Dan Martell - Brutally Honest Advice For Someone Trying to Make Money with AI

00:00:00.000 Everyone is telling you that AI will make you rich.

00:00:02.640 Buy this tool, use this prop, be a millionaire by next week. 0.98

00:00:05.840 But it's all bull****.

00:00:07.680 I've built and scaled dozens of AI companies to over a million dollars 0.91

00:00:11.360 in less than six months through my company Martell Ventures.

00:00:14.180 I work with founders building AI companies every single day.

00:00:17.580 So I've seen exactly what makes people money and what makes them fail.

00:00:21.680 So in this video, I'm going to give you the five truths

00:00:24.020 on how to actually get rich with AI that no one will tell you.

00:00:27.240 Starting with, truth number one, AI won't make you rich.

00:00:31.160 Here's a way you need to think about it.

00:00:32.640 AI is like a hammer.

00:00:34.780 And without a nail to hit,

00:00:37.460 then essentially you're just whacking on a wall

00:00:39.180 for no reason.

00:00:41.840 So if AI is just a tool,

00:00:43.900 then how do we make money with it?

00:00:45.600 AI hasn't changed what makes you rich.

00:00:47.840 You get rich by solving problems.

00:00:49.340 It's just changed how fast you can get there.

00:00:51.700 But the fundamentals haven't changed.

00:00:53.540 You still need to know how to apply AI.

00:00:55.840 focused operators with real skills that know how to do with AI makes them unstoppable having no

00:01:02.300 focus all over the place with no real skills it's valuable AI will just burn you burn your bank

00:01:07.520 account cost you to waste a lot of tokens and right now I'm seeing a lot of businesses that

00:01:12.780 are spending money on AI that haven't seen any of that come back in income if you have a business

00:01:17.760 it can help you grow faster but it can also help you get broken faster so if AI is just a tool to

00:01:23.380 make money, then how do you make sure you actually make money with it? Truth number two, AI isn't the

00:01:28.980 problem. Nobody woke up today and said, I need more AI. Who got AI? Can you sell me some AI?

00:01:34.760 Nobody woke up and said that. They woke up and said, oh, this is a problem still. Why is this

00:01:40.240 still an issue? This sucks. They have a problem. The question to ask isn't how do I use AI in my 1.00

00:01:46.500 business? It's to ask what problem do I even solve in the first place? When AI can solve every

00:01:52.620 problem out there, and it can. The problem to solve is knowing what problem to solve. Remember

00:01:58.560 the nail and the hammer? So now you know you need a nail, a problem. Now you need to figure out what

00:02:03.460 nail is the right one to hit. Here's a framework that I like to use called the gain matrix.

00:02:07.640 Essentially, you have things that are easy for computers, hard for computers, hard for humans,

00:02:13.400 easy for humans. And that's why we want to focus on the things in the top left corner, okay?

00:02:18.580 that is the give and with give these are all the things that you could do it'd be easy for you to

00:02:25.640 do think about it all the stuff like data entry and research and all these small little things

00:02:30.640 that you could do that most people don't give up because it's not that hard i always look at this

00:02:35.280 as the first place like nobody should be doing this in the world of ai so these are things like

00:02:39.960 data entry right we've got other things like simple calculations

00:02:46.140 so the next one is accelerate this is where it's hard for humans but really easy for computers

00:02:53.780 this is where real leverage gets created this is where i think about buying back my time

00:02:58.580 that's where i'm looking these are tasks that would take hours and ai does it in minutes and

00:03:03.740 some examples are deep research right like giving it a bunch of documents and being like find me the

00:03:09.580 pattern in this, right? Or you have data analysis. I do this all day long where I'm looking at

00:03:16.560 information, data points, research reports. Like I need to find the pattern in the data. The next

00:03:22.700 part of the matrix is about integrate. And this is where you take hard for computers and hard for

00:03:29.520 humans and you collaborate together and you create new things that otherwise you couldn't do.

