Entrepreneurship Unfiltered: Ryan Moran on Success, Economics, and Net Worth

Summary

Problems to Profit Podcast
Episode: Entrepreneurship Unfiltered: Ryan Moran on Success, Economics, and Net Worth
Host: Preston Brown
Release Date: January 9, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Problems to Profit podcast, host Preston Brown welcomes a distinguished guest, Ryan Daniel Moran—a serial entrepreneur, investor, and influential figure in the click-and-order space. The conversation delves deep into Ryan's entrepreneurial journey, his staunch belief in capitalism, and insightful financial frameworks that redefine traditional business metrics.

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Ryan Moran's Entrepreneurial Journey

Ryan Moran's story is a testament to innate entrepreneurial spirit combined with unwavering perseverance. From his early days as a five-year-old selling drawings door-to-door, Ryan's entrepreneurial instincts were evident. He recalls:

“Some people are born with the itch to become an entrepreneur... I made 4 cents that night.”
[01:31] Ryan Moran

Despite initially pursuing pastoral ministry, Ryan's passion for business led him to internet marketing. This transition marked the beginning of his journey in building scalable online enterprises. Notably, Ryan transformed a modest $600 investment into a substantial exit worth $16 million, a feat that underscores his expertise in the e-commerce domain.

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Perspectives on Economics and Capitalism

A significant portion of the discussion centers around Ryan's appreciation for capitalism and free markets. He attributes his academic exposure to economics as a pivotal influence:

“Studying economics completely changed my life and the way that I see the world...”
[10:05] Ryan Moran

Ryan emphasizes capitalism's role as a force for good, asserting that private enterprise surpasses government efforts in fostering innovation and solving societal problems. He passionately states:

“Private individuals in service to other people change the world for the better faster than any other possible structure ever devised.”
[11:03] Ryan Moran

His optimistic outlook on capitalism is rooted in its proven ability to expand markets, enhance efficiency, and continuously solve evolving problems, thereby driving economic growth and societal advancement.

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The Future of Entrepreneurship and Technology

Preston and Ryan explore the transformative impact of emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing on capitalism and entrepreneurship. Ryan remains bullish about the entrepreneurial landscape, highlighting:

“The opportunities for entrepreneurship are way more abundant than even when I started...”
[16:03] Ryan Moran

He predicts a future where traditional employment becomes obsolete, replaced by a surge in entrepreneurial ventures facilitated by technological advancements. Platforms like TikTok Shop exemplify this shift, offering unprecedented avenues for business growth and scalability.

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Financial Paradigms: Cash Flow, Net Worth, Enterprise Value

One of the episode's highlights is Ryan's innovative approach to financial metrics, distinguishing between cash flow, net worth, and enterprise value:

“Cash flow is the profit that you have left over... Net worth is the total value of the things that you invest in... Enterprise value is the value of what you can sell your company for.”
[26:52] Ryan Moran

Ryan advocates prioritizing enterprise value over immediate cash flow and net worth. By focusing on building businesses with significant enterprise value, entrepreneurs can create assets that offer long-term financial stability and opportunities for large-scale exits.

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Overcoming Entrepreneurial Struggles

Ryan candidly discusses personal challenges that have shaped his entrepreneurial mindset. He identifies the detrimental effects of a scarcity mindset fueled by fear of market crashes and the pervasive isolation resulting from excessive screen time:

“I went down those rabbit holes... I operated my businesses with a tenseness rather than a lightness.”
[34:50] Ryan Moran

These experiences underscore the importance of maintaining a positive outlook and fostering genuine human connections despite the digital age's isolating tendencies.

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Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Towards the episode's conclusion, Ryan offers invaluable advice for entrepreneurs seeking to navigate the complex business landscape:

1. Develop Marketable Skills:

   “If you can develop a skill, it is more valuable today than it was even five years ago.”
   [46:14] Ryan Moran

2. Foster Relationships:

   “The compounding value of relationships... treat them with empathy and kindness.”
   [46:14] Ryan Moran

Ryan emphasizes the enduring value of skills and relationships, encouraging entrepreneurs to invest in both to build sustainable and thriving businesses.

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Conclusion

Preston Brown and Ryan Moran wrap up the episode by reaffirming their shared belief in capitalism's potential to drive positive change. Ryan invites listeners to engage further with his resources, including capitalism.com playbook, offering free courses and newsletters tailored for aspiring entrepreneurs.

This episode serves as a rich source of inspiration and practical wisdom, illustrating how embracing capitalism, honing marketable skills, and nurturing meaningful relationships can transform problems into profitable ventures.

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Connect with Ryan Moran:

• Website: capitalism.com
• Free Playbook: capitalism.com/playbook
• Newsletter: Available on his website

Subscribe to Problems to Profit:
Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube to stay updated on transforming your business challenges into opportunities for growth and success.

