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The AI revolution is here. AI agents are
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about to start replacing whole teams and
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Google search is slowly dying. The world
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is going to change forever. But I don't
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want you to be left behind. So, I'm
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going to share the eight simple steps
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that I'm personally following to take
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advantage of this window of opportunity
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and how you can use these same steps to
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get rich with AI, even if you're
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starting from zero. Now, before you can
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start making money with AI, you need to
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pick the right industry. I've built and
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sold three software companies. I've
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invested in over a hundred. I've been
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building technology companies since 97.
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I saw the internet boom. I've seen the
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web 2 boom. I've seen the mobile boom.
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I've seen it all. I haven't been this
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excited in the tech industry since '97
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with the internet. But what I saw a lot
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of people do back then is pick the wrong
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industry. And what I believe is true is
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the right industries are the boring
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ones. The ones nobody wants to talk
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about. See, in life, as in technology,
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as in AI, we need to focus on what's
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true, not new. Being too early, too
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technology advanced, is just as wrong as
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being too late. So, I'm going to present
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to you five industries that you can get
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involved and use AI to make a lot of
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money today to take advantage of this
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gold rush. The first one is supply
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chain. Think about all the logistics
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that goes around. I mean, I don't buy
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anything at a store anymore. It's
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literally over an app. So you think
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about all the challenges these companies
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are going to have around forecasting
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around route optimization for
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deliveries. Everything around supply
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chain management is ripe for disruption
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to make a lot of money using AI. The
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second is admin. And this is where you
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see a little bit of innovation happening
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right now. But think about billing,
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scheduling, filing, sorting. AI that's
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able to read the information systems
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that team members can use like the
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Dropboxes or your CRM like HubSpot to do
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administrative type work is going to be
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a huge money maker. Number three is home
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services. Think roofing, Hback,
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plumbing. Anytime a truck has to go to a
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home, there's a whole lot of processes
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involved that if you use AI to help
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automate it and make it better, those
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local industries combined are the
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trillion dollar industries in this
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world. Number four, legal services.
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Pretty much the first thing that people
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start playing around when they get into
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chat GPT or other AI tools is stuff
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around contract analysis or creating
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drafts of things. I remember last week I
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got an email for a deal I was about to
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do and I was asking some questions and I
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was like why am I even asking? I just
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grabbed everything put into AI and it
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gave me the questions to ask and when I
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called my legal team they're like how do
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you even know to ask those questions?
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I'm like AI people building tools to
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implement structure and workflow into
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that are going to make a ton of money.
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The last one, number five, is team
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training. This is an area I'm very
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excited about. If you think about the
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idea of every company in the future
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having an AI that joins for all the Zoom
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calls, that you're able to talk to it,
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that is your buddy for onboarding at a
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company that has access to all the
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steps, the processes, the SOPs,
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essentially is the company AI. It will
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allow people to be so much more
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efficient and have everybody have the
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answers to their biggest questions in
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real time. So, now that you've got your
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industry, you need to figure out how to
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help them. Which brings us to step
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number two. Pick a high margin model.
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Margins are your moat. They stack to
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that moat you've already started. It
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protects your business. Most people
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don't understand what a margin is. If
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you sell a product for $100, but it cost
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you $20, your margin is $80, which is
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about 80%. The key is is you don't want
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to be in a business that has margins
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that are only 20 or 30%. Think
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restaurants or brickandmortar businesses
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with a bunch of overhead. Those are bad
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businesses to be in. So to win in
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today's market, you have to pair AI with
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a high margin business model. These are
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the four for 2025. Number one, AI
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services with about 70% gross margin.
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This is building workflow and automation
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for people that want AI in their
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business. And it's literally getting
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paid to set up make, Zapier, NAN, or my
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favorite, Gum Loop. Number two is AI
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consulting, and that's where you can get
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into 80% gross margin. And this is being
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a lot more hands-on with these companies
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to help them understand not only how to
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build the services, but also build the
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strategy behind deploying AI and making
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their business AI first, not getting
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sidelined by other people using AI.
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Number three is AI software with gross
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margin at 90%. That's my world. That is
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literally looking at a workflow or a
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process and thinking about if I use AI
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as a primary driver for solving that
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problem, how would the software work?