00:03:35.000 Think about like creative tasks.

00:03:36.720 Like, yeah, you can get it to create a bunch of Facebook ads,

00:03:39.600 but without a human, you wouldn't be able to know what's a great one.

00:03:42.860 And then you need to collaborate to have the volume to be able to see it.

00:03:46.560 Oftentimes when I'm working with AI, I can't tell you what I'm looking for,

00:03:50.200 but I know it when I see it.

00:03:52.100 So think creative tasks.

00:03:58.060 The other one is like innovation, right?

00:04:00.360 Like when I'm building new companies,

00:04:02.680 oftentimes I need to see the whole thing.

00:04:06.060 The AI gives me options, but me and my team,

00:04:08.660 we look at it and we go, oh, boom.

00:04:10.220 And you feel it in a meeting.

00:04:11.500 Have you ever felt it where you're like,

00:04:12.620 oh yeah, that's awesome, right?

00:04:14.660 Or even strategy, okay?

00:04:16.000 And strategy for me is sequencing.

00:04:18.780 It's not about the right thing.

00:04:20.660 It's about doing the right thing in the right order.

00:04:22.800 And oftentimes that's hard for me

00:04:24.440 even to know what are the pieces.

00:04:26.300 AI can do that.

00:04:27.320 It's hard for the AI to know what sequence

00:04:28.920 because it doesn't have the sensibility of a human

00:04:31.080 and together we co-create the right sequence of strategy.

00:04:35.300 Last but not least, we have hard for computers

00:04:37.480 but easy for humans. 0.54

00:04:38.600 This is where we go full freestyle,

00:04:41.700 full old school called no AI, right?

00:04:45.200 Because AI isn't what is needed.

00:04:48.500 When you have problems in that quadrant, show up.

00:04:52.240 I can't tell you the amount of times people think,

00:04:54.020 I'm just gonna hide behind my keyboard

00:04:55.100 and get AI to do this for me.

00:04:56.880 No, this is where the humanity shines.

00:04:59.220 This is where things like EQ, emotional intelligence,

00:05:02.560 it's what's needed.

00:05:03.680 Guess what?

00:05:04.300 AI can't tell you if the joke's any good.

00:05:06.800 AI can't even deliver the joke.

00:05:08.380 AI can't deal with conflict.

00:05:09.700 AI can't deal with leadership.

00:05:11.120 AI can't understand the complexity of the human experience

00:05:14.060 to be able to resolve situations.

00:05:15.600 I spend my whole day doing things AI can't do.

00:05:19.960 AI gives me more bandwidth.

00:05:22.100 Using these quadrants, I'm able to move faster,

00:05:24.800 but AI doesn't have my intuition AI doesn't have my vision AI doesn't have my taste it doesn't have

00:05:30.840 the care that I have it doesn't it doesn't know how to show up for people and that's what you

00:05:35.000 got to think about like things like EQ emotional intelligence so I teach my kids leadership how do

00:05:41.560 you show up for your team they're not listening to an AI and being led by an AI sure they'll follow

00:05:45.920 tasks but being inspired that's a human thing intuition resolving conflicts understanding how

00:05:53.580 to communicate when motions are involved.

00:05:55.760 So think about all the tasks you do

00:05:57.340 and place them in this matrix.

00:05:59.420 That's how you know how to use AI

00:06:00.920 for each specific problem.

00:06:02.860 Now, each one of these problems

00:06:04.000 are essentially all different kinds of nails,

00:06:07.020 screws, thumbtacks,

00:06:08.480 and they all require different tools.

00:06:10.940 So if you're a business owner with a team

00:06:12.460 and you wanna get everyone using the right tools

00:06:15.140 and the right problems,

00:06:16.260 I've got my free AI tech stack

00:06:18.160 for companies trying to get to the next level.

00:06:19.920 If you want it, go find me on Instagram

00:06:21.620 and just DM me the word YouTube stack

00:06:23.980 and I'll send it right over.

