Greg Isenberg
Appearances
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
The next idea, Shopify for X. I think Shopify is an $80 billion company. And when you have an $80 billion company, there's just opportunities to unbundle it. So what's Dani's idea? So she says, there are all these no-code tools. They're either too limited or too complex. What you need is a product-specific tool. Shopify is no-code e-commerce. Then you would also build no-code marketplaces.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So I don't think... The point is, I don't think the reason why HQ Trivia...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
died is because the format didn't work and i think someone my prediction is someone's going to bring back the hq trivia format and apply it to a new niche maybe it's dating and it's going to work in 2024 25 25 2026 so hq dating you know i i think that live dating like this is interesting to so many people uh i love this idea uh And yeah, you've got to come up with a catchy name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
You've got to make it interesting. I think you start in Los Angeles or New York. It has to feel almost like a reality TV show because you have to want to get to know the characters. But I think this idea, HQ dating, is a great idea. And I think the bigger idea of HQ trivia for X is a trend that I'm certainly paying attention to. And that's about it. That's about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So those are some of the more interesting ideas on the list. I'll include the list in the YouTube bio. Sorry, in the YouTube description. These are a few ideas that are just really, really good. Danny, like I said, Danny knows what... She knows... She's got that juice. She's got that juice. So if you enjoyed that, like this YouTube video, comment on the YouTube video, I read every single comment.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
Some of these ideas, I might be like, you know what? I wouldn't Maybe it's a good idea, but it's one of those ideas I wouldn't do. Too much work. So without further ado, let's go into Danny Grant's 139 ideas. Let's pick the most interesting ones or the ones that just speak to me. And let's go through this together and see what we got.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
And the likes and comments actually make a difference. So I know it's crazy to say, but people are not able to see this video if you don't like and comment. So I appreciate every single one of them. I'll see you in the YouTube comment section. And please subscribe for more of these videos, for more of these Startup Ideas podcasts. I hope you loved it. I had fun recording this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
I'm going to go and open up a Figma and just start jamming on some of these ideas. So have a good one and I'll see you on the next one. Later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
All right, so this idea, idea number one, is there a product doc format just for writing product specs? So you can create Jira's inline, you can have common threads inline, et cetera. This is pretty darn good idea. There is Google Docs, of course, but there's nothing specific for product specs.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So I can imagine a Google Docs for product specs for PMs that people would be willing to pay $20 a month for. So I actually think that there's something here. I really like this idea. It's not the simplest idea to do. You have to create software. I don't think really anything like this exists.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
I mean, of course you have product templates, but you don't really have a whole experience dedicated to writing product specs. How would I actually go and build something like this? Well, I'd build the MVP, probably outsource it to an agency to get the MVP up. And I'd partner with a creator. I mean, Lenny Richitsky would be the dream.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So Lenny Richitsky, I think at this point, has the biggest podcast and newsletter for product managers. But who are the aspiring Lenny Richitskys? So I'd make a list. I'd go to perplexity.ai. And I'd say, who are the up and coming 20 Lenny Richitskys? And... And I would go and reach out to them. So I think this is a good idea. Pretty straightforward. Software. Catchy name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
I probably wouldn't do this idea if I didn't have the buy-in from... two to three or four creators. So I would create the name, I'd create the mock-up first, and then I would actually go and see if I want to build it. All right, so that's idea number one. Idea number two, developer portfolio sites. So she says, help every developer create their own Danny Town.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
I assume Danny Town is her own portfolio website. So there's a company called format.com. And what they do is they're the portfolio builder for creative professionals. So basically what Danny's suggesting is build the format dot com, but for developers. Now, I know someone's listening to this and being like, well, that's GitHub. GitHub already exists. Yes, but it's not as beautiful as a format.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
This is such a good idea. This is such a good idea. Something like this needs to exist, should exist, will exist. How would I actually go and build something like this? Well, I'd build that. Okay, so a few weeks ago, I had Dani Grant on the podcast. She's someone who I really respect.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
And I do think that there's an opportunity to build that for developers. And Format's actually massive. They've got 50,000 plus people who pay to use it. And what do they pay to use it? Pricing was pulled up. They pay $11 a month annually or $24 a month monthly. So this is a huge business. If you assume that the average is, let's say, $15 a month, that's huge. We're talking $750,000 a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
in monthly recurring revenue for something that doesn't cost a lot of money. And why I love websites, website builders, is once you build it, chances are you are not going to churn. So these are beautiful businesses that don't churn very well. I think Danny's onto something with developer portfolio sites. I do think it makes sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
