Two Sides of Alex Hormozi's $100M Money Models Launch

Alex Hormozi has done it again. His latest book, $100M Money Models, dropped over the weekend and the entrepreneurial world can't stop talking about it. Just look at me writing this article on a Monday morning. No matter where I go, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Reddit, everywhere I look, people are either singing his praises or questioning his methods.

Hormozi undoubtedly has one of the best and most brilliant business minds, and also has a cult-like following that has grown around his brand.

The Genius Business Brain

Alex Hormozi knows how to run a business. No question about it. The man went from sleeping on a gym floor to running companies that turn over hundreds of millions through Acquisition.com. That's not luck. That's skill, sacrifice and hustle.

With the launch of his latest book he opened up and shared the frameworks that he has identified after working with over 1,000 businesses and advising on more than $31 million worth of business improvements.

The offer that he made was a bold one. Remember, he was selling his new book, but packed it and positioned it in such a way that when purchasing you get 12 physical playbooks, a live virtual workshop, lifetime access to an AI tool with all of his knowledge baked in, 1 copy of the hardback book, and then 199 extra copies to share with other entrepreneurs. The price - $5,998.

He called it his "most insane offer of all time." He even positioned it as a potential tax write-off whilst suggesting that you'll be helping 200 more entrepreneurs.

This is where Hormozi's genius shines through. He takes complex business problems and breaks them down. His playbooks cover the core constraints that the businesses he has worked with have faced, and overcome - leads, sales, delivery, and profit. Each playbook comes with scripts, checklists, and frameworks.

It all seems quite simple, systematic and potentially scalable.

I can see that his genius business brain is working to grow his brand and his company. So many people look up to him, try and mimic the strategies that he is running and I see so many "bro marketers" using his name and a promise to help other people to learn and implement the same tactics.

The Real Strategy Behind the $150M Weekend

Let's talk about what really happened here. And why you can't just copy what Hormozi did.

This weekend's success didn't start this weekend. It started years ago when he released his first book, "$100M Offers." He sold it for as low as $1.99 on Amazon. Think about that. He gave away all the information he had packaged on offers for practically nothing.

That's the foundation everything else was built on.

He used a webinar approach. Hormozi has built one of the largest followings in the business space and that's why this worked. It wasn't evergreen, he showed up live, in a studio. It's a launch tactic that works so well when you have a lot of people who already trust you.

There was one thing that made this event successful more than anything - Bundling. He made millions selling 1 copy + 199 voucher codes for the same book, for $6,000. The book itself was low ticket. But bundled with the playbooks and the AI tool, this was a unique way that felt valuable to many people. Enough to buy at that price.

The playbooks and the AI layered in speed and automation as bonuses, he didn't just put them in to bulk up the sale and just add more features, the promise was that it would increase the rate at which you'd be able to implement, and enable you to have access to him through the AI.

Once you purchased, then there was a secondary offer. The $18k advisory programme. I was a little taken aback by how this was positioned, I'll come to that in a moment, but this was six months access to further coaching and mentoring, but where you never actually meet with him one-on-one.

His progression through the sale and with his bundled offer, went like this…

Information (Book) → Speed/Automation (Playbooks & AI) → Access (Advisory)

But here's what most people miss. The kind of success that he's had with this launch over the weekend could not happen without that first book. Five years ago, nobody was talking about Alex Hormozi. Now he's a household name in business circles. He sold a book that proved he was worth listening to.

Not a $2,000 course, a low-cost book that everyone could access. His ideal clients could grab it, consume it, then ascend to higher levels.

When I talk about people building a Minimum Viable Funnel™ for their business, I talk about it for this specific reason. Everybody gets caught up in the trap of trying to sell high-ticket programmes, but they don't understand how to build real trust through products. Doing your marketing in the best possible way to demonstrate your unique expertise, and then offering high value no-brainer products as direct offers from that content starts the trust building process.

It'll take time. Some other people say that 10% of all of your content creation should be focused on your expert positioning marketing, 20% should be focused on the selling aspect of your products and services, leaving 70% to the trust building process.

If you're trying to get people to show up to your live events and webinars, and to buy more products from you, it's about what you do after that initial low-cost sale that will enable people to be able to make the buying decisions to buy your higher ticket products and programmes.

Alex Hormozi would not have had millions of people showing up to this launch over the weekend unless he had put that first book out.

The whole event, strategy leading up to it has been a masterclass in trust building, nurturing, bundling, packaging and selling. But it was also years in the making - you can't replicate this overnight.

Start with information at a low price. Build trust. Then sell access to you. Simple.

You can read more about the Minimum Viable Funnel™ in my book Simplify The Funnel® which is available at www.simplifythefunnel.com

Hormozi's Guru Status and the Shadow Side

But here's the other side of this story that I could see as I was writing some notes preparing for this article. Hormozi has become far more than a business coach. For many entrepreneurs, he's reached that all elusive guru status. Some might even say a god-like level of presence in the business world.