00:06:25.780 Now, I know what you're thinking.

00:06:27.500 I figured out the problems to solve.

00:06:29.380 Now, how the do I use AI to solve?

00:06:32.160 Truth number three, don't use AI.

00:06:34.540 I know, who abducted Dan?

00:06:36.740 Why is this guy here?

00:06:37.980 I thought you were the AI guy.

00:06:39.760 I can't tell you how much I hate when people default to AI

00:06:42.700 when they should just go figure out the simplest step

00:06:45.820 to solve the problems.

00:06:46.900 See, you need to understand the context.

00:06:48.820 You need to understand the steps.

00:06:49.860 what works and what doesn't before you ever introduce AI.

00:06:53.780 My favorite story to tell is listening

00:06:55.640 to any time Elon Musk has run into an issue

00:06:57.840 and he says, I just went down to the place

00:07:00.500 where the issue was, I looked at it with my own eyes,

00:07:03.380 I sat back, I analyzed it,

00:07:05.360 and then I decided what needed to be solved.

00:07:07.720 I didn't run to an AI and do a simulation

00:07:09.920 and figure out a whole model.

00:07:11.360 AI is like fuel.

00:07:12.580 It can be used to power an engine to move things faster,

00:07:15.880 but it can also blow up in everybody's faces.

00:07:18.120 broken systems with ai thrown on top of it will burn bright solid systems you put in some ai

00:07:25.180 will power a rocket when people come to me and they're like i want to build some software to

00:07:29.760 solve a problem i'm like ai can help you write the software but first figure out if there's a

00:07:33.920 problem to solve it's my favorite thing to do is launch a page have people sign up for a wait list

00:07:38.740 talk to them if they have the problem then they go yeah i have the problem cool manually solve it

00:07:43.760 It's called Wizard of Ozzie, where you're behind the scenes,

00:07:46.720 you onboard the customer, you look at the data,

00:07:49.360 you answer it, you give it back to them.

00:07:51.220 They think it's AI, it's not, it's a person.

00:07:53.360 And because of that, you're not worried

00:07:54.820 about the technology to solve the problem.

00:07:56.520 You're wondering if the problem is solved

00:07:58.000 the way the customer wanted it.

00:07:59.380 It's a way to pre-validate before you sit there

00:08:01.980 and burn a ton of tokens, spending tens of thousands

00:08:04.440 of dollars trying to build a prototype

00:08:06.240 before you even know if anybody's gonna use it.

00:08:08.160 I got a lot of friends that have been doing this lately

00:08:10.420 and they call me up, they say,

00:08:11.600 hey, Dan, you wanna see my prototype?

00:08:12.580 i go that's cool where's the customers you learn so much more having real customers pay you real

00:08:17.780 money to solve their problem in a real way they might think it's ai and then eventually you can

00:08:22.900 use ai to build the solution that they're already used to so this is exactly what you have to do

00:08:27.380 before you start implementing ai first solve the problem manually i'm talking with your fingers i'm

00:08:34.260 talking with your feet if you got to go out and do something do that deliver the service yourself

00:08:40.020 that way you can understand the whole workflow second document what's working create a process

00:08:47.460 create a checklist in real time as i'm simulating the solution i'm writing down the steps that made

00:08:54.100 the thing happen that way if i go to build software i have the specs i actually wrote it

00:08:58.180 out already the ai can take that and build something the third and only once you do one

00:09:02.340 and two do you go to an mvp what's called a minimum viable product and this is the most

00:09:07.380 basic version this is almost sometimes like it kind of works maybe the heavy lifting doesn't but

00:09:12.100 it's the most basic version using ai and then the last step is we got to scale once we know the

00:09:17.300 customers want we document the steps so we've built an mvp then we feed the playbooks into ai

00:09:22.420 then it can deploy the agents then it can build the code then it can manage the whole process

00:09:27.380 and that's how we scale but that's the last step not the first step most people start at step four