And you can probably take, again, you can take that Lenny Richitsky strategy, creator-led There are a bunch of developers who have a lot of followers and I'd work with them to create something that would be really cool. So I think the way I would actually build something like this is I would start by building one really awesome developer portfolio site.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So I would reach out to some of these developers and say, hey, I'm a designer. I'd really love to design you your own developer portfolio site. And and create something unique, interesting, that they've hopefully never seen before. Get them super stoked about it. And once you refine that, maybe you do it for a few people, then that's when you have the product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
And then that's when you get some of these influencer developers on board. And that's when you can actually go and build out an MVP, Minimal Viable Product, and start charging for this. So I really love this idea. These are one of the great cash flow ideas. I remember meeting the founder of Card, C-A-R-R-D.co, I think. He had a great business. They're one-page websites. He charges very little.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
I think it's like nine bucks a year or something. But he had a great business. He bootstrapped it. One guy, One guy living in Tennessee, developer, and millions of people use this. It's crazy. So website builders, I know you must be thinking like, oh my God, that's so 1999. But it works. It really works. And it works really well for different niches. So really good idea on that one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. So the next idea she has is a blog and a newsletter in a box. So help everyone set up their own AVC.com. So if you don't know AVC.com, it's a blog slash newsletter by Fred Wilson, who's a VC in New York City. He's been doing this for like at least 15, 20 years. It's super, super simple.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
I think originally his blog was on Tumblr. I'm not sure where it is today. But yeah, the idea around, does someone want to blog in a newsletter in a box? I mean, there is Substack, but Substack feels very newsletter first. I do think that there's probably an opportunity to build something like this and make it easy for people. Maybe the idea is just like you're an agency and you work on top of
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
all these different services and you just set it up for them. You use existing services. But I'm not a big fan of like, okay, let's go and create the next sub stack, but make it more blog first. Because I think that's really hard and you're competing against people who've raised tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So don't like that idea, but do like the idea around we work with Beehive, we work with Substack, we work with WordPress. We charge a very small one-time fee to help you get set up for it. And you probably do... cold outbound to get people to do this. This is definitely a cold outbound, cold email, cold DM to get people and say, hey, notice that you don't have
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
a blog set up, I noticed you don't have a newsletter, you're missing out. I think you talk about, you use a lot of social, social credibility around, you know, so-and-so Lenny Richitsky didn't have a blog and newsletter and now he's making $5 million a year with his blog and newsletter. And he does it running on a, you know, a free substack and you can do the same.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So I think the way to do it is you do a mix of the cold DM and then you use your content. You build an audience and you talk about these stories and then you funnel them to a really cheap offer. One-time offer. Why one-time over monthly for something like this? I just think that it's going to be a no-brainer for people. This is a business that... you might be able to start on your side.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
Sometimes you meet someone or you're listening to someone's podcast or you're watching them and you just know that this person's got it. They've got the sauce. They know where the world is going. And she had a few ideas that she shared. But afterwards, she sent me a list of 139 different startup ideas. And we never got a chance to go through them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
The starting costs are quite small. So cheers, Danny, for giving us this idea. All right, let's talk about some ideas I don't really love. So virtual workspace, compete with Tandem. Tandem is a virtual... Let's check Tandem real quick. So I just checked out Tandem. I'm pretty sure Tandem was one of those apps that you can see other teammates in a third space.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
And it seems like they pivoted to more of a Slack plus video conferencing. So it's hard. To build what Danny is suggesting is quite hard. you know, a social app, basically making Slack more social. Um, first of all, you have to like build Slack. Um, so that's step one. And then, so you, you know, step one is building all the primitives, what people are used to.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
And then step two is like, okay, now I got to figure out how can I make this different and, and interesting in a social experience. So this is, this is one of those ideas where I think, you know, they call it a tar pit idea. It's an idea that seems good on paper, but like once you actually go and, uh, go into it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
It's actually a bad idea because there's so much investment that you need to put into something like this. And then you have to get people off Slack. You have to get people off Microsoft Teams. So don't love this idea at all. Other idea, whole world is a silent disco. The problems with Turntable FM is it was too early. Turntable FM was...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
was an idea where people create these virtual rooms and you play music and you can chat with other people who are in these virtual rooms. You had your own avatar. It almost felt like a game. So she says, now everyone is walking around listening to music everywhere and someone is going to build a network DJ station where the whole world is one big silent disco. I just think this is a cool idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
It's a really cool idea. I hope someone does something like this. I actually don't think it's that hard to do something like this. But getting people... It's not hard to build the thing. Getting the whole world to get off their current platforms is hard. And getting people to pay for it and dealing with the licenses of the music industry, not so easy. So cool idea, hard to execute.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