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And the crazy part is is there's no more
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workflow. A lot of the AI software is
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powered through text like chat, voice,
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or just does on the back end and you
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never see anything. Like I believe in
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this one so much that I've gone all in
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on building an AI venture studio. One of
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the products that we're building at
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Martell Ventures is an AI powered
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business dashboard to tell you where the
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problems are in your business and how to
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fix them. Number four is AI digital
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products. And this is 95% because if you
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build one program on AI and you sell it
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a thousand times, there's no real cost
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other than the hosting. And I've seen a
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proliferation on all the social
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platforms around people that are
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building massive audience like my buddy
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Dave Eilar where he's got 15,000 people
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in his community and he's monetizing
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using these digital products that help
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them go get better in their craft. And
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then he has this massive community that
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he gets to serve which brings us
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directly to step number three. Sell to a
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rich customer. So Dan Kennedy, the
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marketing godfather, had this great
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quote. He said, "It's easier to make a
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million dollars selling to millionaires
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than to make a million selling to
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everyone." So to win in today's AI
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world, you have to find millionaires in
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those boring industries. So these are
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the five hacks, the last one's going to
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blow your mind, that I use to meet these
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millionaires. Number one is industry
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specific events. This means you either
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go to them or you help create them. When
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I moved to San Francisco in 2008, I
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didn't know a soul. But a friend of mine
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said that all the people that you want
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to get to know are speakers at the
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event. So go to the events. But better
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yet, what I did is I reached out to the
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organizer and I asked them to help out.
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So then I got access to the green room
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where the speakers were and that's how I
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started to build my network. Number two,
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hyperpersonalized email. When I say
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hyper, I mean like write the freaking
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thing. I remember years ago I got a cold
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email from a guy named Chris and he's
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like, "Hey Dan, I know you don't know
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me. This is a cold email, but I follow
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your content. I kept reading and he
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said, "I can make you money with your
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email. Give me a shot." Because of that
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hyperpersonalized email, I let him take
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a shot. We sent the email. It made me
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money. Chris today makes seven figures
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working on my team. Number three, offer
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an interview. I think using a podcast to
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build your platform to get you access to
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the world's top millionaires in your
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space for where you're building your AI
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solution is a beautiful way to network.
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Think of it as flattery marketing. You
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know you want to sell to this customer,
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you need to talk to them. Your ask
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initially is to get them on your
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podcast. They probably are going to ask
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you what you do. You tell them, they go,
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"Geez, that's what we need. Could you
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come talk to my team about that AI thing
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you do?" And that's how you build
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relationship at scale to meet the
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millionaires to make money. Number four
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is host the meetup. And I'm doing this
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every week. I literally go through
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social media, find people that are doing
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cool things, and then I reach out to
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them to join a roundt on Zoom. So, I
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keep it super simple and we just
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connect, share what we're learning in
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the industry and offer to be helpful to
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everybody else. So, you don't have to
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make it more complicated than that.
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People just want to meet other people
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just like them. If you're going to do
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the work to organize a meetup or a Zoom
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call or a mastermind, they're going to
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show up. Five, host a founders dinner.
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And this is for me a theme dinner. Think
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of like AI founders dinners. So, coming
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up, I'm going to be in San Francisco.
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I'm organizing a founders's lunch AI
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focus, a founders dinner AI focus, and
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I'm going to find people on Twitter and
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online that are living in those cities.
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Invite them to those meals and get to
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connect with them breaking bread. So,
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now that you're crystal clear on your
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customer, let's start building your
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offer. Which brings us directly to step
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four. Create a high cash flow offer.
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See, in business, I realized that
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profit's cool, margins are cool, but if
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you don't have cash, then your business
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is really tough to grow. When I was
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building Spheric, my first company, we
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grew so fast that there was this sound
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of cash flying out the door that always
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made it hard for us to scale until a
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mentor came into my life and showed me
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how to set my pricing and get my offer
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right so that I stopped financing my
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customers problems. What most people
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don't realize is for a company to grow,
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it requires money. And most businesses
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don't create their offers to be able to
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finance the growth. So then you end up
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acting like a bank to help your
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customers pay to solve their problems.
