NEW: Lazy Money Issue 28

Happy Sunday!

We’re back from holiday and today: Forgive me father, for I am about to profit.

The Story

Five hundred years before Facebook figured out how to exploit your insecurities, the Catholic Church perfected the formula.

The year was 1517, and a Dominican preacher named Johann Tetzel traveled through Germany with the Pope's blessing and a wild business model: selling salvation.

Back then, people were scared of not making it to heaven. Frightened of going to hell. Terrified of purgatory. Tetzel used this fear to sell them hell insurance. He called it “indulgences” - actual certificates that promised to reduce their time in purgatory.

His sales pitch was a jingle that would make Don Draper proud: "When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs."

The church made so much money from Tetzel's death insurance racket that they built St. Peter's Basilica with the profits.

While priests perfected the sell, monks perfected the product.

The Cistercians built medieval Amazon - 300 monasteries across Europe, identical products, identical quality. They dominated European wool, invented industrial farming, and ran supply chains that would make Jeff Bezos jealous. One order. One standard. Total market control, with a CEO who happened to be God.

Fast forward to today and religious organizations sit on $1 trillion in assets. The Catholic Church owns more land than any entity on Earth. They've mastered the business of belief.

But here's what they haven't mastered: the internet.

Monastery websites look like they're hosted on Windows 95. Churches can't figure out Venmo. Sacred spaces sit empty while WeWork charges $500/month for a desk.

God's got great products and terrible distribution. Time to fix that.

How To Profit

• Digital donation platform💰🙏

Churches lose 30% of donations to cash handling. Meanwhile, Gen Z Christians want to give but haven't touched cash since 2019.

Build the Venmo for Jesus. White-label app churches can slap their logo on. Recurring payments, donation thermometer that rises in real-time, social features that create peer pressure to give. The best feature? Crypto donations…donate $1,000 in Bitcoin you bought for $100, write off the full grand.

Americans drop $50 billion annually into collection plates. Only 20% happens digitally. Capture 0.1% of that market at 2.9% processing fees = $14.5 million yearly.

• Sacred space arbitrage⛪📅

Churches sit empty 90% of the week. Meanwhile, event spaces charge $5,000/day for rooms with zero character and fluorescent lighting.

Partner with churches to monetize their downtime. You handle insurance, booking, setup. They get 40% of revenue for doing nothing.

Some ideas: "Startup Sermons" - tech launches in sanctuaries with those perfect acoustics. "Canvas & Choir" - art classes in stunning stained-glass lit halls. "Meditate Where Millions Have Prayed" - wellness retreats in spaces designed for contemplation.

Churches get income without compromising their mission. Clients get awesome venues. You get paid for being the bridge between the sacred and the profitable.

• Sacred supply chains🍺✝️

Right now, buying monastery products is a digital pilgrimage through hell. Want Trappist beer? Visit six different abbey websites that look like they were built in 1997. Want monastery fruitcake? Call a phone that's busy from November to January. Each monastery has its own medieval ordering system.

You're building the Amazon for abbey goods. One cart, every monastery.

Buy their products in bulk during production runs. Gethsemani makes fruitcake once yearly? Buy 1,000. Belgian monks release beer quarterly? Grab 50 cases. You can wait—desperate individual customers can't.

Now you control distribution. Monthly themed drops: "Benedictine Breakfast Box." Limited releases with actual marketing. That monk-made cheese becomes "aged in 14th-century caves by brothers who've taken vows of silence."

30% margins plus subscription revenue.

The Ace Toolkit

Ace's notebook, 1922: "Watched a priest sell 'blessed' water for 100x the cost of regular water. The blessing took 3 seconds. The margin was eternal. Find products where the story is worth more than the substance."

 Why Belgium's Trappist Beer is considered one of the best beers in the world

Step-by-step guide to getting religious tax exemption (spoiler: it's stupidly easy)

Until next time,

Alex

Founder //LZY MNY CLB