Okay, another technical idea, JSFiddle meets Twitter. So JSFiddle is basically, you can write code online, JavaScript, pulls in different libraries, and you can run it. all online. It's on IDE or anything like that. So it's very popular. Millions of people use it. But when you look at it, it's really focused just on developers to compile their code. It's not social at all.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
And you're starting to see a common denominator with a lot of Dani's ideas to be technical and social. And she ended up building something in that space, jam.dev. which is around bug tracking that's social and hundreds of thousands of people, I think, use it. But there's an opportunity here to basically take JS Fiddle and make it more like Twitter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So it's half writing code and half memeing and remixing. I think that there's something here. I think developers love memes. They love remixing. So I think the idea around compiling code and having a place where people can talk, meme, and remix some of that software is very compelling. The next idea, Shopify for X. I think Shopify is an $80 billion company.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
So I figured I'd hop on here real quick, go through some of these ideas. Some of them are kind of big venture-backed ideas. Some of them are profitable startups. And some of them will just get your creative juices flowing. And I'll tell you how I feel about these ideas. What would I do? How would I start them? And if I just think that they're plain garbage.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
And when you have an $80 billion company, there's just opportunities to unbundle it. So what's Dani's idea? So she says, Shopify for making an Airbnb-style marketplace. Shopify for making a messaging app. Shopify for making an Instagram-like app. There are all these no-code tools. They're either too limited or too complex. What you need is a product-specific tool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
Like Shopify is no-code e-commerce. Then you would also build no-code marketplaces, no-code messaging app, no-code Instagram. This is such a good idea. This is such a good idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
This idea around marketplace for no-code apps, that if you listen to this idea on this podcast or one of these ideas, you can just go to the marketplace, duplicate the idea, and then just pay, let's say, a monthly fee or a one-time fee for a license to it. I love that. Now, I think Bubble is doing pieces of that. So maybe you just build on top of Bubble.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
But something like this needs to exist, should exist, will exist. So I think this is definitely the direction things are going. Okay, next idea. HQ Trivia for Dating. Live dating show, mobile HQ style. HQ Trivia, I think it was like 2018, 2019. Literally everyone was playing it. If you don't remember it, it was this guy, Steve Ratajkowski, I think.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Startup ideas brainstorm (steal this $130k/month idea)
Every single day, you'd get a push notification and he would do live trivia and they'd give away money. And millions of people played it daily. It was an incredible experience. And it ended up crashing and burning. in a large part because of... It was like a crazy story, actually. The founder unfortunately died, and they had growing pains too, and there were drugs involved. It was just crazy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Like what makes this business really great for other people who want to create businesses with tiny teams is number one, you lock people into an ecosystem. Number two, the customer service is just exceptional. Number three, family business. Number four, it's niche. It's not for everyone. And they went after like the Tony Robbins of the world. And then last but not least, it's a dope name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
This is beautiful. I'm obsessed with this. The cover art is just absolutely stunning. It's like one of those things where You want to buy it and just frame it and put it on your walls. It's absolutely amazing. And it's actually one per customer. So it says, due to demand, it is not possible to order multiple of the same item in one transaction. So I just love the scarcity of it, too.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
It does feel very community-oriented. This is a really, really good one. I wonder how much revenue they're bringing in for something like this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
It doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter because the impact that this is making. It's so cool. It's so cool. This is so cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah. This is too cool. This is too cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
All right. That was a good one. All right. I got, I got, I got, I got another one. When are we stopping? Like, is it, is it just like, we're stopping when, when it feels like we should stop.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
You're talking to the wrong guy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
All right. So my second Tiny Team Award goes to AJ, the founder of Card, C-A-R-R-D. Are you familiar with Card?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
So if you go to C-A-R-R-D.co, it's basically these simple, free, fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything. So a card is I got to know AJ through Ryan Hoover from Product Hunt. So he launched on Product Hunt. He was just like, I just need a way to create a one page card, one page website in a really simple way. And I think other people probably want that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
He launched on Product Hunt and went viral within that community. All of a sudden, as a one man developer, he's doing I think at least a million, a million and a half of ARR. Wow. And you know the cost with something like that. I mean, not very much. And what ended up happening is a lot of causes, like social causes, started using it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
And a lot of, for whatever reason, like K-pop stars started using it. So it's just like cool because number one, it's cool because he's a tiny team. It's him. And I think one other person, it's cool because it got popular. Like he didn't really do any marketing. It kind of just like blew up from the Product Hunt community and then spread to, you know, communities that needed it most.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
