From Inspiration to Implementation: How I Learned to Build Brands the Smartr Way
From Inspiration to Implementation
I still remember finishing the second article:
Two Launches That Could Redefine Tech – DOMINAIT and Carbon, and sitting in silence. It wasn’t just admiration; it was an epiphany.
For years, I’d read about billion-dollar valuations, AI revolutions, and “founder mindsets.” But what Jason Criddle and his Smartr infrastructure revealed was something far rarer: a replicable framework for everyday, new and seasoned entrepreneurs who want to build scalable systems. And not just scale, but learn how to make more money without selling their soul to venture capitalists.
The realization I had became the seed of this piece. As a contributor and business writer, I’ve interviewed founders, consultants, and marketers from every corner of the digital economy. Yet Criddle’s network of platforms… Smartr Apps, SmartrCommerce, SmartrWomen, SmartrVeterans, SmartrHoldings, and now, DOMINAIT.ai; They have all redefined how I approach growth. It’s not about chasing quick profit. It’s about building long-term, self-sustaining infrastructure that can economize itself.
“Every piece of software we build has one purpose,” Criddle said in Two Launches That Could Redefine Tech. “To help people win. To help them make money, grow their influence, and live a better life. Not just make us rich. Becoming rich is the last thing on our minds. Our customers winning has and always will be the purpose that drives our company and growth.”
That line hit like a thunderbolt. In just a couple of sentences, he flipped the narrative from extraction to empowerment. It's the complete opposite of how most tech CEOs talk.
Lesson 1: Infrastructure > Ideas
In the Smartr Platforms article, one quote stayed with me:
“SmartrCommerce doesn’t just process payments. It processes growth.”
Those eight words encapsulate how to make more money sustainably: by controlling the flow of value through your ecosystem. Criddle built SmartrCommerce so founders could own their payment pipelines, affiliate tracking, and white-label branding. Instead of renting someone else’s rails, entrepreneurs get to build their own highways. And it allows unlimited growth… letting them connect indefinite amounts of websites or apps with no monthly fees.
I began applying that mindset immediately. Rather than spreading myself across scattered tools like Stripe, Gumroad, and Kajabi, I started asking, “What if my brand had its own infrastructure?” Ownership became the keyword. When you own the process, you own the profit.
Criddle often repeats this theme: control equals freedom. Businesses that depend on too many third-party platforms will always hit ceilings. But when your infrastructure is yours, when your data, affiliates, and payouts exist inside a closed-loop system, scalability becomes predictable, not accidental.. even if it is a third-party. That’s the difference between hustling for dollars and engineering income.
Lesson 2: Ecosystems
While covering growth companies, I’ve noticed that most founders treat each product as an isolated win. Criddle’s philosophy dismantles that. His Smartr ecosystem functions like a living organism, with every brand, app, and service feeds the others. Smartr Apps and businesses with invoicing and apps/websites fuels SmartrCommerce; SmartrCommerce feeds DOMINAIT; DOMINAIT automates SmartrHoldings.
“Where SmartrCommerce helped founders track payments and Smartr Apps helped brands build sales teams, DOMINAIT helps them build, scale, and automate companies from the ground up with our world's first AGI… Ryker.”
That interdependence is the real secret of how to make more money at scale: stop building silos and start building systems. When your email list drives sales for your consulting service, which funds your SaaS subscription, which powers your affiliate program, you’ve created a perpetual motion engine for revenue. And if Ryker helps you run it all, you can just go get more customers and make more revenue.
In the DOMINAIT article, Criddle described this architecture as “technology as a partnership, not a product.” It reframes entrepreneurship as collaboration between tools, teams, and talent. Each entity compounds the others’ results. I see it as a principle that mirrors how wealth itself compounds over time.
Lesson 3: Revenue Follows Relationships
Another pattern I noticed: Criddle never treats customers as transactions.
Smartr Apps was built to convert users into brand advocates. In his words, “Affiliate apps give businesses the ability to build loyal communities of sales reps and empower customers to become brand advocates.
