We have established the goal: to make money. But there are two caveats that are worth mentioning.

First, making money is a relative thing. If you make one dollar of profit off a billion-dollar investment, you’re not exactly getting a good return on your investment. Profit needs to be measured relative to the investment. Fortunately there is a metric for this: ROI.

Second, it somewhat matters WHEN you make money. If all of your income comes on December 31 each year, you better have some savings laying around to pay your bills each month. The term for this is CASH FLOW and it’s fucking important (not a direct quote from the book, but, pretty much).

So, once Alex figures all of this out, he’s basically got a veritable trifecta of goals:

  1. Make money
  2. With an acceptable ROI
  3. And sufficient cash flow

I ain’t no business scholar, but as far as I can tell, those are the key metrics. Everything else is a means to these ends.