You think they're bigger than they are, but they're smaller.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
I think the Black Lives Matter community used it a lot and that spread to other causes. And then K-pop stars started using it and that spread to other people who listen to K-pop. And I just thought it was cool that it's just some developer who created a one page. I think website builders are just cool too.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
It's one of those categories where it's like people have been building website builders since the 90s. It's like, do we need another website builder? I guess we do.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
So firstly, go onto Twitter and just put in card and search and sort by latest. What you'll see is like every second people are tweeting about their card websites. And I think one of the reasons why this works is it's a status symbol within certain communities to have a card. Yeah. So it'll say like when you create a card, it'll be... It'll be gregeisenberg.car.co.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah. And it blows your mind and you just, you can't believe it. You're like, what? How is that even possible? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
And within certain communities, like I mentioned, K-pop and causes, it's kind of like a flex.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
I honestly think that it was organically cultivated. It wasn't like AJ... you know, I think he lives in like rural Tennessee. So I don't think he has the most amount of K-pop connections, you know? So it just, from that Product Hunt launch, I don't know, it just sort of spread and they saw the product and it felt cool and interesting and they liked the name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
I also think that their business model is one of the reasons why it works. So most people, most website builders will charge $10, $20, $30, sometimes $50 a month for access to it. Guess what car it charges?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
No, not that tiny.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Oh, actually, you're right. It is free. You can create for free. But if you want the pro features, like multiple sites, no branding, widgets, embeds, Google Analytics, forms, if you want to connect it to Beehive or ConvertKit, something like that. you do have to pay for the advanced features. And it's only, yes, only $19 per year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah. I mean, that's, what is that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
It's a tiny amount of dollars per year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
$19 is like half an espresso.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy you started talking about that because the comment section is going to be like so upset. And people get so upset about the prices of things.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
It's like for Dasani water. It's about $19.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
totally don't like don't say it's a joke and just keep doing that until people think we're viciously out of touch totally i like this i like that a lot yeah i mean 3800 dollars to be completely disconnected from reality and for the price of a coffee it's a no-brainer
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Or just lovers. Just some lovers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah. It's in the ballpark, right? With tip, it's around $3,800.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah. I mean, I think they know we're... Well, are you wearing... What are you wearing underneath there?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
I mean, I was thinking about putting on pants, but then I was just like, what is the point?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah. What is happening behind there?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yes. I give the tiny business award to card.co. Congrats.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
All right. Let's dig in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yay! Okay, but I don't know that business at all.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
That is so good. That is so cool. So cool. That fires me up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
That fires me up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
And we make a magazine out of it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
All right, I'm going to refrain from...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
one upping you with another tiny team award i think dude no no i can't i can't i want i want you to have the last word on this one and we'll do another one of these yeah um here listen i think what you should do is maybe someone on your team should make a not shitty looking version one of these and like we send it to the to the people who want it as like a cute thing totally or we just send them
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
yeah my team tiny yeah exactly i'm six foot three okay i'm huge do you know how large my flip chart is yeah all right well jc this has been fun uh thank you and uh any any parting words um i'm so sweaty yeah the thing with suits is they really traps in the heat
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah. Well, they say higher quality of life in Europe, but no AC. I don't know. Hard to deal with that one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Totally. Did you see my tweet to Daniel Ek?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
No, he's like really hard to track down.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yeah, he'll have no choice but to come on. Yeah, come on.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
All right, man. It's been real. I'll catch you later. Thanks, everyone.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Okay, and a flip chart, flip chart meaning one of those things where you're just kind of like a whiteboard?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
And how well do you think these guys are doing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
So I'm looking right now, they charge for the King flip chart exclusive set. It's 13, 15 euros plus taxes. And that includes the foldable and portable flip chart. I think it probably includes a few refills and stuff like that. But I didn't realize it would be that expensive.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
