[daSn0wie]

Build something:

2,200,000 = Delivering $1 of value to 2.2mi people. Just play with that numbers until you can figure out something that you can build that fits into that model....

$1 of value to 2.4mi people (in a year) // (i fudged the number to make the math easier)

$1 of value to 200k people a month

$2 of value to 100k people a month

$3 of value to 75k people a month

$4 of value to 50k people a month

$8 of value to 25k people a month

$16 of value to 12.5k people a month

$32 of value to 6.25k people a month

...

The tricky part is figuring out what people want to pay for.

There are also abstractions to this... like advertising... An average cpm is $2.80. So you'd have to get ~$3 of value from 75k people a month (if they viewed 1000 pages/mo each).. or 75mi page views a month would get you 2.2mi a year.

[acconrad]

Building something actually drastically reduces the requirements. OP stated $2.2MM to live off of the interest ($80k/yr); put it another way, OP wants a passive income stream of $80k/yr, which can come from $2.2MM invested via the 4% withdrawal rule.

In the case of building something, that replaces the need for $2.2M in capital, which means the 75mm page views/mo reduces down to 2.7mm views/mo, or in the case of the SaaS business, looks something like:

$1 of value to 80,000 people / year

$1 of value to 6,667 people / mo

$5 of value to 1,334 people / mo

$6.67 of value to 1,000 people / mo

$10 of value to 666 people / mo

The key insight is that $7/mo (in perpetuity) from your "1,000 true fans" gives OP the lifestyle he/she is hoping for.

[sn9]

The problem with this is that no service is likely to maintain that level of profit indefinitely in the way that $2.2m of capital will.

In fact, it might be easier to build one product that millions of users pay $1/year for a few years than it would to get $1/year from 80,000 till one's death.