Dan Martell - January 16, 2026


How I’d Make $1M with AI in 2026 (Zero Code)

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Jeff Bezos Crypto Replit Atlas
How to raise strong children Language Matters in Business

Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

211.72

Word count

3,713

Sentence count

151

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

If you ve been thinking about building an AI company or already have one and want to scale past the $1M mark, this video is your blueprint. If at any point in this video, you think to yourself, I can t do this, you might not be cut out to make a million with AI. But if you re one of the select few that are willing to do the work, this is for you. Starting with step 1, sell before you build.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I became a cash millionaire at 27 years old with software.
00:00:03.260 But if I had to go back and make my first million dollars
00:00:05.640 in the next 12 months with AI, this is exactly what I do.
00:00:09.120 It's the same proven process that I took all my AI companies
00:00:12.460 at Martell Ventures through over the last year.
00:00:14.800 And three of those companies are already at a million dollars
00:00:17.300 in revenue in less than 12 months.
00:00:19.620 So if you've been thinking about building an AI company
00:00:22.000 or already have one and want to scale past the million,
00:00:24.940 this video is your blueprint.
00:00:26.540 And if at any point in this video, you think to yourself,
00:00:28.680 I can't do this, you might not be cut out to make a million with AI. But if you're one of the select
00:00:33.460 few that are willing to do the work, this video is for you. Starting with step one, sell before
00:00:38.860 you build. Let me tell you the fastest way to go broke with AI. Spend the next six months building
00:00:45.140 a tool, then find out nobody wants it. You actually got to flip it. You need to sell it first, then
00:00:51.560 build it. I call it pre-selling. Here's how it works. The first thing is we have to find 10
00:00:56.500 potential customers and ask them for advice. I'm going to give you the question to make this really
00:01:00.000 easy because I learned a long time ago, if you talk to a potential customer and ask them for
00:01:03.980 money, they'll just give you advice on why maybe you're not ready. But if you ask for advice,
00:01:08.280 they give you feedback and then they sell themselves into buying from you. So the question
00:01:13.040 you want to ask them is what has been hard about your business that if you could automate with AI,
00:01:17.880 you would love to get that set up for yourself, right? Just ask them those questions. And when
00:01:21.780 they give you the answer, then you create the offer, which brings us to step two. That's usually
00:01:26.760 when people say, well, how much should I charge? My rule is, is whatever you would charge for the
00:01:30.760 year, give them a 50% discount. And the reason you're giving the discount is because you're
00:01:34.900 going to ask them for a case study, but what they're giving you in return is the permission
00:01:38.900 to use their name to then use that when you go talk to other customers. And finally, you have
00:01:44.000 to decrease the first time to value for your customer, meaning you have to build a plan that
00:01:48.160 goes from like they gave you money to they got something as fast as possible. That's pre-selling
00:01:53.140 and it's easier than you think. But now that you understand you have to pre-sell, how do you find
00:01:57.980 the people to sell to? Which brings us to step two, pick a boring market. I have a rule. I don't
00:02:03.800 like to sell to hot, exciting, flash in the pan industries. Things like marketing and technology,
00:02:09.760 right? Crypto, e-com, course selling. And I'm not saying they're an absolute no. The problem is,
00:02:15.640 is that when you get into these shifts and fads,
00:02:18.400 the fad could go away and you build a whole business 0.81
00:02:20.960 against something that won't be there
00:02:22.480 in three or four years.
00:02:23.540 We have to pick a market that's easy to get into
00:02:26.140 that's gonna value innovation.
00:02:27.980 It's like Jeff Bezos.
00:02:29.120 He said, look, I don't care about what's new.
00:02:31.480 I care about what's true.
00:02:32.880 What are customers gonna care about in 10 years, 20 years?
00:02:35.740 It's not gonna change.
00:02:36.840 Because if you can find these boring markets
00:02:38.700 that don't have a lot of competition,
00:02:40.740 those are the ones that typically have high margins
00:02:43.040 and they're ripe for disruption and innovation.
00:02:46.200 So how do you pick a born market?
00:02:48.480 Well, first, ask AI.
00:02:50.440 You can type, show me 20 boring industries