Scroll through social media and you'll see it. People don't just admire his work, they treat his every word as gospel. This isn't unique to Hormozi, but his rise has made it impossible to ignore. On Reddit, users were organising "group buys" for the $100M Money Models package. Not because they've analysed the value. But simply because it's Hormozi's latest work.

This points to something bigger. Hormozi has become the saviour many struggling entrepreneurs think they need. His previous books, $100M Offers and $100M Leads, sold millions of copies. They created a legion of followers.

Here's what's interesting. When you look at these books critically, they don't really introduce any groundbreaking concepts. They're well-packaged versions of business and marketing fundamentals that have existed for decades. Principles you could learn through proper business education or studying sales and marketing history. And there's no real reference to where he learnt these things from, and therefore no credit given.

Critics on LinkedIn have called his tactics "genius" but have said they're essentially classic marketing methods with fresh packaging.

For me, this raises an uncomfortable question... Is Hormozi bringing something new to the table? Or is he just an incredibly skilled marketer who's built a personal brand powerful enough to sell familiar ideas to a massive new audience?

Let's look at the Psychology Playbook at Work - Genius or Manipulation?

The way Hormozi engineered his entire presentation. It was one of those presentations that engaged me, but also made me feel uncomfortable at times.

If you watched the live launch, and you were his ideal target customer, you will have experienced an emotional rollercoaster. That wasn't an accident. Every moment was designed to make you feel a specific way. To create a compulsion to buy.

He stacked bonus after bonus - books, audiobooks, extras - each with potentially inflated price tags. He was following the classic offer stacking tactic, meaning your brain starts calculating "thousands of dollars in value" before he reveals the real price.

He anchored you with $25k references. Then, when he finally revealed the price, anything would feel like a steal.

Hormozi shared rejection stories and talked a lot about his "mission" - you probably felt connected and inspired. That's emotional buying in action.

Then came the fear play. The energy of a live event, lost chapters and limited-time bonuses. Scarcity makes us act fast, even when we know it's a tactic.

And after the purchase came his $18k upsell positioned as "For $3k more today" – that's what the headline started with.

Looking at the purchase button, it was $3k per month for six months. For me that's not "$3k more..." as he put in the headline, that's $18k extra. The clearer statement would have been "For $3k a month, for 6 months" or "For $18k over six months." Obviously, they probably wouldn't have converted as well as what was actually written in the headline.

And here's the next uncomfortable question that got me thinking... is this genius marketing or manipulation?

Most of Alex Hormozi's audience aren't made up of seasoned business owners with deep pockets. Many are struggling entrepreneurs. People desperate for a solution. People who'll go into debt chasing the promise of transformation.

When you know your audience is vulnerable and you engineer such an emotional selling presentation, in the way that he did to drive purchasing decisions, where is the line? And did he cross it?

The psychological tactics work. No doubt about it. But should they be used on people who can least afford to lose money on another course, another system, another promise?

My Final Thoughts...

Alex Hormozi's $100M Money Models launch shows both his brilliance and the guru culture that dominates entrepreneurship today.

On one hand, his ability to simplify and systematise business frameworks may have helped countless entrepreneurs. His methods work for him. His results speak for themselves.

On the other hand, the level of devotion he commands raises questions. Are entrepreneurs buying into the substance of his frameworks? Or are they buying into the prestige of the Hormozi brand?

The truth probably sits somewhere in the middle. He's clearly a skilled businessman. But his launches lean heavily on scarcity, exclusivity, and spectacle. This blurs the line between education and entertainment in my opinion.

Whether he's the saviour entrepreneurs think they need or simply a polished information marketer depends on one thing... how critically his audience engages with his work and the results they get. Will we see millions of millionaires from this launch event? I'm not sure we will. Will we see a growth in his guru level following? Absolutely we will.

For complete transparency, I didn't buy the full package. I bought a single book. To add to the other two books that I have on my shelf from him that have been well thumbed but really just act as reference for when people come to me and say "can I do this like Alex Hormozi?"

The reason I wrote my book and published it this year was to help every person who is wanting to start an online business, selling information and their knowledge, to find the simple strategies that will enable them to be able to do it.Simplify The Funnel® is available at www.simplifythefunnel.com. Hormozi has a very simplified strategy. He has just built a huge personal brand, spends millions on advertising and works at scale.

If you were looking on, and you wanted to model what he's done, all you need to do is to continue to provide an insane level of value in your public content and your marketing that demonstrates that you are a true expert, offer people low-cost no-brainer direct offers and then build from there. Those who are obsessed with speed to sell their high-ticket programmes will always struggle. This launch that Alex Hormozi presented this weekend took five years in the making. It's time to double down today so that you can achieve more in a few years' time rather than trying to push the envelope and wanting the instant success.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.