We even have a product within SmartrMarketing that allows our own affiliates to earn 75%. We literally earn no profit from it. We built it for our own affiliates to win by way of giving them a tool that can turn into a full time job.
Imagine selling a product that can earn you $200 per month, recurring revenue. If you sold on every other day, you would make $3,000 a month in your first month. If you repeated that again, you'd be at $6,000 a month in your second month. Not a bad gig for making one sale every 2 days.”
That insight cracked something open for me. Like many founders, I used to believe that “making more money” was a math problem: more ads = more leads = more cash. But Jason Criddle’s playbook treats it as a trust problem. “In an economy flooded with ads and algorithms,” he said, “trust has become the real currency.” He’s right. That's why he said he doesn't treat people to sell products. He teaches them to become leaders people buy from.
The Smartr system embeds trust directly into technology. Every affiliate referral, payout, and interaction happens transparently inside the user’s dashboard. No middlemen, and no broken promises. Just proof.
That trust scales horizontally. Through affiliates, customers, and partners. And doing it until it becomes momentum. My own small coaching practice adopted this framework by integrating transparent referral tracking. The result? Retention improved 42% in 90 days. More importantly, the team I retrained began to view every client as a collaborator, not just a contract to obtain.
Lesson 4: Automation Is Empathy
When Criddle speaks about AI, it’s never about replacing people. It’s about freeing them.
“Ryker doesn’t replace teams or people,” he explained. “He empowers them.”
This principle reshaped how I think about automation. Instead of chasing shortcuts, the goal is to remove friction so people can spend more time in purpose-driven work. Something Criddle does for companies everyday. DOMINAIT’s AI agent, Ryker, automates the busywork; invoicing, customer service, and scheduling, all while entrepreneurs focus on creativity and connection.
I implemented a similar mindset with my readers: automating repetitive admin tasks so I could personally reply to more messages. The paradox? Automation deepened my relationships. That’s what Criddle means when he says technology should “think, build, and grow with you.” It’s empathy through engineering. The kind that helps everyone, and not just the shareholders like most conglomerates. We learn how to make more money through shared efficiency.
Lesson 5: Purpose Is the Multiplier Outperform Products
Criddle’s first book, Trainer to Trillionaire, predicted he’d build a trillion-dollar company by giving most of it away. In hindsight, that vision is prophetic. Each new Smartr venture, from SmartrVeterans to SmartrWomen, is designed to democratize entrepreneurship.
“The legacy I didn’t get is the one I’m building for others,” he said in a recent interview.
Reading those words reminded me that scalability without service is just greed in disguise. A legacy is what we leave, not what we obtain. The more aligned your mission is with helping others make progress, the faster your revenue compounds. That’s not spirituality; it’s systems design. When people feel invested in your mission, they become the marketing engine you could never afford to hire.
That’s exactly what the Smartr ecosystem does… It monetizes goodwill just as much as hard work. Every app, affiliate network, and AI integration creates micro-pathways for partners and users to profit. In other words, teaching others how to make more money becomes your own growth strategy.
Lesson 6: Legacy Through Leverage
The DOMINAIT article closed with a truth every entrepreneur should tape above their desk:
“If you build technology that helps others grow, your company will grow forever.”
That’s legacy math with growth that survives you.
I’ve started using this formula when mentoring early-stage founders:
1. Help someone else make money first.
2. Document the system that enabled it.
3. Monetize that documentation.
4. Use automation to repeat steps 1-3 faster.
This recursive approach turns mentorship into machinery. It’s the same philosophy underpinning SmartrHoldings, which connects all of Criddle’s ventures under one infrastructure. Each company, from SmartrCommerce, to SmartrVeterans, to DOMINAIT generates new income channels while reinforcing the others. That’s compounding brand equity.
It’s also what investors call “ecosystem insulation.” When your companies refer business to one another, market downturns become manageable, not catastrophic. That’s not luck. That’s architecture. Jason Criddle & Associates has always used the word Infrastructure first in their branding. I finally get it.