Transcript

[Preston]

Hey, guys. Welcome back to problems to profit. We have a very special guest today. We have Ryan Daniel Moran. I just had the privilege of listening to this gentleman on stage, and I'm not gonna lie, he kinda rocked my world. He's got this sarcastic, playful, fun energy. And, you know, I normally don't walk into a room and just get shocked by a speaker. They all have a very similar pitch. Like every bit of clickbait on YouTube is kind of the same. All the lion news media's kind of got an agenda to push. They're all the same. And then I go listen to Ryan and we're going to get into this some, and he just rocked my world with some of the points. And I want you to listen through this whole thing because he might change some of your opinions and shift some of the way you think. But before we get into the parts that I know are going to blow their minds and maybe end their conspiracy theory natures.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yeah, we hope so.

[Preston]

Like you might have done for me, I'd like to just hear. Cause he's an amazing entrepreneur, turned 600 bucks into a huge exit, made millions of dollars, and now he's teaching others to do it. And he's in this click and order space. And as a brick and mortar. Brick and mortar guy who can't talk, I just admire these guys that do the click and order, the advertising. I'd like to hear a little bit of your story. How did you get into this world where you're an influencer, you're an entrepreneur, you're leading groups, you're training others now to do what you did? How did you go from whatever problems you started with, which we believe are the lessons in life, to the profits that turned you into the man you are today?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Some people are born with the itch to become an entrepreneur. At five years old, I was the kid drawing pictures and trying to sell them door to door to my neighbors for a penny each? That's a real story. My dad paid for all of the cost of goods sold, so I had really great profit margins for that first business. I made 4 cents that night. I was the kid who shoveled drives for five bucks. I was the kid who mowed lawns. Some of us have that itch. But I went to college thinking I was going to become a pastor. And when I was in ministry school, I had a teacher named Dr. Constance Cherry who said, if you can do anything other than be a pastor and still be happy, please go do that thing. And I said, thank you for the permission. I'm going to become an entrepreneur because I had always wanted that and thought that I needed a bigger, deeper calling. And so I was doing the ministry route mostly out of guilt. And what I really wanted to do was start businesses. And that was what led me into Internet marketing, where I discovered this crazy world of selling things when people click on them and building websites that you can monetize and creating content that people find all over the world. And that is just. At the time it was Internet business. Today it's just business. That's how business operates. For the purposes of. Of your audience. I'm prob. I'm best known for starting a company with $600, selling it four years later for $16 million. I did not get all of that money for reasons we'll probably talk about. I started teaching that model of how I was starting those businesses, growing them to seven figures in revenue, preparing them for exit in some cases. Wrote a book called 12 months to 1 million that became a bestseller. And people seem to have appreciated the work that. That's the 60 or 90 second version.

[Preston]

I, I love that. And, and I, I love where you. You started with the. The faith out of guilt and you moved kind of your ministry into the business world.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

That's right. I mean, people actually say I'm still a pastor just by. My flock is entrepreneurs.

[Preston]

Yeah. I saw you on stage. You're a pastor, bro. You're.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

You're. Thank you.

[Preston]

One of a very good pastor friend of mine and my kids go to his church school. And he mentioned to me, he's like, you know, man, the church has been declining every year. And I said, man, I think you lost it to motivational speakers, bro. Like, you guys gotta get up there and inspire. Inspired means spirit within. Like. And I think part of the church is shrinking and it might be your fault, Brian. Cause you were a badass up there tonight.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I have nothing to add. I can't take credit for that one, but thank you for the compliment.

[Preston]

You're welcome. So Internet marketing. What drove the lead to Internet marketing?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

You know, a lot of times it's funny. There actually is a funny story there, Preston. I read all of Robert Kiyosaki stuff, who, you know, was very inspiring to me. I'm very disappointed with the direction that he's gone with his content and his career, which we can talk about that too. But I found his work very inspiring. So I thought I was going to be a real estate investor. I wanted to raise a few bucks for my real estate business. So I explored how to make money on the Internet, and that became my career. So I originally just wanted to get into real estate. So I want to be you when I grow up. And instead what I've done is just create businesses that are what you call click and order businesses. But I want to. I want to do the stuff that you do. Like, that's. That's what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I wanted to fund that as a career and got into this Internet thing.

[Preston]

We'll collaborate and I'll share stuff with you on that at a future point. But it's so funny because it's funny now. I want to be you when I grow up.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yeah. I mean, grass is always greener syndrome is so ingrained in entrepreneurial world because we see all the money and success that we think other people are having, and we see the problems of our own businesses, and so we think they figured it out. Right? And then we have fancy bios and podcasts where we're made to sound out cooler than we really are.

[Preston]

Well, cool.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Well, you might be cool. I'm just a dork who sells things on the Internet.

[Preston]

We're cool dorks.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Dorks are kind of naturally cool. Do you think there's a difference between nerds, dorks, and geeks? Because people call me a nerd.

[Preston]

I take starting this with hard questions.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I. I think dorks, dorks are just awkward. Geeks are like the. The obsessive computer nerds and then just use nerds. And nerds and geeks are the same, but dorks are the cool ones. And back to you.

[Preston]

I feel like the nerds are smarter, though. Probably they got a little more data, a little more analytics. I mean, I don't know if you can tell by my giant head and my tiny shoulders, but I think I fit the category of nerd. My center of gravity.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Good work. We made it, man.

