Kavanaugh founded Relativity Media after briefly serving as a consultant to other small businesses and venture capitalists. In the late 1990s, he asked his Father for a $50,000 loan to start his own hedge fund; his Father declined, but this did not dissuade Ryan, whose aim was to use mathematical tools to connect financing and movie projects in a more efficient manner than traditional Hollywood Finance. At Relativity, he created what is now known as "the model", a monte carlo model designed to predict the odds of a given film being successful. No film at Relativity is given a green light unless the model predicts a high probability of profitability. During Relativity’s first year of operation, Kavanaugh executed what was considered to be an innovative Finance deal for Marvel Studios which led them to create the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kavanaugh went on to structure Business deals for such companies as: Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, among many others. Kavanaugh has acquired a number of assets, including the marketing and distribution operations of John Malone's Liberty Media/Starz film unit Overture Films, and reaching a first of its kind TV pay deal with Netflix.