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See, revenue in a business, that's
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vanity. Profit is sanity, but cash flow
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is for your vitality. So here are the
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key components to building a high cash
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flow offer. Number one is anchor
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pricing. And this will change the game
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for you. Doesn't matter what business
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you're in. In your pricing options, you
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want to have something that's really
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expensive. usually three to five times
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more than the second tier in your
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pricing cuz then it makes everything
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else look cheap. So for example, if you
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sell AI consulting, make sure the top
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tier is three to five times more
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expensive than your middle tier or your
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lower tier to make those ones easier
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options for people to say yes to. Number
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two is implement scarcity. And you have
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to say this cuz it's probably true that
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there's only a few spots for you to be
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able to help those customers. So if they
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want to get started, they need to put a
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deposit down today to lock in their spot
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for you to get started. If not, there's
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no reason for them to make a decision
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today. Number three is add a bonus. The
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best bonus, something extra to give, is
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usually the solution to the problem
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you're going to create after you solve
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the problem they came to you for. So, if
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you're helping them build an AI agent,
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well, the next problem they're going to
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have is training their team. So, your
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bonus would be free training after you
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build the AI agent. And my rule of thumb
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is I want to make the bonus even more
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valuable than the initial offer so that
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they feel like it's a no-brainer. Number
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four is volume pricing. And I know I
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said no discounts and this is not a
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discount. This is what you do if you can
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get them to buy a lot more of what you
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got. So if your initial pricing is for
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one year, but you can get them to buy
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two, 3 years worth of what you've got,
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then offer some volume discount. If it's
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for one seat of your software, what if
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they buy a 100 seats? How much cash can
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you get upfront from the customer
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transaction? Because all that money that
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you're prepaying for a service that you
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deliver on later is your cash flow
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you're going to use investing growth. To
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make this even simpler, if you want my
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internal offer template, just go find me
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on Instagram at Dan Martell2 Martell on
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Instagram. Just message me YouTube offer
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and I'll send you my internal playbook.
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Now that you got your offer, what do you
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do? Which brings us directly to step
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five. Sell before you build. Most people
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end up sitting down getting ready to do
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business and then finally go out to the
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world and say, "Hey, buy my thing." to
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find out nobody wanted to buy the thing
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because the way you designed it, the way
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you packaged it, the way it works is
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just not what they want. I've seen
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business person spend hundreds of
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thousands of dollars, find out nobody
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wanted to buy their AI solution. What I
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recommend is create the designs of what
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you want and then go to the market and
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have that conversation because no
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business survives first contact with the
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customer. Your key is to pre-ell your AI
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solution to then fund your development
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so that you don't build something nobody
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wants. So here are the four key steps
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that you need to learn on how to
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pre-sell your AI solution. Number one is
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prototype. This is the gamecher today.
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We live in this world that you can
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prototype your solution using paper.
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That's an easy one. Figma is a more
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advanced one. Balsamic is really cool.
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Or go as crazy as like invision and
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really highfidelity mockups where it's
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literally almost photorealistic
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simulation of your AI solution so that
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you can demo it to people and say here's
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what it costs and get them to buy.
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Number two is find your early adopters.
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These are people within your industry
00:11:32
that are willing to take a little bit of
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risk. They're the founding 50, I call
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it. Those 50 get to co-create the
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software with you so that they help
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drive the product roadmap, but they're
00:11:42
your early adopters. These are your
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customers that are going to be on board
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for the long haul. And those ones, you
00:11:46
want to give them a bonus. You might
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give them time with your team. You might
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allow them to shift priorities in your
00:11:52
road map. I've had people put the name
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of their founding 50 on the about page
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to thank and acknowledge them for
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supporting them in the early days.