[Preston]

We made it.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

We made it. I was a dork in middle school. In middle school, I learned HTML programming and I started just coding up these websites. And then I took that skill and learned how to monetize them. And I was like, this is going to fund my real estate career. While I was reading all of these investment and real estate books, and I thought that was my ticket to freedom. It just turned out that the Internet became where real businesses played. And so I find it fascinating to take this new world of what you're calling click, click and order. Is that what you're calling it? Click this Internet world. And you apply the old school business tactics that have built billion dollar enterprises and you combine them and there's just some fascinating things that you can create out of thin air.

[Preston]

Amen. And I agree. So let me, let me ask you when, when you first got into your first Internet business. You're. You're Maybe not the first try, but the first one where you actually turned a profit.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Okay.

[Preston]

What did that look like? How old were you?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I was 18. I learned how the Google algorithm worked and I found out that I could get websites to rank in Google and I obsessed over it and I was able to beat the well funded big corporations and I could rank for free traffic keywords and I would sell things on those websites. And that was how, I think how I generated my first million in my 20s was through just selling stuff on websites through free traffic. That's what I was doing for my college dorm room while I was taking. I ended up switching from pastoral ministry to studying business. And I was bored out of my mind in every business class and just wanted to go back to my dorm and work on a website.

[Preston]

You know, we're probably gonna offend people maybe here, which is good because they'll either pay attention or fucking go away, which is fine too. But I think business college, and probably college in general, unless you want to be like a teacher or a doctor, a lawyer or something. Where you need that sheepskin is bullshit. Every business class I took and I dropped out and started promoting bars and clubs because there was girls and booze. But every business class I took in college was teaching me how to have a job and not to own a business. And it made no sense.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yeah, but I completely agree with that. And I kind of wish I could go through it now and see if it was different because what I should have learned in college was how to sell shit. I should have learned how to sell things.

[Preston]

You didn't notice the girls?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

What's that?

[Preston]

You didn't notice the girls there in business school. You're a charismatic dude. I'll bet you were.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

There were girls in my business class.

[Preston]

I don't know. I'm asking.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

There were not girls in my business class.

[Preston]

You couldn't sell there, though.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yeah. I wish I had learned how to sell things. I wish I had learned how business structure worked. I wish I had learned how private equity groups thought about businesses and how they approached acquisitions. These are things that I wish I had been taught in school, but I would be fascinated to learn those things now. And I wonder if I were to go back and take finance classes, if they would apply differently because I have learned those skills so we kind of waste this knowledge that is not useful on the professional classes. And the real skills that are required to become a successful entrepreneur don't get taught. We have to learn them.

[Preston]

Did you complete college?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I did.

[Preston]

You did. So you made it all the way through?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I did.

[Preston]

What's your degree in?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Business Administration and economics.

[Preston]

Okay. So I don't, I don't think business school has changed that much outside of the price. The, the same professor that was there when I was there is that I dropped out. He's still there. He's older now and uglier, but he's teaching the same dumb shit, probably with less ability now because I'm sure he is not functional.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

But Preston, What? One thing I will say studying economics completely changed my life and the way that I see the world and inspired me to get curious about how capitalism exists and why it is the greatest force for good in the world.

[Preston]

This is where we're going to get into the fun part because this is what I just saw with you on stage and it was brilliant. Studying economics and there's a lot of clickbait out there and there's a lot of predictions out there and economics is one of my favorite things in the.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

World, which is why I sound so boring on paper. But when you really get into it, economics is the story of our day to day lives. And if you understand it, you understand how the world works.

[Preston]

It's people and it's money.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yes.

[Preston]

And money is the most measurable thing in human history, really. I mean, we could probably go in and nuance some way to measure love or measure this or measure that, but money is actually measurable and you can see what the buying behaviors and what people are doing. It's beautiful. So tell me, what did you learn about economics in college?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I had a professor named Dr. Tom Lehman who said that he viewed a free market philosophy as the most Christian way to serve other people. And that blew my mind because I was building websites and making money from them and feeling that twinge of success guilt where I'm now out earning my peers and my parents and I feel guilty about it. And he was the first person to frame it as entrepreneurship or free markets being the best opportunity to serve other people. And I went, whoa, I've been thinking about this wrong and then start. And I ended up just falling in love with the topic of economics and capitalism and becoming very convinced that private individuals in service to other people change the world for the better faster than any other possible structure ever devised. And that the efforts of Governments or central planners, while well intended, tended to fail and tended to do the opposite. Whereas private enterprise, even if done selfishly, had to become selfless in order to attract customers that kept them in business. And so in the process, for profit, enterprises have a way of stripping us of our selfishness and humbling us to the point of service in order to get what we want. And that, I think, is probably. I mean, if there is a God, I think that he is redeeming the world through us, not in spite of us. And I can't think of a better example of that than free market capital.

[Preston]

So I had a similar experience, but before I even dive into that, like, that was beautiful. Can I book you to speak before Congress and sell capitalism, please?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

There's some more famous capitalists that seem to be running it now, so I may not make the cut.