The end. I also recommend people go to, when you go to their website, if you go to the Team of King flip chart, and we'll put this on the YouTube video, it's just a picture of um, T Ziana and Sandro, just like looking deep into your soul. Yes. And it's, it's perfect.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
And they just talk about like you, you start reading about the team and you really get a sense of like who these people are, why they, why they're doing what they're doing. It just feels so family business. And I feel like the trend around like the Amazonification of the internet. This is like the anti-trend around just like, this feels like you wanna support this business. Quick ad break.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO. And that's why I use boringmarketing.com. And that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
So there's something different about us today. We are wearing suits. Why are we wearing suits?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
They deserve this prestigious, very prestigious award.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
That's right. Exactly. So congratulations. I know you've been wanting this from the day you've been born, Tiziana and Sandro. So congratulations. And just from a framework perspective, I'm trying to think, so what makes this business really great for other people who want to create businesses with tiny teams is number one, you lock people into an ecosystem.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Number two, the customer service is just exceptional. Number three, family business is Number four, it's niche. It's not for everyone. And they went after like the Tony Robbins of the world. So then you look it in, you're like, I want to be a king too. You know, I don't, I want to be a king. Tony Robbins is a king. And then last but not least, it's a dope name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
And what's that award?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Yep. I love it. I love it. I just love it. I love it. So that's award number one. I've got a tiny team award I want to give out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
so for the second tiny team award ever to be given sip to that uh stardew valley oh my god what a fucking great i don't know if you want to beat that up but what we didn't know which ones we were going to bring to each other that is such a great one do you know about the story of stardew valley
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
So Stardew Valley is a farming game started by a guy by the name of Eric not try to pronounce it, Eric Barone or Eric Barone. I don't know if he's Italian. Maybe it's just the Italian flip chart got to me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
It's the son of the flip chart dynasty.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
So for the purpose of this award, we're going to call him Eric Barone. He's the one man developer behind $300 million of earnings of Stardew Valley. So Stardew Valley started, I think he started building it in 2011. So it took a few years, but basically it's this farming game. And he was the sole developer for the game. And not only was he the sole developer, he was the sole designer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
And what does that mean?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
He even crafted the music for the game. that not many people know that. And it was this really cool concept where, you know, so many games, the trends were first person shooters, MMOs, killing people, fighting games. He did the complete opposite and created this like calming farming game. And he, what I love about the whole story, besides that he's a tiny team and he did it,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
I mean, amazing that he created $300 million of value by himself, is the fact that, well, he just basically went against all best practices and all trends and just said, this is going to be a really cool game. I want to go and put this out here. And people said that it should be $60. He started charging $15. And you can even get Stardew Valley now for as cheap as $4.99.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
Maybe once per lifetime.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
So his, his, you know, I just, I love people who have a POV and it's just like, this needs to exist. Plus I'm a tiny team chef's kiss. So congratulations, Eric.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This solopreneur made $300M so we gave him an award for it
No, I have not.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
Ray Fernando on the pod. He's a 12-year ex-Apple engineer. He streams AI coding. He's building an AI startup in real time. I needed to have you on because what are we going to talk about today, Ray?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
What's the cost, the pricing for fireworks?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
Yeah, from what I remember, it's cheap. It's like significantly cheaper. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Then go to 01 Pro.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
And this is going to add up, right? You might be like, oh yeah, who cares? A million tokens. But once you add this to your workflow and you're pumping out content or you're doing research on an ongoing basis or you've built a business around how to do this, these tokens will add up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
I would love to. Yeah, I mean, selfishly, I would love to know that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
I appreciate that. To me, I would rename that temperature as wine versus coffee mode. Love it. Wine might get you a little more creative. If you want more rational execution style, maybe you want coffee mode. We have LCA, it's our design firm for the AI age. I feel like that's what's missing from a lot of these AI products is just a little humanity and lightness.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
I expect over the next couple of years we'll start seeing...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
I love it. Um, I don't know if you've played around with it, but is there any way to do this on mobile? Like, could you play with local models on the mobile device?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
Yeah. I just haven't used it. Let's see.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
It's crazy how many models there are now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