00:09:32.420 go back to step one and work your way through it so now you know the ai is just a tool you

00:09:37.220 know that solving real problems is where it's at and how you get rich and you know you need

00:09:41.540 to understand the process before adding ai to your business now you're probably thinking how

00:09:46.820 do i scale this truth number four ai does not replace people everyone in the future if they

00:09:54.180 choose to work will be an agent operator everything in the future business will change things from

00:10:00.500 today being a role based org chart to a workflow based org chart so for example creating a youtube

00:10:06.660 video the traditional way okay one person for each one of these roles think creative director to come

00:10:12.260 up with the strategy script writer you've got an editor you got a thumbnail designer and then you

00:10:16.500 need somebody to post the video the agentic way which is the agent on the loop is one person

00:10:22.020 owning the workflow that's where it's changed and then the agents each one of them own each

00:10:26.980 role within that workflow with the person making sure that the whole process is being managed so

00:10:32.100 humans will own workflows not roles anymore that's the difference my philosophy is that ai should

00:10:37.860 make your team 10x better not replace them if you have to lay people off because of ai that's

00:10:43.140 a leadership problem that's a leader that didn't see where the world's going didn't upskill their

00:10:47.780 team didn't get them ready for this and now that you're watching this get ready yourself do you

00:10:52.340 Do you think companies would rather have a person

00:10:54.760 with 10 AIs or 10 people with one AI each

00:10:58.160 trying to coordinate all the mess?

00:10:59.960 You wanna talk about token maxing?

00:11:01.640 You're burning massive tokens with 10 people in 10 systems.

00:11:05.000 I believe in this so much.

00:11:06.420 A few weeks ago, I shut down my company for two whole days

00:11:09.440 and I taught every single person how to code.

00:11:12.860 And we ran a contest for two days and did a hackathon.

00:11:15.680 And at the end of it, we had dozens of AI tools

00:11:19.280 that people built to essentially replace themselves.

00:11:22.220 They realize if they don't do it to themselves,

00:11:23.980 somebody else is gonna do it.

00:11:25.360 They wanna be the person that manages the system.

00:11:27.800 They don't actually need to be the person doing the work.

00:11:30.000 So you still need people with AI.

00:11:32.240 So the question should be,

00:11:33.440 who do you look for when you're hiring?

00:11:35.300 Okay, so try this.

00:11:36.800 I call it the AI role audit.

00:11:38.820 So just draw a T-chart just like this.

00:11:41.060 On one side, write AI, okay?

00:11:45.460 Now on the other side, write human.

00:11:48.740 Follow along at home, I'm watching.

00:11:50.860 Think of all the tasks that need to get done

00:11:53.120 for a specific process to actually get done.

00:11:55.860 On the A side, what are the tasks that AI can do?

00:11:59.100 On the human side, what are the tasks

00:12:01.060 that only a human can do?

00:12:02.280 For example, on the AI side, you can do planning, right?

00:12:06.660 I sat down this morning with my assistant,

00:12:08.420 we did some massive planning.

00:12:09.860 You can do research, right?

00:12:13.220 You can have copywriting, you can create ads,

00:12:18.140 You can do emails.

00:12:23.040 You can do analysis of the workflow.

00:12:27.280 Okay, what else can AI do?

00:12:29.280 Communicate.

00:12:30.860 Okay, I have my AI process, all my Slack messages,

00:12:34.500 all my email, route things, manage things,

00:12:36.760 all of these things used to take me days a week.

00:12:39.560 Now it takes me minutes and I'm the human on the loop

00:12:42.280 making sure that they happen.

00:12:43.500 On the human side, this is very special

00:12:46.140 because now we go to what can only you do?

00:12:48.400 That's where you have ownership, okay?

00:12:50.040 This is where you essentially own the workflow.

00:12:53.560 This is the person that says,

00:12:54.400 I am accountable for that output.

00:12:55.940 The AI is not accountable.

00:12:57.120 Guess what?

00:12:57.960 No AI is going to jail.

