The Entrepreneurial Pyramid
Labour, skilled labour, then intellectual property and media, then data and software, then financial assets — and you cannot skip a level.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 94%
Priestley's model of economic progression starts with what school taught: turn labour into skilled labour, where your time and skills are what is valuable, and sell your time for more money. University, a master's, a PhD — each just makes you more skilled labour, and the schooling system presents that as where the journey ends. Sitting above it is a new universe, the digital economy, entered at a specific first step: intellectual property. Rather than learning more, you reflect and create — you did something special with a client, you can explain it step by step, so you document it, turn it into a story, record a video, draw a wheel that explains it, and let people know. Intellectual property is anything written, video or audio, so it couples immediately with media. Above that sits data and software: building a database, capturing email addresses, running surveys and scorecards to accumulate data unique to you, then turning your intellectual property into an engine that delivers a result automatically — which is also where AI applications live. At the top are financial assets: packaging everything into a business whose shares can be sold. His hard rule is that you cannot jump from skilled labour straight to software, data and advanced AI; you have to move through intellectual property and media first.
Origin
Priestley builds the pyramid to answer what the 95% of people who know little about AI or technology should actually do to capitalise on something like Nvidia's $3,000 supercomputer. His answer is that they cannot start at the top, and the pyramid is the route.
Core principles
- 01Skilled labour is the ceiling the industrial-age school system prepares you for.
- 02IP means reflecting and creating, not learning more.
- 03IP couples with media because IP is anything written, video or audio.
- 04Data means information unique to you; software means IP turned into an automatic engine.
- 05Financial assets are the top — a business packaged so its shares can be sold.
- 06You cannot skip a level.
How to run it
- 1
Recognise the skilled-labour ceiling
Twelve years of school, then optionally university, a master's and a PhD — all of it makes you more skilled labour, and the whole goal is selling your time for more money.
Pro tip Priestley frames this as playing by an old set of rules rather than as personal failure.
Watch out The system presents skilled labour as the destination, which is why most people never look above it.
- 2
Convert experience into intellectual property
Reflect on something specific you did well — over the last five years I did something special with that client and got a great result and can explain it step by step — then document it, story it, record a video, make a poster with a wheel explaining it, and tell people.
Pro tip One repeatable result is enough raw material; the value is in the documentation, not the volume of experience.
Watch out Learning more instead of creating keeps you on the skilled-labour rung indefinitely.
- 3
Attach media to the IP
Because intellectual property is anything written, video or audio, IP and media are the same rung. The written word plus a publishing mechanism is what converts documentation into reach.
Pro tip This step alone, Priestley says, opens you up to a whole other world of opportunities.
Watch out IP that stays private is not on the pyramid at all.
- 4
Accumulate data and build software
Build a database, collect email addresses, gather information about customers and markets, get people filling in forms and scorecards, run surveys — data unique to you. Then turn your IP into an engine that automatically delivers a result, which is where AI applications sit.
Pro tip The demand-testing tools — assessments, needs analyses, waiting lists — are simultaneously the data-collection layer.
Watch out Software built on nobody else's IP but your own is the defensible version; software without proprietary IP or data is commodity.
- 5
Package it as a financial asset
The top of the pyramid is creating financial assets: packaging everything into a business that can be sold, whose shares are the asset, and making a lot of money on the sale.
Pro tip Priestley's own account of wealth creation: raising £400,000 for 10% of Book Magic created £3.6m of value that never previously existed in the economy.
Watch out You cannot jump here from labour — the intervening rungs are what create the thing that can be sold.
In the wild
Priestley's chosen illustration of the first jump: Covey was not a special person — a church leader in Utah doing consulting with small businesses and churches. He reflected on what he had seen and on a few studies he had come across and wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
→ He moved from skilled-labour consulting to intellectual property plus media. He sold 20 million copies and built a $400 million consulting company — built on IP, not labour.
Priestley notes Nvidia launched a $3,000 supercomputer superseding compute that previously cost three to nine thousand a month, or roughly $50,000 a year in cloud subscription.
→ He predicts it becomes the basis for ten-person companies doing a billion in revenue. His analogy: AI is like electricity — the power station has been invented, but the thousands of toasters, kettles and vacuum cleaners that run on it have not, and that is the next 10 to 15 years.
Common mistakes
Trying to jump straight to AI and software
Priestley states plainly you cannot go from labour or skilled labour straight up to software, data and advanced AI. The IP and media rung is where the thing your software would automate gets created.
Believing you need more qualifications
Each additional degree makes you more skilled labour. Priestley's step out of the model is reflecting and creating rather than learning more.
Trying to squirrel money out of the economy
Priestley argues rich people do not get rich by extracting a small piece of the existing economy and storing it — they create something from their mind, formalise it into a company, and add new wealth that never existed. Extraction, he says, leaves you on a treadmill you never get off.
Is it for you?
Best for
Skilled professionals wondering how to convert expertise into something that scales beyond their hours.
Not ideal for
People who genuinely want a skilled-labour career and are not seeking the digital-economy route.
From the transcript
“the first step above it is called intellectual property intellectual property is where rather than learning more stuff you reflect and create some stuff”
“so that's step one and mind you he sold 20 million copies and he built a $400 million consulting company but it was based on…”
“AI is like electricity but we haven't built all the businesses that are going to plug in”
From the episode
The Money Making Expert: The 7,11,4 Hack That Turns $1 Into $10K Per Month! This 90 Day Rule Will 10x Your Income! Daniel Priestley
Daniel Priestley