So many startup ideas, by the way, like from, um, From that alone, I love that you shared that example of someone maybe falling and hurting themselves. I think even coordinating with your AirPods, there's just a ton of opportunity there as well. Translation. not just pure translation, but it's like someone is saying X, Y, Z, but what are they really saying?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
Imagine negotiating in the future, except you have pretend you're a lead negotiator as almost a local AI LLM that's helping you figure this out. We could have a million ideas, but it's just really exciting to see where this could go.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
Anything else you want to cover today?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
You're a legend, man. Thank you for coming on, sharing your insights here. This has been super helpful. I thought it was helpful. So if people agree, go comment on YouTube. I read and respond to almost every comment.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
um like and subscribe for more of this in your feed and let us know if we should bring and when i say we it's me you know let me know if i you know should invite ray back on again to show us more stuff i would certainly love to do that more in 2025 um crazy times ray uh this whole deep seek you know tidal wave is just it's insane
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
All right, my man. I'll see you later. Thank you so much.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
And when we do that... I will say, I wouldn't put a tax return on deepseek.com. It's not the type of thing I would put on. So you do want to be a bit wary of what you're putting on when you're on deepseek.com. Now, I was playing with Perplexity earlier, and Perplexity actually has some of these models built in, but it's hosted in the United States of America. So that's a bit different.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
Or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
So when you're in when you're in business or you're building a startup. having an unfair advantage is so important, right? Like being super efficient and keeping your costs low, creating your product to be the best possible thing. Now we're in this new deep seek world where the model, I call it a deep seek world, but it's really, it's a llama world. It's a deep seek world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
It's a world where if you figure out the model that works for you and the tasks that you want to accomplish, you might be able to out-compete whoever you're competing against. Now, I've done a similar prompt on ChatGPT with some of my YouTube transcripts. And it's not unusable, but it's more of a thought starter. It's like, oh, okay, I can take...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
most of this and I can rejig this and add this and add that and probably get to a blog post, that is good. But it does require a lot of human energy to go and do this. When I see what's coming out of this, What's really, really mind boggling is the fact that it almost looks like just quickly scanning this, this looks pretty, pretty human level, incredible.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
DeepSeek R1 - Everything you need to know
Like a senior writer would do something like this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
My take on this is that every person has a ignorance tax that they have to pay down. So no matter what your goals are, there's a price that you have to pay to learn to get to your goals quicker. And by living in San Francisco, New York, some of these places, yes, it might be two times more expensive to live, but you will, just by osmosis, pay down your ignorance debt way, way, way faster.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
I'm just trying to think. Okay, so what... job titles need this the most and i think if you if you think about some of these positions like teachers or dentists or even doctors even yeah doctors like they spend they basically decide that they want to be these people at age like architects architects hate their lives usually often
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
I just take a sip and I'm back where I need to be.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
So they might, you know, in their mind, like, you know, their parents or, you know, they had an uncle who was a who was a dentist. So they become a dentist. And then by the time they're, you know, in their mid 20s or late 20s or early 30s, they're like, whoa. I don't like being a therapist. It's horrible. People are just telling me their problems.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
So I think a lot of job titles where there's a lot of studying and prep and long hours, that's what I'd go after.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
I don't even know if civil engineering...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Well, it's The Power of Mimemic Desire. Do you ever read that book? I've never read that book. I think it's a book.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Yeah, it's called Wanting, The Power of Mimemic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgess. It basically says that even if we don't realize it, we do things to try to mimic other people in our lives. And how we don't have as much, like we think that we're doing things, we're independent, we're human beings.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
No, Zin is the rage in America. It's basically like a, it looks like a piece of gum and people put it like on their lip. It's just like, it's a nicotine thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
If we want to be a doctor, it's because we want to be a doctor, but we don't realize that it's 99% our environment and just us trying to fit in as people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Yeah. I mean, the way you were describing being in the middle of nowhere is exactly where I am now. I'm in like literally looking at it, you know, 95 acres of mountains and there's no one around here. I'm in the, I'm in Canada. And so I like to live my life from extremes. Miami is like, you're in it. And here I'm like, you're not in it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
And sometimes I find it really helpful to dip in and out of the extremes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
So for you, you're going to come to San Francisco. You're going to get this dose or injection of...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
