Money Machine

We describe what it takes to master building money machines and why existing investors typically only manage one phase of the process required.

Let’s say you have a couple extra dollars that you’re not going to need next week for bills. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could put those dollars to work for you and get another $1 in return? Of course it would, you’re not insane.

Take that thought experiment a bit further and imagine it’s not just a few dollars but, say, $10K, $100K, or $1M. You’d love to put it to work and get some back. But you don’t want to lose any of it. So you get a bit scared and just leave it in cash in your account. You worked hard for that money, after all.

Giving it to someone else would require a great deal of trust and prior experience proving they know how to not lose it but also make more of it.

Basically, you want something so programmatic and guaranteed that you put money in and it spits money back out. You want a money machine.

You don’t necessarily care how the money machine works as long as it doesn’t mess up. Tinkering around on the inside of an ATM and a bank’s software wouldn’t get you very far, for instance. It's worth noting that these banks don’t give you more money for letting them use it and give it out to other people. They just make sure not to lose it. So they worked with the government to guarantee it. The government can print some more so that’s no biggie if it does get lost. Just print up a new batch and hand it back to the customer.

Economics lesson aside, you need to find a money machine provider that guarantees you don’t lose money and will also give you back more money than you put in.

What you’re looking for is a business! Or are we? Well, they’re not great at making money in the beginning, and they darn sure don’t last forever. They just keep dying after 25 or 50 years, even the big ones. So that’s not a reliable measure. I guess we have to keep shifting our money between businesses and hoping we pick the right ones at the right time. We should hire some people who know how to hop our money between businesses. They must know the secrets of getting the money machine to work properly.

Except they’re not so great either. They cost you more than you get many times.

So we’re left with relying on the government money machine. We give them some to hold for a little bit, and they pay us small amounts over time before giving us our original money back. That’s as risk-free as it gets.

But are we missing something? I think we are.

We know customers like new things that work better, are faster, and cost less. We know they trust those who have done it before and made successful money machines. We know we need to make something and get it in front of the people who need it. And we know the more people with that problem, the more money the money machine spits out.

So doesn’t it require people who have built small money machines rapidly before and can also rework them to be bigger money machines over time? Those who focus on returning the money you put in first and fast so you don’t lose money, and then give you more than you started with after that?

Yes. You had me at hello.

Nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM but there has yet to be a business whose entire purpose is a money machine. Give us $10, we’ll give you back $10, then more in a short amount of time. You don’t care how we do it only that we return you the $10, a little extra, and don't break the manmade laws as currently written. Then you may want to put some of the extra money back in so you keep getting more money back. All legally. Not ponzi’s here.

Sure, you could call these portfolio managers, venture capitalists, private equity investors, or value investors. But none of them do the entire thing we’ve described. They don’t each concept a new money machine from scratch, build it out, expand it, and begin returning money from it from the very beginning. They each represent certain phases of the money machine process Why?

It’s easy to say but hard to do. It requires mastering the art of money machine concepting, building, expanding, and returning.

This is what we do. We make money machines. If you give us $10, we'll start giving you back $1 until we return all $10, and then provide more $1s while you sit back and enjoy its benefits.

After all, do you really care how the money machine works as long as you keep getting that $1 back over a long time period and you don't get tied up in legal battles? We sure don't.

It takes less money upfront when you have an assembly line of money machines rolling off the factory floor. You can have your money machine in any color you want, as long as its green.

So let's get you in the money, and keep you there in perpetuity.

—Sean

evergence.team