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Whatever it is, make sure you go find
00:12:00
those early adopters. Number three is
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ask for advice. Here's what I've
00:12:04
learned. If you want to sell, don't try
00:12:05
to sell. Ask for advice. If you ask for
00:12:07
money, you'll get advice. If you ask for
00:12:09
advice, you get money twice. Okay,
00:12:11
that's a pitbull lyric, but it works the
00:12:13
same. If I reach out to people on
00:12:14
LinkedIn and say, "Hey, I'm building
00:12:15
this new AI. I'd love to get your
00:12:16
advice." And then you demo this
00:12:18
prototype software. They go, "Wow,
00:12:20
that's amazing. How do I get access to
00:12:21
it?" He says, "Well, it's still early,
00:12:22
but if you want to be part of the
00:12:24
founding 50, here's how it works, and
00:12:25
you'll get first access in the next 90
00:12:27
days, cuz then you take all that money
00:12:28
and you go build it, and then you
00:12:30
deliver the software." Step number four
00:12:31
is one conversion tool. This is how you
00:12:34
sell your solution. Maybe it's going
00:12:36
through partners that allow you to
00:12:37
present your solution on a big webinar
00:12:39
or it's using sell by chat cuz you have
00:12:41
a big social media audience or you're
00:12:42
just picking up the phone and doing
00:12:43
outbound calls. Just choose one and go
00:12:46
deep. And to do this the best you want
00:12:48
to automate it and have a tool to do
00:12:49
this. So for example, sell by chat, use
00:12:51
Revio. If you're going to do calls, you
00:12:54
want to use a tool for that. But that's
00:12:55
how you scale that one conversion tool
00:12:57
to really get your first money to scale
00:12:59
your AI solution. Now that you got some
00:13:01
money in the bank, it's time to build.
00:13:03
Which brings us directly to step six.
00:13:05
Build your MVP or what's called your
00:13:06
minimal viable product. You know what's
00:13:08
crazy? Years ago, one of my buddies
00:13:10
called me up cuz he needed a favor. And
00:13:12
he asked me if I could look into this
00:13:13
software product he built. And he was 3
00:13:15
years building this software. He hired
00:13:17
an agency. They took all his money. They
00:13:19
never told him to ship it. They never
00:13:21
told him to do anything different cuz
00:13:22
why would they? They're getting paid.
00:13:23
And I asked him how much money he was in
00:13:25
so far for this software. $3 million.
00:13:29
essentially had a profitable business
00:13:31
that turned out to be less profitable
00:13:32
because it financed the software. Don't
00:13:34
do that. I'm going to teach you how to
00:13:36
build an AI MVP that doesn't break the
00:13:38
bank. Number one is no code. This is
00:13:41
using pre-made tools like gum loop I
00:13:43
mentioned earlier, go highlevel, make,
00:13:45
nadn, there's literally existing noode
00:13:48
platforms where for most of you that are
00:13:50
building AI solutions, you can just use
00:13:52
that and keep selling it over and over
00:13:55
and over again. Number two is AI code.
00:13:57
If you need something more advanced,
00:13:59
there's literally new coding platforms
00:14:01
powered by AI. It's kind of like this
00:14:03
new thing called Vibe Coding. And I mean
00:14:06
tools like Replet and Bolt and Cursor
00:14:08
and many others. You can even use Chad
00:14:10
GPT to write the code and do things that
00:14:12
are more advanced. And if you don't know
00:14:13
how to use these tools or deploy your
00:14:15
code, ask Chad GPT. It'll literally walk
00:14:17
you right through the whole thing. Third
00:14:19
is hire an AI developer. I literally
00:14:21
hired one today. And for me, it's all
00:14:23
about test project first to see if they
00:14:25
know what they're talking about. culture
00:14:27
fit. Have that conversation with them.
00:14:29
Tell them the way you work so they're
00:14:30
not surprised. And then be sure when you
00:14:32
hire them that you've done the
00:14:33
pre-elling because you have the
00:14:35
wireframes in the solution that you've
00:14:37
sold to give to the AI developer to
00:14:39
build so they hit the ground running.
00:14:41
But without this next step, you're going
00:14:42
to overwhelm yourself with work. Which
00:14:44
brings us directly to step seven.
00:14:46
Automate the delivery. Here's what most
00:14:48
people don't realize is that automation
00:14:50
turns your offer into a machine. One
00:14:52
that works while you sleep. I had a
00:14:54
friend Rachel years ago come to me
00:14:56
because she was running an agency and
00:14:57
she got a bunch of business and she was
00:14:59
overwhelmed and she's stressed out. And
00:15:01
I'm like, "How much of your thing that
00:15:02
you just explained to me did you set up
00:15:04
and automate?" She was like, "What do
00:15:05
you mean?" I was like, "Well, when you
00:15:07
sell something and they pay you, do you
00:15:09
have like onboarding automated or
00:15:12
scheduling or the reporting for them or
00:15:14
all the stuff that doesn't take you?"