00:12:59.140 Human will.

00:12:59.980 I think about vision, you know?

00:13:02.560 Vision is having a belief about the future

00:13:04.540 that doesn't exist yet that should, okay?

00:13:06.980 And that is a human thing to create.

00:13:08.900 Then we have taste, right?

00:13:11.400 My buddy Hollis says it best.

00:13:12.920 He goes, taste isn't something you can buy,

00:13:14.900 has to be learned.

00:13:16.120 That's a human thing.

00:13:17.320 We have directing, directing other humans.

00:13:20.240 Look, AI is starting to do this,

00:13:22.100 but really talented people are not gonna sit back

00:13:24.660 and be directed by a computer or a robot.

00:13:27.040 They're gonna wanna have a relationship

00:13:28.680 with somebody that they trust,

00:13:29.880 and then they're gonna use the AI to scale their output.

00:13:33.300 We've got decision-making, right?

00:13:37.420 This is strategy, this is sequence,

00:13:39.480 this is being able to overcome problems.

00:13:41.900 So when you're hiring, you need to make sure

00:13:44.100 that the person knows how to do these things,

00:13:46.000 the human stuff, all the AI stuff.

00:13:47.920 These are like skills you can teach somebody.

00:13:49.960 Most of them you don't have to do anymore.

00:13:51.820 But does the human know how to manage the AI?

00:13:54.900 That is the agent operator.

00:13:56.780 And those are completely different skills.

00:13:58.700 And if you have a team already,

00:13:59.960 I would encourage you to look at every role that you have

00:14:02.720 and figure out how do you upskill them?

00:14:04.840 How do you get all their stuff done by AI?

00:14:07.440 Train them on the soft skills

00:14:08.820 so that they become better humans, better interactions.

00:14:11.900 The person that used to get paid a lot of money

00:14:13.700 to manage ads and sit in the basement

00:14:15.340 and not talk to anybody,

00:14:16.560 that person now needs to show up on the team,

00:14:19.520 let the AI do the ad buying,

00:14:21.480 and they need to be there

00:14:22.500 and have vision and taste and care about people.

00:14:24.560 So this is the shift.

00:14:26.060 Stop asking, how do I replace my team with AI

00:14:29.100 and start asking, how do I use AI

00:14:31.260 to make my team unstoppable?

00:14:33.420 Truth number five, humanity is the advantage.

00:14:37.100 Here's the thing, AI is not gonna take your job,

00:14:40.080 but somebody else well integrated with AI

00:14:42.860 will take your job, will take your business,

00:14:45.180 will compete against you.

00:14:46.500 AI is reshaping everything,

00:14:48.180 but the fundamentals of building a business has never changed.

00:14:51.060 Customers have problems, they want the problem solved.

00:14:54.400 Bigger the problem, bigger the business.

00:14:56.900 The more elegant and beautiful and interactive the solution,

00:14:59.780 the more the customer's gonna love you.

00:15:01.220 AI doesn't replace humans,

00:15:02.880 it just removes what's been keeping them apart.

00:15:05.720 The more you integrate it into your business,

00:15:08.080 the more human your business can show up.

00:15:10.260 You leverage AI to help move faster.

00:15:12.580 And that's the only way you can really get rich with AI.

00:15:15.400 Winners won't be the smartest.

00:15:17.040 They're the ones who took action.

00:15:18.800 So comment below.

00:15:20.560 Let me know what's the one action

00:15:22.260 you took away from today's video.

00:15:23.620 And remember, I put together my entire AI tech stack.

00:15:26.360 Every tool I use to run my $100 million business, it's free.

00:15:29.860 Just DM me YouTube stack on Instagram

00:15:31.880 and I'll send it right over.

00:15:33.260 Now, if you wanna learn why I'm going all in on AI,

00:15:36.280 watch this video here

00:15:37.400 and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - May 14, 2026

Brutally Honest Advice For Someone Trying to Make Money with AI

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