00:02:53.740 with high average deal sizes
00:02:55.600 where operations are still manual, okay?
00:02:58.340 Why?
00:02:58.660 Because AI will help you automate those manual processes.
00:03:02.140 See what I did there?
00:03:02.920 And then the high deal size
00:03:04.640 means that they're gonna pay a lot,
00:03:06.600 not too much, not too low,
00:03:08.080 because people that have money are great to sell to.
00:03:11.760 So once you've got the boring market, how do you actually know what to sell?
00:03:15.520 The second, within that market, we got to find a pain that they actually have.
00:03:19.580 So for an electrician, maybe it's the fact that they have missed calls that they're always
00:03:23.160 getting and they're losing jobs because those calls are coming in after hours.
00:03:26.560 See how that could be painful for somebody to try not to be tied to their work or when
00:03:30.520 they're working, they're actually getting paid and they don't have time to answer a
00:03:32.920 call.
00:03:33.380 The third thing is we have to figure out the benefits that are needed.
00:03:36.480 If the person has these problems, what are the key things that you're going to solve
00:03:41.100 for them?
00:03:41.500 So for example, if it's that they're not available
00:03:44.200 to take calls, then you can use an AI software
00:03:48.360 like your Atlas and actually get paid
00:03:51.360 to set it up for them so that it answer,
00:03:54.320 it qualifies and it schedules calls
00:03:56.040 while they're on a job being an electrician.
00:03:58.240 But you get paid by setting that up for them.
00:04:01.440 See, the cool part is in this world we live in,
00:04:04.000 you can make money using AI tools that other people built,
00:04:08.280 but you're the person in the middle
00:04:09.720 that sets it up for these business owners.
00:04:11.500 by the way i have links to all the tools i'm going to mention in this video below in the
00:04:15.340 description so you can click them if you want to check them out but if i had to make a million
00:04:19.020 dollars with ai this year again i wouldn't start with an idea i would start with the boring market
00:04:24.700 so now that you know the market you want to be in next we have to lock in the math that keeps you
00:04:29.260 rich not just busy step number three pick your high margin model now margin is a weird word a
00:04:35.580 lot of people don't understand it but it's very simple if i sell a product for five dollars and
00:04:40.940 and it cost me a dollar to make, my margin is $4.
00:04:44.340 The challenge is most people focus on revenue
00:04:46.920 and it's a vanity.
00:04:47.940 How much money did you make last year?
00:04:49.500 Oh, I made a hundred grand.
00:04:50.540 Well, if it costs you a million to make a hundred grand,
00:04:53.540 it's not a business you wanna be in.
00:04:55.260 And unfortunately, most people don't understand
00:04:57.820 how to build the business in a way
00:04:59.440 that can make them a lot of profit.
00:05:00.920 And why AI is so powerful for this
00:05:03.020 is that it can take your delivery costs,
00:05:05.020 where in the past you'd have to pay somebody to do it,
00:05:07.160 and bring it down to almost zero
00:05:09.260 because AI can automate it.
00:05:10.760 You want your AI business to feel like that.
00:05:13.880 High price, tiny cost.
00:05:16.240 Charge a lot for what you do, very low cost to deliver.
00:05:19.820 And look, I've done the research for you.
00:05:21.640 So here are the highest margin AI business models for 2026.
00:05:25.460 The lowest one is AI services, around 70% margin.
00:05:28.940 Again, you can Google or search on AI, any one of these.
00:05:32.000 The next level up is AI consulting, around 80% margins.
00:05:35.660 Then we go to AI digital products, around 90% margins.
00:05:39.460 And then the one that I'm in and I love is AI software,
00:05:42.340 a little bit more complicated to do.
00:05:44.040 And they have around 95% margins
00:05:46.360 where I spent personally 93% of my time
00:05:48.900 all week building these companies.
00:05:50.560 If I had to get rich with AI this year,
00:05:53.240 here's what I would do.
00:05:54.320 First, I would start with an AI service or consulting.
00:05:57.180 That way it gets me in the conversation with the customers.
00:06:00.260 I learned the AI to automate,
00:06:02.140 but then I would try to productize it
00:06:04.120 into a light software that takes the workflow
00:06:07.080 that I've documented and systematized
00:06:08.880 and packages it into a software
00:06:11.120 that other people can buy without me even talking to them.
00:06:14.580 That's how we get to 95% margin.
00:06:17.180 So now we've got a boring market figured out
00:06:19.180 and a high margin model so you can make some profit.
00:06:21.940 Now you need to find the right person to sell it to.