[Preston]

I don't know. That was a pretty beautiful explanation of capitalism, and I agree. I had a friend named Jeremy, and he came to me because I was having a little religious guilt. And I don't want to go too deep into it, but it was fascinating as a Christian. Like, the church had always kind of hit me with money was bad, and of course the government wants you to give all your money to them, so there was some wealth guilt. And he said, well, dude, well, Jesus was rich. I said, what? What do you mean? No, no, yeah, he was filthy rich. I was like, what are you talking about? He said, yeah, bro. Like, look at it. Like, there were three wise men. Gold, frankincense, myrrh. Look at history, bro. Like, the standard gift for a mediocre king was 50 pounds of gold. And I was like, are you kidding me? Well, I looked it up, and sure enough, well, if you were compelled by angels, if we believe our book, maybe it wasn't a standard gift. Maybe it was a bigger gift. Then he said, oh, yeah? And where did those three magi go first? Well, he went to King Herod, right, And what did he do? Oh, yeah. He did what no politician would ever do if he wanted to stay in power. He decided to kill the firstborn son of everyone there. So he might have been really triggered by how big the gifts were. So, I mean, it's likely, and there's lots of other verses we could dive through if we wanted to, that Jesus was rich. And all of a sudden, all of my concerns about making more money and becoming wealthy went away. And thank you, Jeremy. I love you, but hit me like a ton of bricks there. But I love what you just said. That basically capitalism is ethical. Whether you're Christian or not, it's ethical, it's the right thing, and it's a way of working, maybe the best way of working an economy within the confines of, let's just call it human nature for the betterment of society.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

And I have one asterisk to that. And there is an assumption that when I say capitalism, I mean private enterprise done in the service to a private customer without the encumbrance or attachments to governments, because governments can muck that up, because you have the ability to kind of insulate bad decisions, because governments can print money. So if you remove the attachment to government and you assume private enterprise, then I think that it is at least over time, the greatest force for good ever.

[Preston]

Amen to that. So I, I have a hypothesis that, that right now with AI, with quantum computing, which, which will be a thing, I mean, it may not be a mainstream thing yet, but it will be a thing that's coming with dollarization, with globalization, with an interconnected world, and with the way that things function as they're supposed to. I mean, a company's job is efficiency and increased profitability and decreased waste, etc. If you're an employee with a job description of 10 to 25 bullet points, like you're functionally obsolete, realistically if you're in a large company now, but almost certainly within 10 years. So I think capitalism is most likely going to be. You can either buy into it by listening to brilliant guys like you and figuring out a great way to go launch a business online or, or you might be forced into it.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

That is correct, yes. I think there's a generation that will be forced into it, but I happen to be very optimistic about that generation because young people today are more entrepreneurial than ever. There is this perception that young people tend to be liberal minded or left leaning, but they're very entrepreneurial. And you know what happens when you become an entrepreneur and you realize how many taxes you pay, you become, you become pro free markets real darn quick. I mean, the fact that you can open up your phone, connect a TikTok shop and make a few videos and make 10 to $15,000 a month, or the fact that you have all of these tools now to be able to write, copy, build websites, sell on Amazon. The opportunities for entrepreneurship are way more abundant than even when I started and I'm not that old. And as a result, the next generation is very pro entrepreneur, very freedom minded. And so I'm very optimistic for that trend because I think that people will be forced into entrepreneurship or they will choose it because it is a better alternative than what they see available. Especially when you, when you can just create a YouTube channel and monetize it versus working for somebody else for 30 years that doesn't exist anymore. So I happen to be very optimistic about that future.

[Preston]

I love how bullish and optimistic you are, but let's, let's dive into that because I mean, there's a lot of clickbait out there that's going in the opposite direction and they're saying, you know, and I don't tend to take sides. I don't want to be the economist predicting, but I do want to hear your perspective because I mean, I think there will almost certainly be a market crash in the next 10 years. There always is. I don't think it's going to.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

What is a market crash though? What do you define as a market crash?

[Preston]

Well, I mean, I define a market crash as, you know, things going down, things devaluing, like a reboot of the system, which, which does happen.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Like, I mean, so like 2008 level, like Covid level.

[Preston]

I think we have some bubbles that are going to burst. Black swan events don't come from where you're looking, they come from where you're not looking. And so it's probably going to be, I'd say probably 08 level, but with a different epicenter. I don't think the epicenter will be real estate. There hasn't been enough supply mortgage backed securities are saf.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

And I know we're going into nuances here, but I think these parts of the conversation matter because we can always say there's a crash coming.

[Preston]

Sure.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

And always is, but it doesn't mean tomorrow. And we create fear around that and uncertainty. And if someone thinks there's a crash coming, let's talk about what it might look like and how we define that so that we can measure if we're right or wrong. I love to ask the question, how will you know that your worldview is right or wrong? So how, how will you know if the idea that a crash is coming is not true? Well, if we go, if we go 10 years and we don't have a crash, then our worldview needs to be reexamined then.

[Preston]

I'm Robert Kiyosaki.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Right. You know, Robert kiyosaki has predicted 27 of the last two recessions.

[Preston]

I mean, you know, markets are cycles and I'm certain there will be a crash. But I mean, if you look at the, the amount of crashes in the amount of years, don't we average one every 12 years or so?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

If you mean if you are defining a crash as a recession, yes. Then yes. Is that what you're defining as a crash? Yeah, I know I'm being pedantic, but I think these. These details matter because I want to dive into it.

