How Tommy Mello Built a Billion Dollar Empire From $50 (The System)

Listen to the full episode where Tommy Mello reveals why he flew out twice a month to study every $100M shop in America—and the brutal math that separates $1M operators from $100M machines.

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Most entrepreneurs spend 5-7 years making mistakes someone else already made.

They call it "learning."

I call it expensive.

Tommy Mello built a billion-dollar empire by doing something radically simple: He stopped trying to be original.

When he didn't know how to scale past $5M, he found people doing $100M and studied them.

When he didn't know how to recruit at scale, he flew out and watched someone who'd already solved it.

When he didn't know how to structure his operations, he copied the playbook from operators who'd already exited.

He didn't innovate his way to a billion dollars. He apprenticed his way there.

And most entrepreneurs will never do what he did.

The Lie We Tell Ourselves About Building

Here's the delusion: "I need to figure this out on my own."

No, you don't.

You think you're being scrappy. You think you're being resourceful. You think grinding through problems yourself builds character.

What you're actually doing is burning 3-5 years solving problems that already have documented solutions.

Tommy bet everything he owned—a dozen times—because he was figuring it out alone in his first decade.

He hasn't had to bet everything once in his second decade because he learned from people ahead of him.

The difference isn't intelligence. It's not work ethic.

It's humility.

The Math Nobody Teaches You

Here's what apprenticeship actually looks like in ROI terms:

Figuring It Out Yourself:

• Years 1-2: Burn $150K testing Facebook ads, Google ads, cold email, events—trying to crack customer acquisition

• Year 3: Finally realize LinkedIn + outbound works for your B2B SaaS

• Years 4-5: Build the systems someone else perfected in Month 6

• Total time to predictable revenue: 5-7 years

Learning From Someone Ahead:

• Week 1: Find 10 B2B SaaS founders who scaled to $10M ARR

• Week 2: Study their content, see they all used the same LinkedIn + outbound playbook

• Month 1: Implement their exact system (LinkedIn content + targeted outreach)

• Month 3-6: Iterate based on their documented mistakes

• Total time to predictable revenue: 6-12 months

Same destination. One-tenth the time. $140K saved.

The cost? A plane ticket. Lunch. Your ego.

Why Most Entrepreneurs Refuse to Learn

I see three patterns that keep people stuck:

1. Pride"I don't want to look like I don't know what I'm doing."

So instead you spend two years failing in private while someone 10 miles away has the exact answer you need.

2. Scarcity Thinking"Why would someone successful help me? They're my competition."

Wrong. Successful people love sharing what they know—especially with people humble enough to ask and disciplined enough to implement.

Tommy called every major operator in his industry. Most said yes. Because he wasn't asking them to do the work for him. He was asking permission to watch and learn.

3. The Illusion of Originality"I need to build something unique."

No, you need to build something that works. You can add your unique spin after you've learned the fundamentals from people who've already won.

Every successful entrepreneur stands on someone else's foundation. The ones who pretend they built from scratch are lying—to you and to themselves.

What Successful People Actually Do

Every operator I know who's scaled past $50M follows the same pattern:

They find someone 3-5 years ahead and reverse-engineer everything.

Naval studied Warren Buffett for decades before building AngelList.

MrBeast studied every top YouTuber's first 100 videos before posting his own.

Alex Hormozi spent years learning from gym owners doing $10M before he built to $100M.

Tommy flew twice a month to shadow $100M operators before he scaled his own business.

None of them reinvented the wheel. They just found better wheels and copied them.

The System You Can Use This Month

Here's the exact framework:

Step 1: Identify Your 3-Year Target

Where do you want to be in 36 months? Revenue, team size, systems, market position—get specific.

Step 2: Find 10 People Already There

Who's already operating at the level you're trying to reach? Make a list. Find them on LinkedIn, Twitter, podcasts, conferences.

Step 3: Study Everything They've Published

Most successful people have already documented their playbook. Read their blog. Listen to their interviews. Watch their content. Take notes.

Step 4: Ask for 30 Minutes

Email them. DM them. Be specific about what you want to learn. Offer value in return—implementation, case study, public credit.

"I'm building [X] to [Y revenue/scale]. I've studied your approach to [specific thing] and implemented [specific example]. Would you be open to a 30-minute call where I can ask you 3-5 questions about [specific challenge]?"

Fifty percent will ignore you. Forty percent will say no. Ten percent will say yes.

That 10% will save you three years.

Step 5: Implement Everything, Give Credit Everywhere

Don't just collect advice.

Execute it. Then publicly share what you learned and give credit to the person who taught you.

This creates a feedback loop: The more you implement and share, the more access you get.

Tommy promised every operator he'd leave them a legacy by implementing their systems and giving them credit at every stage. He kept that promise. Doors kept opening.

The Arbitrage Most People Miss

We're living in the first era in human history where you can access the minds of people 10 years ahead of you—for free.

Want to know how to scale a SaaS company to $10M ARR? There are 500 founders who've done it and documented the entire playbook on Twitter, podcasts, and blogs.

Want to know how to build a media company? Study the people already doing it at scale and copy their content systems.

Want to know how to exit a service business for 8 figures? Find three people who've done it in the last 24 months and ask them what they'd do differently.

The information exists. The access exists. The playbook exists.

But 95% of entrepreneurs won't use any of it because they don't believe it works, they're too proud to ask, or they think their situation is "different."

By the time everyone figures this out, you'll already be 5 years ahead.

What Separates the Ones Who Scale

Here's what I've learned:

The ones stuck at $1-3M think learning from others is weakness.

The ones who scale to $50M+ think not learning from others is insanity.

You're not here to prove you can solve problems alone. You're here to build something that works.

Steal the playbook. Add your execution. Give credit. Scale faster.

Everyone else will spend the next decade reinventing wheels that were perfected in 2018.

What You Should Do This Week

Make a list of 10 people who are 3-5 years ahead of you.

Study everything they've published.

Reach out to three of them with a specific ask.

Implement what you learn before you ask for more.

Stop treating entrepreneurship like a solo sport. It's not. It never was.

The entrepreneurs who win aren't the ones with the best ideas. They're the ones humble enough to steal the best ideas from people who've already executed them.

Leo

P.S. Tommy Mello went from not knowing how to make payroll to running a billion-dollar empire by learning from every operator ahead of him. Most entrepreneurs will spend the next five years solving problems that already have solutions—because they're too proud to ask. In 2030, when they're still stuck at $3M wondering why they can't scale, they'll wish they'd been humble enough to learn.