00:06:24.620 Step number four, create a high cashflow offer.
00:06:28.460 Most people sell AI.
00:06:30.660 Truth is nobody wants AI.
00:06:32.200 A business wants customers, a business wants productivity,
00:06:35.580 a business wants to reduce its costs.
00:06:37.080 It doesn't care if that's AI or fricking a thousand people,
00:06:40.640 as long as what they're paying
00:06:41.740 and what they're getting, there's an ROI.
00:06:43.540 Just so we're clear, margin is the profit potential.
00:06:47.260 Cashflow is how the money flows through the business.
00:06:49.980 For example, if I sell you a thousand dollar solution
00:06:52.800 that you buy from me,
00:06:54.200 but then I got to put out $500 of my own money
00:06:58.260 because by the time I send you an invoice
00:07:00.360 and then your finance team gets it and they pay it,
00:07:02.820 I got to put money out before I get money back.
00:07:04.900 That's where cashflow is important.
00:07:07.080 These are the four steps to avoid making the mistake
00:07:10.280 of creating a cashflow crunch in your business
00:07:12.720 before you even get started.
00:07:14.380 The first thing we have to do is when we're selling,
00:07:16.960 we have to sell one specific benefit.
00:07:19.400 You can't try to sell anything they want.
00:07:21.640 So for example, if I'm selling to electricians,
00:07:23.900 I'm saying that I can get them 10 more customers per week
00:07:27.320 without answering a single phone call.
00:07:29.120 See how that's one specific result or outcome?
00:07:32.020 The second is we have to package our pricing
00:07:34.760 so that we get paid as much as we can upfront
00:07:37.320 before we incur any costs.
00:07:39.220 So for example, maybe your service you're selling
00:07:41.660 is $1,000 for one month,
00:07:43.460 but you might be willing to give them a discount
00:07:45.640 if they go six months upfront
00:07:47.780 and you give them a discount to 4,000.
00:07:50.020 So that first conversation and transaction
00:07:52.120 is now four times more than the initial for one month,
00:07:55.280 but you've committed for a longer term.
00:07:57.460 The beautiful part of this
00:07:58.500 is it reduce your potential churn,
00:08:00.080 meaning customers that cancel,
00:08:01.340 and it increases the amount of cash
00:08:02.900 in your bank account early and up front,
00:08:05.220 then we have to implement scarcity
00:08:07.120 because the truth is,
00:08:08.440 is we have to give people a reason to buy
00:08:10.280 because if they won't,
00:08:11.140 they'll just put it on to-do list
00:08:12.400 and think about it later.
00:08:13.480 So I like to say that we're opening up 10 founding spots.
00:08:16.980 After that, the price is gonna go up
00:08:18.620 because you say I only got 10 spots.
00:08:20.380 I don't have all the time in the world.
00:08:21.780 It's just me right now.
00:08:22.680 And I only have so much capacity.
00:08:24.380 So you can use that to create scarcity
00:08:26.520 and get the person to make a decision
00:08:28.040 versus them just sitting on their hands and waiting.
00:08:30.660 And lastly, we wanna add a bonus.
00:08:32.460 so that we give them a reason to make a decision today.
00:08:34.900 But the best bonuses kill objections.
00:08:38.040 So for example, maybe they're like,
00:08:39.620 hey, I wanna do this,
00:08:40.600 but I'm worried that my team doesn't have time
00:08:42.220 to actually implement what you're selling.
00:08:44.400 You say, cool.
00:08:45.440 Well, because you're one of our first 10 customers,
00:08:47.660 we actually have a bonus we wanna add
00:08:49.860 where we come in and we train your staff.
00:08:51.580 Normally people are gonna invest
00:08:52.780 five to $10,000 to do that.
00:08:54.860 But because you enrolled at the six month level,
00:08:57.420 we're gonna do that for free.
00:08:58.900 See how it's a bonus that deals with their objection?
00:09:00.900 Do that every time and you will get more deals.
00:09:03.980 If you wanna get rich with AI or business in general,
00:09:06.840 you just can't sell your hours.
00:09:09.220 When you sell the result,
00:09:10.740 then you're motivated to become more effective
00:09:13.120 at getting the result.
00:09:14.720 And anytime you can improve with automation or AI
00:09:17.760 or training your staff better, the improvement you keep.
00:09:21.840 And by the way, I spent years testing and tweaking offers
00:09:25.240 until they converted fast.
00:09:27.100 Then I turned it into a simple plug and play template.
00:09:30.160 If you want my exact offer template
00:09:32.400 that you can copy and paste for your AI business,
00:09:34.980 find me on Instagram and DM me the words YouTube offer,
00:09:38.120 or just click the link below in the description.
00:09:40.040 I'll send that over to you.
00:09:41.340 Cool, so you have an offer.
00:09:43.080 Now what?