[Preston]

Because if we Go scroll on YouTube right now, and this is what all the listeners are seeing when they're watching every other group out there that's putting out podcasts or content. And I loved your perspective, so I want to kind of dig into it by kind of playing the antagonist here. Not that I fully believe the antagonist, but I'm open to their ideas as well. And they use that clickbait because fear is a wonderful motivator. It gets people's eyes, it gets people's attention. But I think hearing you could. Could get them to think differently. The conspiracy theories out there are. The end of the world is near. Okay? I mean, we're going to have the dollar taken away. We're going to have, you know, potentially expanded wars. We have the American government, like, losing its kind of hegemony over the world. We have. I mean, you can probably name as many as I can, but if we scroll on YouTube for like two or three minutes, you're not going to feel safer.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yes, very well said. Yes.

[Preston]

So with all of that noise, which is obviously an attention attraction, no different than Fox News promoting their agenda or msnbc. I don't want to say dnc, but promoting theirs. What is your outlook? Because it's different.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

My outlook is that over time, things expand. Now, the timeframe may not be 12 months, may not be 6 months, but over time, things always expand. I mean, name a time in history that is better than now. Name a time in history that we had more opportunity than today, economically speaking. Now, you might say happiness has changed. Maybe you say the family structure was better back then, but those are all subjective. Tell me a time that we've had more access to goods and services and opportunities or solutions to problems than today. I mean, if there has been, I want to know about it. But there hasn't been. Because things expand because in capitalism, it exists to solve problems. We are, we are in the business of solving problems in service to other people. And that is how you get paid. And because of that, we are constantly innovating and solving problems for new people, for smaller problems that were not profitable enough to solve. And now we can do it because we have greater efficiencies. We get better and better and more and more efficient at solving those problems. We forget that they were ever problems. I mean we forget that 200 years ago you could not go buy avocados at the grocery store. If you lived in Indiana, couldn't do that, cause there weren't grocery stores and they don't make avocados in Indiana. So you just couldn't go get em. And now we don't even think about it. It's just abundant because we have efficiencies all over the place. This is how capitalism works and expands and solves new problems. And so because of that, markets always go up given enough time, because things expand over time. And so I have to assume that things will get better and brighter, especially when I factor in that capitalism as an idea is only 200 years old.

[Preston]

How much has it changed the world in the last 200 years?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Completely. It's unrecognizable. I mean, can you imagine if George Washington woke up from his 200 year nap and he looked around and he was like, where am I?

[Preston]

Capitalism has changed the world so much that even though China is run by the ccp, a communist party, they have a very capitalist way of doing business.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Well, they started opening things up a few decades ago and now they've gone boom.

[Preston]

Yep.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

It's the greatest force for good, the greatest force for change ever.

[Preston]

I love that. And thank you for diving into that with me because I think a lot of people need to hear that. A lot of people need to hear that it's going to be okay. Yeah, there may be a dip, but it'll come back. And if you hedge yourself well and you're investing well and you're doing that one thing that will always get you through, which is thinking and working hard. Maybe that's.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

So Preston, I shared this on stage because this was a big light bulb moment for me. If you look at the S&P 500, which is it's not the perfect predictor or the perfect representation of wealth or capitalism, but it is one indicator, right? It's one measure of the U.S. economy. And so if we look at the S&P 500 since 1950, in 1950 it was trading at $20, today it's at almost 6,000. Now that's not inflation adjusted, that's just pure numbers. So you can make an argument that it's government printing or that it's bad policy, but it's gone from 20 to 6,000. That's greater than the rate of inflation. And when I look at that graph for about half the graph, it's just flat. And then you have this exponential curve up. And so when I first saw that graph, I was like, oh, all the growth in the economy has happened in the last 25 years. Man, those people back in 1950 from to 1985, they weren't doing anything, they.

[Preston]

Were lazy, they never invested in the stock market.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

But if you zoom in on the what looks like to be flat, it's also an exponential curve up. And so we or people on YouTube or the clickbait media would love to tell you that what goes up must come down. But it makes me wonder, is what looks like an exponential curve to us actually going to be a flat line in the next 30 years? If we zoom out 30 or 50 years, is this boom that we're going through right now actually going to look like a flat line? If so, then we can be very optimistic about the innovations that happen in the future. I mean, just look at the last four years and everything we've overcome and we've still continued to innovate in AI and self driving cars and electric vehicles. We've still managed to expand in the private sector despite the fact that we've gone through pandemics. The despite the fact that we've gone through political divides, despite the fact that some of us were afraid that we're about to go into civil war, we've been afraid about hyperinflation, we've had at least questionable government policy and yet we've continued to innovate and expand. So what does it look like when we have a normal market condition? What does it look like when we have decent policy or when more people become entrepreneurs? That's the stuff that I think about.

