Podcast Summary: The Game with Alex Hormozi

Episode: Part 8: Making Your Money Model | $100M Money Models Audiobook | Ep 945

Date: August 19, 2025

Overview:

In this pivotal episode of "The Game," Alex Hormozi breaks down the concept of a “money model”—the system of sequential offers that enabled his multimillion-dollar companies to scale quickly and profitably. Drawing on his experiences with Gym Launch, Prestige Labs, and other ventures, Alex provides a comprehensive blueprint for structuring, growing, and iterating your own money model. He shares actionable advice, memorable examples, and candid lessons from his entrepreneurial journey, illustrating how deliberate offer design leads to explosive revenue growth.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis of the $"100M Money Model"

• Gym Launch Origins:
  • Alex started by personally flying out to gyms and helping them fill memberships, which evolved into a licensing model: “I accidentally discovered the Gym Launch licensing money model…gym owners could do it themselves.” (00:14)
• Sequential Offers Drive Rapid Growth:
  • Initial free resources (books, courses, training) → Decoy offer (do it yourself for free) → Premium offer ($16,000 for implementation).
  • “People bought left and right and whoosh. My decoy offer took me to $476,000 per month in three months. Not a typo.” (01:03)
• Revenue Plateaus Without Upsells:
  • Realized that having only one offer leads to stagnation. Introduced an upsell for advanced owners: “I crafted an upsell offer for the more advanced gym owners. I called it Gymlords and priced it at $42,000 per year.” (01:32)

2. Advanced Selling Structures: Upsells, Downsells, Continuity

• The Upsell Ladder:
  • Advanced playbooks, community access, and big upfront discounts ($6,000 off for prepay).
  • If refused: Payment plans, weekly payments, even a “start for free” continuity discount keeping cash flow steady:
    • “Classic upsell plus continuity bonus plus payment plan downsell plus continuity discount took me to 1.5 million a month.” (02:12)
• Personalized Menu Upsells:
  • Added multiple service levels (turnkey ads, sales training, tech support) plus feature downsells (“Dunn for you advertising” at $300/week, etc.):
    • “Menu upsells plus feature downsells took me to $2.3 million per month all within 14 months.” (03:01)
• Integration and Cross-Business Synergy:
  • Launched Prestige Labs as a separate but integrated business, doubling monthly revenue:
    • “By month 20 we were raking in $4.4 million per month.” (03:26)

3. Three Stages of a $100M Money Model

• Stage 1: Attraction Offers (“Get Cash”)
  • Decoy offers, “win your money back” challenges, free or deeply discounted trials.
• Stage 2: Upsell & Downsell Offers (“Get More Cash”)
  • Solve increasingly advanced problems with higher-priced or more personalized sales.
• Stage 3: Continuity Offers (“Get the Most Cash”)
  • Recurring revenue via memberships, subscriptions, ongoing support.
• Iterative, Not Instant:
  • “Money model growth happens alongside the growth of a business… If you try to start a bootstrap business from zero on your own with a finished money model, it will collapse.” (04:04)

4. Detailed Examples of Money Models

Alex walks through step-by-step breakdowns for four business types (see [04:45–08:50] for full details):

• Gym Launch:

  • Stage 1: Attraction/Decoy (free info vs. $16k program)
  • Stage 2: Upsell ($42k/year), Downsell (payment plan, lower entry)
  • Stage 3: Menu/feature continuity (ad packages, training, tech support)

• MicroGym:

  • Stage 1: Fitness Challenge (“win your money back”)
  • Stage 2: Supplement bundle upsell
  • Stage 3: Rollover/lifetime discount continuity

• Newsletter/Digital Product:

  • Stage 1: $0 trial then $3.99/mo
  • Stage 2/3: Pay less now for lifetime rate (e.g., $2.97 now, keep it for life)
  • “It combines free trial, pay less now, pay more later, lifetime discount, and is an attraction, upsell, and continuity offer—a six-headed money-making monster.” (08:38)

• Dog Food/Physical Product:

  • Stage 1: Buy X, get Y free
  • Stage 2: Monthly subscriptions, add-ons (dog toys/vitamins)
  • Stage 3: Automatic renewal

5. Step-By-Step Guide to Building Your Own Money Model

(See [09:08–14:00])

• Step 1: Attraction Offer

  • Main objective: Turn strangers into customers and cover acquisition costs.
  • Test multiple ideas: Decoy offers, buy X get Y, pay less now, win your money back.
  • “Figuring out what works best may take up to a year.” (10:11)

• Step 2: Pick an Upsell Offer

  • Objective: Profits “well above” your costs in the first 30 days.
  • “Remember, once you solve a problem, another appears. Those problems also need solutions.” (10:53)

• Step 3: Pick a Downsell Offer

  • “Goal is to get customers who said no to your last offer to say yes to another…you make more total cash from the same number of leads.” (11:32)
  • Payment plans, feature downsells, trial periods.

• Step 4: Pick a Continuity Offer

  • Stack recurring cash, bonuses, and discounts.
  • “Sometimes the best timing for continuity offers happens after the first 30 days.” (12:51)

6. Principles & Common Pitfalls

• Perfect One Offer at a Time:

  • Don’t implement the entire model at once. “Pick one offer. Try it. Keep doing it until it works reliably…Patience is still the fastest way to get to your goal.” (13:55)

• Raise Prices in Stages:

  • Start cheap, get early feedback, and raise only when reliable.
  • “You either build it right or you build it again and again…Building again, no matter how fast, still takes longer than building it right the first time.” (14:34)

• Simplicity Scales, Fancy Fails:

  • “It’s less about having 100 products to offer and more about having 100 ways to offer your product.” (15:17)

• Affiliate Products as Gaps:

  • Sell other people’s products (dental braces, massage tools, software) to fill holes, add profit, and reduce operational headaches: “No extra work. Voila.” (15:43)

7. Offer Engineering Flexibility & Final Thoughts

• Mix and Match:

  • All offer types can be used in any stage. “There are no rules. You can do whatever you want…Many of these offers you can use anywhere.” (17:21)

• Iterate & Experiment:

  • “Start with the way I suggest it. Then as you get better, experiment. That’s how I learned this stuff. It’s how you’ll learn it too.” (18:07)

• Summing Up:

  • Sequentially layer offers, don’t overwhelm your business by building the whole model at once.
  • “A $100 million money model eliminates cash as a bottleneck for growth. Mission accomplished.” (19:02)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the power of flexibility:

  • “It’s less about having 100 products to offer and more about having 100 ways to offer your product.” — Alex Hormozi (15:17)

• On patience:

  • “Patience is still the fastest way to get to your goal…You either build it right or you build it again and again.” (13:57)

• On upsells and persistence:

  • “If they said no, I went with $10,000 down and spread the rest over time. If they said no again, I’d go for $800 a week spread over 52 weeks. If they said no again, I said they could start for free.” (01:45)

• On achieving operational growth:

  • “When your money model starts working, your business starts breaking—part of the game. So I suggest you find someone who can build and lead the team to make your vision a reality. When I did, I married her.” (04:40)

• On mixing tactics:

  • “You can use upsell tactics in your attraction offer. You can install a downsell process with every offer. You can use a continuity offer to attract new customers. There are no rules.” (17:24)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01–03:26: The evolution of the Gym Launch money model
• 03:27–04:40: Integration with Prestige Labs and generalization of offer sequencing
• 04:41–08:50: Example breakdowns – Gym Launch, MicroGym, Newsletter, Dog Food
• 09:08–14:00: Step-by-step: Building your own money model
• 14:01–19:02: Principles, pitfalls, and flexibility in offer design

Closing Takeaways

• Don’t rush: perfect and automate each stage before moving on.
• Focus on offer ingenuity and creative selling, not just expanding products.
• Use affiliate products to increase profit and fill offer gaps.
• A $100M money model is adaptive, evolving, and always focused on maximizing customer value and cash flow.

Bonus:
“Step-by-step training video available for free at acquisite.com/training/money” — Alex Hormozi (19:10)