00:09:43.760 You need to build your product.
00:09:45.340 Step number five, you have to build your AI MVP.
00:09:49.000 So MVP stands for minimum viable product.
00:09:52.420 Essentially, most people hear product and they think,
00:09:54.540 oh, now I have to go hire a bunch of engineers
00:09:56.780 and developers and build a bunch of stuff.
00:09:58.940 And guess what?
00:09:59.560 you don't there's a bunch of tools you can use to build the product i'm going to teach you about in
00:10:03.800 a second but the idea is for it not to be perfect and not beautiful but for that it just works
00:10:10.280 it's like this guy was talking to an event once he's showing me his product okay fancy beautiful
00:10:16.760 mobile all the bells and whistles and i was like well how did you build things like i hired an
00:10:21.240 agency and it cost me a hundred thousand dollars and i'm like cool is anybody using it customers
00:10:26.120 yet no not yet i'm like you spent all your time on functionality to make it look good but never asked
00:10:32.920 does it actually deliver value for the customer so what i want to share with you is how to build an
00:10:38.360 mvp that actually gets results not just looks good best part is you only have three options
00:10:43.720 the last one's the most advanced but it's where i spend most of my time the first is a no code
00:10:48.120 platform when you look into these tools like a zapier or a make.com or n8n essentially you can
00:10:54.840 take any manual process using AI and automate it. There's even tools like Go High Level that are
00:11:01.360 CRM and funnel builders, or things like Lovable, where you can just type to it and it'll build
00:11:06.360 apps that solve problems for customers. The key is spend the least amount of time
00:11:11.600 configuring your automation so that it gets a result for a customer. If you have to do it
00:11:16.480 manually first, so you just even learn the steps of how it needs to be automated, that's probably
00:11:20.760 a better place to start than to just pay somebody to come in and build you something super custom
00:11:26.020 encoded. The second option is to use an AI assisted code platform. It's called the Gentic
00:11:31.940 programming. Those are tools like Replit or Cursor or Google's anti-gravity platform. It's not as
00:11:38.660 simple as just prompting like a lovable, but it's way more configurable. Every one of my engineers
00:11:44.940 in my venture studio uses one of these platforms to write the code. The third option is to hire an
00:11:50.580 an AI developer to build it for you.
00:11:53.040 Now, most people get burned because they hire somebody.
00:11:56.100 They say they can build the thing,
00:11:57.500 they give them all their money,
00:11:58.820 and then all of a sudden the product they get back
00:12:00.600 is crappy, buggy, or just doesn't work.
00:12:03.180 The best way to test for this
00:12:04.660 is if you're gonna hire a developer,
00:12:06.260 give them a tiny test project first.
00:12:08.160 I like to look on upwork.com or call my local college.
00:12:11.320 The key is the MVP not only has to be simple,
00:12:14.120 but it has to add value.
00:12:16.080 If you don't show it to a customer and they go,
00:12:18.600 oh, that's cool, then it doesn't work yet.
00:12:21.700 So now you have an MVP, your AI system works
00:12:24.360 either through automation or custom code.
00:12:26.460 But the next problem is if you don't automate the delivery
00:12:29.400 after you sell a customer, you will drown in client work.
00:12:32.880 Step number six, automate delivery.
00:12:35.620 The biggest mistake that happens for entrepreneurs
00:12:37.920 is not being prepared for success.
00:12:40.340 One customer, no problem.
00:12:42.180 Three customers, I can get it.
00:12:44.320 Five to 10, now I have to use project management software.
00:12:47.940 have to have a support email maybe a support phone call and if you don't get ahead of it to automate
00:12:53.060 it that pressure can actually take you out of business here's my rule automation can turn your
00:12:58.500 business into a machine one that works while you sleep so here's how you map your four-step delivery
00:13:04.580 system first is the purchase the moment somebody checks out okay so you're probably going to use
00:13:10.020 stripe to accept payment that kicks off a notification the second is once you get that
00:13:14.900 purchase okay and you can do it manually or you can ask them to click a link and buy from you
00:13:18.740 that'll trigger access into your software or even into your community my brother sells houses and
00:13:24.420 as soon as somebody puts a deposit it sends an email to add them to the project management
00:13:29.380 software that the client's going to use to pick all the options for their custom home