[Preston]

Well, and we're in an ever changing world and all the doom and gloom that we talk about is crazy because frankly, the worst thing that's probably happened in the last hundred years was what about 80 years ago, 90 years ago and it was us dropping a nuclear weapon on another country. And we did it twice and plenty of bad things have happened since. But nothing really is worse than that. So all the negative predictions are kind of hoopla, clickbait bullshit now diving in just, just a little bit again to you because now you're leading people, you're teaching people, you've created the I loved what you were talking about with it's better than just selling. You can go and create something, you can optimize something. You talk about three different types of money. And I want to, I want to kind of steer you into that because the way you were talking about like building, scaling and exiting businesses is, I think, especially with an aging population in the brick and mortar space, one of the greatest opportunities there is. Now, I had never thought about in the online space, but the way you frame it is so simple that I think people need to hear it. Can we dive into that piece?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yeah. And the context leading up to it of this abundant world that continues to expand leads into this idea. Well, if we're in an ever expanding universe, if we live in a world where capitalism continues to solve more problems, then we probably have a shot at building something with a lot of value that creates a lot of good in the world. And we don't have to focus on what most entrepreneurs obsess over, which is short term cash flow. There are three types of money. What we call money is really cash flow, net worth, and enterprise value. Cash flow is the profit that you have left over at the end of the month, quarter or year. This is what most entrepreneurs obsess over. Eventually, if they're good, if they're smart, they start to think about net worth and that's the total value of the things that they invest in. They take that cash flow and they put it into things that grow their net worth. Hopefully if they're smart and thoughtful. And then one day they hope that they can build a business that they don't need to be so attached to the cash flows. They just want to create something cool in the world and has enterprise value and they can grow it and reinvest all the profits back into that growth and sell it for a whack ton of money? That's enterprise value. It's the value of what you can sell your company for. Most people prioritize them in that order. I offer, well, what if we flip the order? What if we build a business that has enterprise value? What if we punch the short term result for a little bit and we invest into something that compounds over a period of two to 10 years, we can build enterprise value upfront and we can either borrow against that asset tax free, or we can exit that business by selling that business or piece of that business and invest that into things that provide cash flow and we never have to worry about it again. So if we flip the order to prioritize enterprise value, which is just building a business that does not extract all of the money into your pocketbook, it gets reinvested into something that can be scaled and sold, I think you change your financial future much faster. I happen to think that the most predictable way to do that is by building an E commerce or physical products brand. And I'm biased. I mean that's my background, it's what I did. It's how I turned a $600 investment into a $16 million exit. It's what I teach most entrepreneurs is the most predictable way to build a million dollar business. Because a million dollar business is just four products. At 25 sales a day, that's 100 sales a day. At $30, that's $3,000 a day, $90,000 a month or $1.1 million in top line revenue. That is a business that can be sold or you can reinvest those profits and continue to compound that until you have real enterprise value and sell it for a whack ton of money. So I happen to think that that is the most predictable way.

[Preston]

I love that model and I don't mind your bias because I think your way was definitely, probably a lot faster than my way. The brick and mortar and the click and order, everybody that I'm seeing at this event is so young and all the, the click and order guys that have mastered online marketing and frankly, what, what, what I'm starting to think about because I believe in language. You know, when I, when I bought my home building company I realized I had to go learn to speak plumber, electrician, I had to go learn to speak sheetrocker and cement that for the concrete. And everybody, they may all speak English but, or Spanish in my market, but they all have a language to their trade. I think what social media influencers, what online marketers are doing is they're speaking the language of the population of the world now, which is why we're seeing a much faster income generation in that sector for a much younger demographic. I mean, so your bias may be valid. The only thing that I would put on it, just for context, is don't do the bias, do your passion. If you're passionate about making milkshakes, do that. If you're passionate about online marketing, do that. But I would agree it's probably the fastest way that you know, based on the data that I'm just seeing in this mastermind we're here at together, it's.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Only going to get faster. It's wild. If you look at the numbers and the impact that a platform like TikTok Shop has on just about any business. This is a new platform, it's 18 months old and in less than 18 months they're doing half of almost a billion dollars in transactions every month. It's the fastest growing e commerce platform in history and the Technology that they have to integrate with Amazon stores and other stores. The ability to just create something good and for it to exist in the world and create abundance is getting faster and faster and faster. And I think that's only going to continue.

[Preston]

I agree. I want to ask about the cash flow, the net worth, and the enterprise value, if you don't mind. I think I actually agree with the way you're looking at it based on a fairly recent experience I had. But I also know that when people look at this, if they're sitting there looking at balance sheets or online, what are they called, keyboard jockeys that love to make their comments, they're going to look at enterprise value and net worth very much the same way. If it's on your financial statement, how would you differentiate the two? And then I'll kind of go into why I agree with. You need to break it down three pieces.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

How do I differentiate which piece?

[Preston]

Net worth and enterprise value.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Net worth is the total value of the investments that you make that work without you. These are my investments in index funds, my investments in real estate that I don't control. Enterprise value is the value of the business that I own. And I can control the decisions, the relationships, the activities, the customers that I serve within the enterprise that I own and run. And the value of that is enterprise value. So net worth is the money that I have invested into things that I do not control. And its total value, that is what we may call passive or inactive. Whereas enterprise value is the value of the businesses that I do control.

[Preston]

I love that. Even though I can see the argument where somebody would say your net worth would include the value of your business, especially if it's an optimized business where you're not obligated to it.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yeah, I have no idea how to value the total value of my existing businesses. No, I have no idea.