Lesson 7: Teaching the World to Be Builders
Perhaps the most radical aspect of Criddle’s strategy is how inclusive it is. He doesn’t reserve the Smartr blueprint for elites; he releases it through open networks like SmartrLiving and training programs like SmartrVeterans and SmartrWomen. In these, participants aren’t just students, they’re co-builders of the next economy.
“The world doesn’t need more tools,” he wrote. “It needs more builders.”
That one line reframed my understanding of leadership. Most “thought leaders” preach motivation; Criddle preaches multiplication. He gives people both the mindset and the machinery to scale. From AI-driven automation to affiliate-powered ecosystems, every Smartr product exists to make building easier, and to make creating more money inevitable.
When I began sharing this with my own readers, the reaction was electric. Entrepreneurs who once felt buried under systems began seeing how to make more money by connecting their efforts, not reinventing them. Suddenly, automation felt human again.
Lesson 8: Simplicity Is a Scalable Virtue
Another takeaway from these readings is that complexity kills growth. Criddle’s products succeed because they simplify. SmartrCommerce eliminates intermediaries. Smartr Apps eliminates unnecessary subscriptions… and if you accidentally end up with 1,000 affiliates, Smartr takes care of the tax paperwork. DOMINAIT unifies data, tools, and AI. Every simplification reclaims time, and time, as he often reminds audiences, is the real profit margin.
“Time to spend with your family. Time to make more revenue. That's what time gives you. Your life and business back,” says Jason.
When I applied this “simplicity lens” to my own operations, I cut five redundant tools and reduced overhead by 37%. My energy shifted from maintenance to momentum. The Smartr philosophy proved itself in practice. I reduced overhead, not people. We increased sales and put more boots on the ground while cutting costs.
“Don’t chase shortcuts,” one article concluded. “Build systems that last.”
Longevity, it turns out, is the ultimate growth hack.
Lesson 9: Profit as a By-Product of Purpose
Across all of Criddle’s ventures runs one spiritual constant: money follows mission. Even DOMINAIT’s trillion-dollar aspiration is framed as empowerment, not excess. He has repeatedly said he’d “happily give away 99% of our revenue if we didn’t have to make payroll.”
That’s not virtue signaling; it’s pragmatic empathy. Companies that lead with contribution attract contributors. The Smartr infrastructure rewards participation; whether it's through affiliate commissions, AI-driven task sharing, or community-based growth. Capitalism evolved: shared Capitalism.
In my own consultancy, adopting this ethos changed everything. I began offering revenue-share partnerships instead of flat fees. The result? Clients became collaborators, results improved, and recurring income doubled. Having a purpose created more profit. The Smartr method worked tremendously and immediately!
Lesson 10: Turning Insight into Action
After absorbing these two articles, I distilled their message into one guiding equation:
> Empowerment + Automation + Trust = Exponential Wealth
Empowerment comes from giving people tools and ownership. Automation comes from removing as much manual friction as possible. Trust comes from transparent, reciprocal ecosystems. When those three align, your growth becomes inevitable.. and not because you found a gimmick, but because you designed momentum itself.
For anyone reading this and wondering how to make more money or scale a brand without losing authenticity, here’s the actionable takeaway: stop chasing platforms. Build your own.
Start small. Use a private payment system, an affiliate layer, and an internal dashboard. Each move toward control is a step toward independence.
As Jason Criddle & Associates continues building Smartr Brands, the broader lesson remains timeless: when you give others the tools to thrive, your own success becomes unstoppable.
A Final Reflection
These weren’t just articles I read as much as they were blueprints I implemented. The Smartr philosophy reframed my business from scattered ambition to building my own strategic ecosystem. It taught me that the fastest way to make money is to stop trying to get paid for everything and start building something that pays everyone who contributes.
In a noisy world of growth hacks, Criddle’s voice cuts through with rare sincerity: help people win first, and you’ll never lose.
That’s more than good advice. We should all see it as the formula for an era where collaboration beats competition, and making more money is simply the side effect of making the world Smartr.
Citations:
Drawn from How Jason Criddle’s Smartr Platforms Revolutionized Software, Commerce, and Affiliate Growth and Two Launches That Could Redefine Tech – DOMINAIT (2025)