00:13:32.980 so it works for any industry the third step is onboarding think i bought something now what
00:13:37.940 happens next well ideally you give them the software you just build or you might give them
00:13:41.940 the ability to schedule some time with you so that they can schedule a review of how the software
00:13:46.660 needs to be set up right and that whole process is automated the fourth step is support think
00:13:51.220 about all the questions that they're going to have for you so if you want to get rich this year you
00:13:55.140 can't be manually onboarding clients over time you have to build a delivery system that feels like a
00:14:01.220 vending machine and it's automated and it works every time so now you've done everything you've
00:14:06.420 got the business model you got the product you get the customers you've automated your system
00:14:09.940 this is how we scale in 2026 but you have to be careful because if you're too greedy or worse not
00:14:15.940 greedy enough it might be all for nothing which takes us to a hidden step that very few people
00:14:21.140 consider step number seven getting long-term greedy a long time ago one of my mentors this
00:14:26.580 guy named steve said there's two types of greed there's short-term greedy and then there's long
00:14:30.740 term greedy short-term greedy might get you what you want today but it stops you from getting what
00:14:35.860 you want long-term what he was trying to say is that i could ask for the investment terms i wanted
00:14:41.220 today and people will pay for it but then i'm going to have investors that i might not need
00:14:45.300 for the long-term journey where he said if i'm long-term greedy then i'm going to give my
00:14:49.380 investors the right terms to capture the right investors so they support me over the long term
00:14:54.500 you can only get rich this year by wanting to build an empire for the next 50 years
00:15:00.180 if you don't fall in love with the idea of making money over a long period of time
00:15:05.780 then your desire to find the flash in the pan will actually be your kryptonite that's why being
00:15:10.660 long-term greedy is always broken down into the three s's of wealth the first s is sell this is
00:15:16.420 the skill you need to develop you get your first client you start to get the machine turning okay
00:15:21.220 the second s is scale once you get dozens of customers then you have to scale it up you have
00:15:26.180 to tighten your systems which stands for save yourself time energy money and stress you raise
00:15:30.900 your prices because you're adding more value you improve your offer you work on your team
00:15:35.860 you get to a place where it almost feels easy but that's where we go to the third s which is stack
00:15:41.460 once you have one machine working really well which every business can get to a place where
00:15:46.580 it's producing cash you can now add other offers or other products on top of your service either
00:15:53.060 through partnerships for things that you like or you build yourself or you could even buy other ai
00:15:58.020 companies to sell into your existing customer base that is the goal is to build an empire
00:16:04.420 it's to create a life of unlimited creation you never have to retire from most people that start
00:16:10.660 businesses are very creative people and they think the bigger i get the harder it's going to be
00:16:15.940 and the opposite actually happens at scale because the bigger you get the more resources you have
00:16:21.860 to invest in really smart people that are going to come in and help you co-create that future with you
00:16:27.060 and make your life easier so here's the deal anybody watching this can do what i just shared
00:16:32.660 it doesn't require any special schooling or a trust fund or anything you just have to talk to
00:16:38.100 customers but what it will teach you along the way is to strive to become your 10.0 self the best
00:16:45.060 version of yourself that is one way of being successful but if you want to live a life of
00:16:49.700 of fulfillment? Yes, 10.0 self is what you're after. But the other side of that is to give
00:16:55.440 yourself away. Share your strategies with the world like I'm doing here. Now, I don't want you
00:17:00.820 to just watch this. I want you to do something with it. So find me on Instagram and DM me the
00:17:06.820 words YouTube offer and grab my template. Build an offer that you can start selling this week.
00:17:14.200 Find the customers, ask the questions, be curious,
00:17:17.580 but I need you to win this year.
00:17:19.600 2026 is your year.
00:17:21.440 AI is still early
00:17:23.100 and the companies are out there waiting for your call.
00:17:26.200 And if you wanna learn the nine high income AI skills
00:17:29.260 you need to get rich,
00:17:30.280 click the link and I'll see you on the other side.