[Preston]

We can talk on that at another point. But what was interesting to me is I went to a bank recently and I was looking at doing an ESOP on one of my businesses and they were like, oh, yeah, we can get you $105 million on this company. And you know, I was like, wow, well, what about my construction debt? Well, they'll have to continue to have construction debt. So that's to you. And I was like, excuse me? And they had a fee and of course it would have been less their fee and everything else. And so I put that on my financial statement. The bank didn't want that on my financial statement. The bank came back to me when I was going to renew my lines and get my increases and everything else. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. You need to put your book value. You need to put just what's on your balance sheet, just your equity, which is substantial. But it was Nowhere near the 105 million. And so the enterprise value of my enterprise, if I could esop it and sell it to my employees, was $105 million, because I can fucking do that. There's a market for it. There's a demand for it. And I'm not saying the bank is wrong, but their board got triggered because I put what I could sell it for instead of what they wanted me to put. So I agree with the three ways you have to break it down. I'd never heard that before, and I think it's brilliant. And I literally learned that lesson a month ago. So it. Without having the wording. So I think that's just a brilliant gold nugget takeaway. Tell me about, say, if you don't mind, what was maybe the top one or two struggles that you had as an entrepreneur that you had to overcome, but you came out the other side and became more on the end.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I don't know that I'm on the other side, but I'll say one of the top two struggles are the reason I get so hot about an abundance and scarcity mindset or conspiracy theories or political debates is because I know how much they cost me. I went down those rabbit holes. I watched the scary videos. I believed that the world was going to hell in a handbasket. I waited for the next crash, and therefore I did not invest. Therefore, I operated my businesses with a tenseness rather than a lightness. I planned for doomsday rather than planning for the golden age. And because of that, I missed out on not only millions of dollars, but a much more enjoyable experience. And that is why I get hot about drowning out the conspiracy nonsense and the negativity, because that was a real struggle and I still have my mental demons. And I would call that another set of challenges like you like the. The honest answer to your question. The second hardest struggle is the fact that half of my life is in front of a screen because we work on laptops and phones and are disconnected from each other. And I am fascinated to see what we do to solve that problem, because I think there is a. I think most of what we call the mental health crisis can be very easily explained by the fact that we mostly live in boxes apart from each other and communicate on screens. Those are the two biggest Challenges I've had to overcome. It's not the thing that I have figured out. It's the two things that I am constantly trying to improve.

[Preston]

You know, thank you for that level of authenticity. I, I, I have not figured out my crap either. And I, I, I think you know your problems. Meet you where you're at. At every level of business that I've hit. I've had a bigger problem show up to meet me this morning.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Yeah, it's like the crap keeps getting more crap. It's like I filtered out that crap. Now I got higher level crap.

[Preston]

I, I, I think part of life, and this is something that I talk about with every authentic entrepreneur that's not full of shit is, you know, I mean, we're here to be challenged, we're here to be grown, we're here to be tested. There's a purpose and frankly, we're all fuck ups. We're not designed to be perfect. Little Instagram influencer never made a mistake, people. So thank you for your authenticity there. Like the screen thing, my curiosity there on that and many other things. Which is why we were saying earlier that Black Swan events would, would come from an area you're not looking. There's so many things going on in our world today that have never been measured. I had a guy tell me the other day, and I'd love to get your perspective on this that, well, you know, our debt and our spending is unsustainable and we're going bankrupt like Greece. And I showed him.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

So you had this conversation today? Is that what you said the other day?

[Preston]

I'm not great on past dates. It might have been a week and a half ago. He's a friend I drink coffee with and I think maybe in any other time, 50 or 60 years ago, he'd have probably been right because we are out of control. But I showed him what the spending and the debt levels are of all the other countries around the world relative to ours. And it's kind of like we've created a new way of doing things that every country's bought into for the most part. There's a few outliers. What is your thought? And I love your passion. I want to bring some of it back out because I want them to hear this passion for the way I.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Think about this is I wonder what does this mean for my life? Nothing.

[Preston]

And here's my goal with it. I want what you are and at least in my assessment, is a brilliant thinker.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Thanks.

[Preston]

You take ideas and you don't accept them.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

That Is correct. That is a very keen observation of yours.

[Preston]

And you allow them, but you don't accept them.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Right?

[Preston]

How do you. Because that's rare, that's not normal. How do you, as you have information coming in, adapt it in that beautiful brain of yours and not allow it to just soak in, but spit it out in the way that I saw you do earlier and that you're now doing here?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I question everything because I don't think absolute truth is knowable to humans. And therefore I can find data for my market expanding or it contracting. And I can tell a story either way. I can create a story about whether a product is, here's a good example, vaccine good or vaccine bad. Well, what data are we looking at? Well, what problem are we looking at? What timetable are we looking at? I can make a beautiful presentation for either one and it'd be convincing. I can take a documentary about this diet and contrast it with a documentary about this diet and both can be equally persuasive. We can convince ourselves of any reality. And therefore when I get new inputs, what I process is how does this factor into what this is going to mean for my life? And then how do I want to operate with this data within the context of my own life? So I have found that truth, or what we call truth, I am not sure that I will ever know what it is. And therefore I'm simply processing what will be useful for my life. What will be a helpful delusion for me to call truth instead of this pursuit of what is objectively true. Because I have given up on the idea that I will ever know what that is.