00:15:15
And she's like, "No." Today, especially
00:15:18
with AI, you have a massive opportunity
00:15:20
to automate all the busy work in
00:15:22
business so that you can do the thing
00:15:23
that gets you paid. So, these are the
00:15:25
four areas of business that you need to
00:15:27
automate. Starting with the first one,
00:15:29
purchasing. I still see people not being
00:15:31
able to take payment. It sounds crazy,
00:15:32
but in a world of Stripe and Web Flow to
00:15:35
Gum Loop, you can set this up for
00:15:37
yourself. Number two, account login and
00:15:40
setups. I mean, once somebody pays you,
00:15:42
you can have all of the account
00:15:44
membership, the creation, all that stuff
00:15:46
set up on the back end. I think of
00:15:47
membership.io. It literally automates
00:15:49
your whole membership experience. So, if
00:15:51
you sell an AI membership, use that
00:15:53
platform, connect it to a Gum Loop in
00:15:55
your billing platform, and the whole
00:15:56
thing gets automated. Number three,
00:15:57
onboarding. When Rachel showed me the
00:15:59
amount of time she spent taking
00:16:01
information from her clients and going
00:16:02
back and forth, I'm like, that's a type
00:16:04
form. You take that whole intake, you
00:16:06
give it to them. They got to fill it out
00:16:08
to schedule their first call. And then
00:16:09
you can automate a bunch of cool AI
00:16:11
processing. Many people use that as the
00:16:14
inputs to actually do the work. Number
00:16:16
four, support. Post purchase, post
00:16:18
deployment, post customer using it,
00:16:21
they're going to have questions. You
00:16:22
want to make sure you create a knowledge
00:16:24
base with all your support questions
00:16:25
that AI uses as emails come in to scan
00:16:28
your answers and automatically reply as
00:16:31
a support agent. And the more you add to
00:16:33
that knowledge base, the better your
00:16:34
agent can add to those support emails
00:16:37
coming in from your customer. Which
00:16:38
brings us directly to step eight, get
00:16:40
greedy. Now, let me explain. It's kind
00:16:42
of crazy cuz I see this all the time. I
00:16:44
had an entrepreneur come to me recently
00:16:45
and he was like four or five months in
00:16:47
the business and he had an opportunity
00:16:49
to sell. My whole thing is is what
00:16:50
you're trying to build. Do you want to
00:16:51
be short-term greedy and take some cash
00:16:53
off the table a little bit or do you
00:16:55
want to be long-term greedy and build
00:16:56
some real wealth? Here's the three S's
00:16:58
that I think about to create AI wealth
00:17:01
in today's market. Number one is sell.
00:17:03
And that's short-term greed. That's
00:17:04
literally deciding to build a little
00:17:06
tiny app or a little tiny service. And
00:17:08
if somebody's willing to pay you some
00:17:09
money to save some time, you could sell.
00:17:11
The problem with that one is you just
00:17:13
didn't learn. You're just starting. And
00:17:15
the real value in all businesses is not
00:17:17
necessarily the money you make. It's the
00:17:19
experience that you gain. Number two is
00:17:21
scale. Keep that thing that's making
00:17:23
money. Keep printing money and keep
00:17:25
going. I remember my friend Chris at
00:17:26
Wistia, he had an opportunity to sell
00:17:28
and he realized that if he sold the
00:17:30
business, he would just start the exact
00:17:31
same business. So instead of selling, he
00:17:33
raised a bunch of debt to then buy out
00:17:35
his early little investors and then kept
00:17:38
with his partner building the business
00:17:39
that he enjoyed so much. Number three is
00:17:41
stack. And that's exactly what we're
00:17:43
doing at Martell Ventures. We work with
00:17:45
some of the smartest AI minds building
00:17:47
technology for small businesses to
00:17:49
essentially build a portfolio of
00:17:51
companies that are going to be the
00:17:53
solutions for the different categories
00:17:55
of problems small businesses have around
00:17:57
the world. If that's you, just find me
00:17:59
on Instagram and message me the word AI
00:18:01
ventures. And if you want to learn the
00:18:02
nine highinccome AI skills you need to
00:18:05
build this year, click the video and
00:18:06
I'll see you on the other
