As I sit here with my laptop at Paul bakery in DC, I tend to surf through the Bloomberg Billionaires Index just to see 1) how the world’s beloved philanthropists are doing financially, 2) where their biggest financial assets are held, and 3) where I measure up against them. So far, I’m on the right track of one day breaking into the top 100 list whether it’s in this lifetime or the next.

To say the least, the top 20 billionaires are in a league of their own while the top 10 billionaires make poorer billionaires (e.g. Donald Trump) look like your next-door-neighbors’ kid who runs a lemonade stand.

Just this year, Lloyd Blankfein (CEO, Goldman Sachs) and Jamie Dimon (CEO, JPMorgan Chase) joined the Billionaire Club which, in Elizabeth Warrens view, pales in comparison to the ultra-high-net-worth individuals on the BBI or Forbes list (the .0001%). In all fairness, Blankfein and Dimon’s initiation into the club really goes to show how far (or behind) the financial sector has come in terms of producing billionaires.

When comparing the financial sector to other industries like the tech sector, for example, it is interesting to tally how many I-bankers run to Silicon Valley after serving several years on Wall Street. I don’t blame them. Leaving the cushy-corporate life to begin your own startup company brings more opportunities, even though the work hours might be the same and the risk of failing even greater.

But in today’s world, entrepreneurs are the ones who are innovating and building tangible assets whereas Wall Street is producing nothing tangible other than financial instruments to trade on other people’s innovations and assets.

Take for example Evan Spiegel, cofounder and CEO of Snapchat. He is just 24 years old. His $15 billion-valued app company is built on disappearing photos! And he’s the youngest billionaire in the world with a net worth of $1.5 billion.

It sounds absurd, but lets all remember, in the words of another billionaire Jack Ma (Co-founder, Alibaba):

[At] $1 billion, that’s not your money…The money I have today is a responsibility. It’s the trust of people on me.”

Ma is not so thrilled that he has garnered all this attention for being a multi-billionaire because he says the burden is now on him and Alibaba to perform at such a high level while keeping shareholders happy. In some respects, he regrets going public. He also feels a need to spend his money on behalf of the society because this is a trust by investors who they believe Ma can spend their money better than they can.

How can someone like myself be the next Evan Spiegel or Jack Ma?

There are a million good answers to this question. In an effort for me to differentiate from said millions, I will try to explain it this way. First and foremost:

1. don’t follow any advice on here or from anyone for that matter…unless it is coming from a Billionaire.
2. “planning” to become a Billionaire sounds conceited. It implies that you’re not interested in anything other than becoming a billionaire.

So to begin, here are some forces of reality that you will be competing with:

• As of 2015, there are 1,826 billionaires in the world.
• There are 7.3 billion people on the planet.
• There are 526 billionaires in the US. The most out of any country.
• There are over 321 million people in the US.

Now this means that unless you happen to inherit a sizable chunk of family wealth, you have a 0.000000250136986% chance of becoming a billionaire. If you live in the US your odds are 0.00000163862% which is slightly better.

So lets say you want to be a billionaire in 2 years. This changes the odds considerably. That means while not impossible, your chances are also better to win the lottery a dozen times in your lifetime. All that being said, in the words of Han Solo, “Don’t tell me the odds.”

So forget all that, here’s the plan:

Month 1–5: First you need some capital. It doesn’t have to be a lot, about $5,000 will do. You should also take a few hundred bucks and open up an online brokerage account.

Over the next 2 months you will open up a trading account with a low-cost, options trading, online brokerage. Your goal is to find one with very low fees.

Also, and this is absolutely critical, make sure that they are willing to provide you with margin, the more the better.

Note: In case you don’t know, Margin is a relatively cheap loan borrowed from your broker that you can take out against your principal (now $75,000) to allow you to juice your returns.

Month 6: My very brief research here at Paul bakery is showing me that you can probably lever up your $75,000 to $300,000 worth of buying power no problem.

Once you get your margin in order, it’s time to make a bet.

Hopefully by now it’s either early summer or Sept/Oct and the market is slumping. If you are that lucky, find an Indexed ETF (Google it) that is 3x leveraged (SPXL or TQQQ are examples for the S&P and NASDAQ respectively). Bet all of your money on slightly OTM (Out of the Money), one month options contracts for one of these indexes.

Note: From here on out, I’ve been regurgitating my laptop notes from back during my B-school days.

But I digress. If you are lucky, the market will go up and you will have made a large amount of paper wealth for the month. Spend the next 3 months repeating your success.

Assuming everything goes according to plan, you double down on all of your bets, and you keep your leverage at the same levels, you should have between $10–50 million dollars by the end of this period.

Note: It is entirely possible that not only will you lose your money at this point, but because you have essentially margin out $225k, you will be in a deep hole. If you find yourself in this situation, return to step 1 and add approximately 5 years to the clock.

Month 9. While you could stick with trading, the longer you stay in the game, the better chance you might hit a severe bear market. Even if you did know what you were doing, your chances aren’t that great anyways. In either case, it’s time to get your name out there in the world.

You should spend the remainder of the year assembling a team.

Get the absolute smartest people that your egg basket can buy you (not too many though), and think about an idea that will grow like wildfire. This idea should:

• Allow you to generate huge amounts of traffic.
• Be in a hot industry (Internet of Things, big data, renewable energy, mobile app-based something). Keep in mind, this is a crowded space.
• Be able to produce with a relatively small team (< 10 people).
• Be exciting enough to attract the mainstream media.
• Be able to roll-out your product in less than 3–5 months.

Month 12: Since you have a small fortune to work with already, you don’t really need VC. Only go VC if you really need the capital. Everything you do is about leverage. Spending your own money at this point is irrational, so you should probably get yourself a valuation for imminent IPO launch.

Since you are building something with very smart people and you are finding a niche in the market, chances are you can get decent quotes.

Year Two: Now that you‘ve gotten this far, you just need to keep pushing. Get your prototype or beta version finished and into the market. Make sure that people love it, and if they don’t, dig into your war chest and figure out what went wrong.

Pay your employees well enough that they don’t defect, but not so well that they become complacent.

Make sure that the press knows your story. Seriously, at this point you are pretty much a miracle. Even if your product did nothing or is revenue-less, you will still get a few stories out of that.

Keep an eye on your inflated valuation, make sure that whenever new investor money comes in the door, you are not losing too much equity and you are levering up your companies worth.

If everything goes according to plan, by the end of year two, your paper worth should be over a billion dollars.

Note: All that being said, be prepared to return to square one if your business doesn’t take off the way you’ve expected.

In a nutshell, a few important takeaways:

1. Target several niches.
2. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
3. Foster new innovation rather than reinvent the wheel.
4. Always put at least $20k aside so you can start over if things turn south and just enough savings for 6 month to keep yourself afloat while you start over. Remember, it’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.