[Preston]

I love that you're going back to Descartes. Do you ever read Descartes?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I don't remember.

[Preston]

Descartes was a famous, I mean I.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Remember he was a philosopher, but I.

[Preston]

Think he was Elizabethan era, but I remember like question. Well, how do I know I exist? How do I know this? How do I know anything? And he said, I think therefore I am. It's the only thing I can prove. And it was, it was just a beautiful proof. Anyway, sorry. I love history and you're kind of modern day Descartes in the entrepreneur world. It's really.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

I've been called a lot of things, but never a modern day Descartes. I'll take it. Thank you very much, Preston.

[Preston]

You're welcome. I'm gonna give you the history based compliments, bro. Do you feel that people that are maybe less mature, I don't wanna call them dumb because maybe ignorant, less mature Thinkers need a bad guy in almost every situation. They need to pick a side.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

The us versus them idea is the laziest way to motivate a group of people. So this is why politics plays it. You create an enemy, you come up with all reasons why the person is the enemy. And it's very motivating to the masses in our brains. It's like the lowest calorie way to make an argument sound persuasive is to create an enemy. I don't think you need it. I think once you understand that it's an unnecessary way to communicate ideas, you kind of rise above it. But I do think it's the laziest and therefore the best mass market way to get attention or to create a movement or an idea. I mean, if you look at, we keep talking about, like the clickbait on YouTube, most of the fear is about who's in control and the mysterious they behind the curtain and what they are up to and what they want you to think or don't want you to know. It's a mysterious enemy in order to create a narrative. I think it's lazy thinking. And my hope is that we have seen so much of that because of social media and content, that we're realizing that it's a mirage and therefore we're rising to a higher level of thinking.

[Preston]

I made a formula for myself just because I was driving myself insane. I mean, we're very aligned and getting stressed. But my formula for myself was, and it's the 4Ps. Is it possible? Okay, sure. Is it plausible? Probably not. Is it probable? No. Is it provable in almost every situation? No. And with those four pieces, I kind of work my way through them. I'm like, I'm not worrying about this shit because it's pointless. Hey, Ryan, like, you know, I'd love to end on a few things. I want to end on, you know, just any advice. Maybe one or two things that you would give to an entrepreneur out there that's looking to start, that's looking to grow, and then. And then after that, can you share where people can get a dose of you? Where can they find you to get more of this?

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Let's just get that one out of the way. So my business is capitalism.com, my favorite word. So if somebody wants to start a business, see how we take things to seven figures in a way that I think is a very predictable way to build $1 million business. Our free resources are available at capitalism.com playbook. There's a free course there. Our free Newsletter our free playbook capitalism.com playbook advice for the Entrepreneur the first is recognizing that the new innovations and tools are going to make most people lazier than they already are. And therefore, if you can develop a skill, it is more valuable today than it was even five years ago. Because the the number of people who know copywriting or good content creation or good marketing is so few because automation has made it easy and therefore the ability to be lazy with it. So learning any skill that you can apply to either your customers or other businesses will last a very long time. And the tools that exist make it faster and easier to learn that and perfect it. The second thing is there's a lesson in business that I didn't factor in, and it was the compounding value of relationships. When I started as an entrepreneur, I never could have predicted that the person that I met at a conference or on an Internet forum or connected with on social media and built a genuine relationship with. I factored in my own success that will exist over, you know, a few decades. But I never factored in the fact that other people are also waking up every single day wanting to improve their financial situation and that some of those relationships will go on to become incredible success stories. So now when I make a connection or I have a new customer, I try to see them 10 years in the future. And now I treat them with a different level of success, with a different level of presence or empathy or kindness because I don't know what their life is going to look like in 10 years. I might need a favor in 10 years when they make it and when you can see people in the future and the compounding results that everyone is at least attempting to make you realize that you don't have to try to get in the short term. If you create those relationships, you will have a network that is all compounding and growing together and you will get yours in the aggregate. Is that true for you too?

[Preston]

Absolutely.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

That your peers that you came up through with have become success stories alongside you?

[Preston]

Well, and I would say I probably screwed that one up in my younger days. I was so competitive and so cutthroat because of my own journey that, that I burnt some bridges unnecessarily and you know, I've rekindled many of them. But it's a lot harder five and 10 years later to go be like, I am so sorry, I was an idiot. And you can save yourself a lot of apologies if you give people, you know, the respect and even the belief that they're worthy too. Yes, and it's, you know, one of my. One of my good friends now was one of my most antagonistic competitors. And, you know, we were both cutthroat towards each other, and we built respect, but we also built hate. And. And, you know, later, our kids go to school together, and we start seeing each other every day, and it's like, you want to get a coffee? Yeah. And we find out we're, like, exactly alike. It's, you know, Ryan, this was pure gold, man. Thank you so much.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Thanks for having me. Preston, Congrats on the new show. Good luck in all these ventures. Welcome to the cult of content creation. It's a beautiful journey.

[Preston]

We put the cult in culture. Thank you.

[Ryan Daniel Moran]

Thank you for having me. Great to see you.

[Preston]

Have an amazing day. On purpose.