized their podcast player because now Joe Rogan is exclusive to them.
Because.
Because he brought the audience over. It had nothing to do with the ad revenue, had nothing to do with the profitability, had everything to do with the scale of the audience. The audience was the asset and all business is really customer acquisition and audience building. And when you are aligning with your audience to bring them closer to the goals that they have for themselves, that's a business and that's what we're all actually here to do.
Spodcasting. Remember folks, you heard it here first. Yeah. Joe Rogan, $100 million deal with Spotify to make his podcast exclusive on Spotify. And you know what's interesting about that, Ryan, is we look at some of these giant deals that Rush Limbaugh did. I think that was years ago. It was $158 million, 10 year contract or something. And then Howard Stern did a giant contract like that. But now it's a podcaster.
Yes.
So that is huge. It shows you the way the media landscape has changed so much. But like you say, it's all about an audience. It's all about an audience. I wonder what the multiplier was on that deal, by the way. You know, you said it's not about the sponsorship, it's about the audience. But, you know, I mean, his sponsorship couldn't have been, I don't know, 20 million a year and he got a five times multiple. It has to be way bigger than that, right?
I have. I have no idea. I mean, the most expensive podcast rate I've ever heard was a $38,000 per show sponsorship. Who's that. So if Joe's is there or around there, and he does maybe what, three ads an episode? Let's just say it's two. So he makes somewhere around $100,000, 80 to $100,000 per episode. And he does what, three a week? So 300k a week. So a million dollars a month, it might be a 10 times return.
Yeah. Wow, that's. That's truly amazing. That's truly amazing. And it really shows you how, how the world is changing.
Okay, so, and Jason, he might get to keep the ad revenue too. We, I mean, we don't know this.
We don't know his deal.
Own the audience and own the revenue. But now just be giving up YouTube and Apple Podcasts to be exclusive. It might just purely be a licensing deal. But he gets to keep all the ad revenue. Can you imagine that?
That is insane. It's incredible. And he got Elon Musk to smoke a joint on his show. So that ratings went nuts for just that episode. Yeah, yeah, Incredible. Okay, so build the audience, monetize to the audience. And you, you go through that in the book. So. Well, before actually, before we get to that, you said E commerce, much more than just Amazon.
Yes.
Tell us about that.
Yeah, so I mean, Shopify is growing just as much as Amazon is now. I would consider anyone who sponsors the Joe Rogan podcast and sends them over to their own website to be in E commerce. It's online shopping. And because of what we've seen happen in the last few months, online shopping has exploded even more to the point where even Walmart shoppers are now going online. So we are now seeing the laggard side of the adoption curve come into society. We now have all retail stores have to have an online presence if they even want to survive. So that's E commerce is not shopping on Amazon. It is all online shopping, all online advertising, all online exposure. And that is just all commerce at this point. At some point we'll drop the E and we'll just realize that it's all right.
It'll be called commerce. Yeah, right. And you know, that's interesting that you say we'll drop the E because in the first dot com boom, 1999, 2000, 2001, ish, that range, they stopped using dot com. Of course they used it. It's on their website. But they didn't refer to themselves as, you know, e trade.com. they just said E trade. Of course we have a website. Duh. Right, so that's an interesting point. That will drop the e. That's good, Sam.
