From Jail to $30M: How I Rebuilt My Life and Career | 092

The Nathan Barry Show

In this episode, I sit down with Ryan Beck, co-founder of Pray.com, a $30M platform reaching 10M people a month, to talk about his journey from jail at 18 to building one of the most impactful companies in the faith and creator space.

We dive into Ryan’s backstory, how he and his co-founders built Pray.com, and the systems churches use that modern creators can learn from. Ryan also shares lessons on building double flywheels, turning sermons into scalable content, and how AI is transforming faith-based media.

If you want to understand how to scale community, content, and revenue with timeless principles, this episode is for you.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Ryan’s journey from jail to a new path
05:15 Studying ministry, computer science, and philosophy
09:20 From nonprofits to launching Pray.com
13:05 How Pray.com scaled to 19M downloads
16:21 The double flywheel model of B2C and B2B
21:29 Pastors as the most prolific content creators
25:15 Derivative content and monetization strategies
29:41 What creators can learn from in-person community
34:10 Dave Ramsey and mission-driven business models
40:12 Evergreen content and repurposing systems
47:00 How Pray.com leverages AI for translation and media
55:10 Building AI Bible and reimagining storytelling
01:00:00 Why email is still the number one channel for creators

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Learn more about the podcast: https://nathanbarry.com/show

Follow Nathan:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathanbarry
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thenathanbarryshow
Website: https://nathanbarry.com

Follow Ryan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/purpose
Pray.com: https://www.pray.com

Featured in this episode:
Pray.com: https://www.pray.com
AI Bible: https://www.aibible.com
Dave Ramsey: https://www.ramseysolutions.com
Kit: https://www.kit.com