silicon valley into your veins and but you know you're going to be taking your flight home and on your flight you're going to be wow should i raise venture capital and you're a guy who's never thought about raising venture capital in your life and that's because if you spend enough time in san francisco you will think about raising around because that's what everyone does there for sure um so you know then then you're going to go down to la and
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
And, you know, on your flight leaving L.A., you're going to be like, oh, you know, I've always been thinking I should really get into vlogging. Because everyone wants to be famous in L.A. So I think the hack is you have to write your goals. Like, what are your goals? Personal, career. And then cities can help you get to your goals. But too much of one city could also...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
you know, kind of hurt personal goals or hurt other career goals. So I think that you should treat a city as just like a utility in a way, right? Like you get something out of it. And but I want to say one quick thing, which is I also don't think you should be one of those people that are constantly on a flight because if you don't have a home base, you don't have like a community.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
That's also just like a terrible way to live.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
No, no, this is great. My take on this is that every person has a ignorance tax that they have to pay down. So no matter what your goals are, there's a price that you have to pay to learn to get to your goals quicker. And by living in San Francisco, New York, some of these places, yes, it might be two times more expensive to live, but you will, just by osmosis,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
pay down your ignorance tax, ignorance debt way, way, way faster. And the question for you is, or the person listening really is, at this stage in your life and with the amount of money that you have saved up, is it worth spending an extra $1,500 a month or whatever it is for the premium to potentially get an extra client a month or learn about how VCs work or XYZ. That's what it is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Yeah, I think you could move out to the suburbs or live off the grid if... you build a big audience. Because then, what is an audience? An audience just puts you at the center of digital gravity. And then it's all good because you don't need to be in New York, you don't need to be in San Francisco. You're tweeting and you're getting a million views.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
So if you're starting out or you just want to accelerate your career, I think you want to do both things. You want to do the digital gravity thing and you want to build an audience. Uh, and that's kind of your insurance. And also with your fallback plan for when you do, you know, you've been in New York and you hit 30 and you're like, I'm tired of this. I need to help. Totally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Yeah. Who doesn't want that insurance?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Well, that's what we do. That's what we do. We burrow. We burrow. You know, that's our style.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
I'm, I'm in, I'm in Miami, call it seven to eight months a year, eight months a year probably. And then three, three months summertime here and then maybe a month during the winter. So that's the other thing I like about here is it's got the craziest seasons of all time. It gets to like minus 45 degrees and like snows like 10, 10 feet. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
And Miami is like, you know, like the complete opposite of that. And it's like hurricane season right now. So I don't know. I, I like, I like, again, I like the diversity. I like, uh, I find that I work, I'm actually more productive up here. Uh, it's a great place to write. Like think I'm in like a cabin in the woods basically. Right. So it's like so good for writing. So good for creativity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Um, and, uh, that's also just helpful. Like if I have like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
I think we can end it here. I got to ask people to like on YouTube if you enjoyed this. Apparently liking for the algorithm is a thing. Please like it. Please like it and subscribe and then leave us a review on Spotify and Apple if you're listening there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
And have a good one, everyone. Later. Should we sip it out? Let's sip it out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Hey everyone, if you're anything like me, you've got a ton of design work that you need.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
websites landing pages emails social assets you name it but you don't just want beautiful landing pages or beautiful websites you want the stuff that's going to convert you want the stuff that's going to actually drive value that's where designscientist.com comes in it's an agency that for one monthly price will do all your design work all your copy work all your engineering
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
and do stuff that actually scales your revenue. You don't need a designer. You need a design scientist. Let's go design scientist.com. I liked it so much. I invested in the business. So what you're saying is there's a bunch of careers that, I mean, most careers, honestly, people don't like. There's a subsection of people who don't like what they're doing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
And there's an opportunity to get those people to create content to attract those people and then sell coaching and other services to help them transition from what they're doing. To what they want to be doing. That's what you're saying.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Time to sip. You haven't been on the show in like three weeks, so you're just like super, super electric about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
It's a career coach on Zin, exactly. That's a good one-liner.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
You wouldn't be helping the kids who are in the schools, but you definitely would be helping... You want to fix the education system, dude? You're not exactly fixing the education system. But yeah, I hear you. I will say... Okay, check this out. So one of the first things that I do whenever I come up with an idea... is I go to Reddit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
And I noticed that there's a subreddit called... I was on this exact subreddit today. You would be. You would be. Teachers in Transition. Okay. So it's pretty massive. It's 34,000 members. It's actually a perfect size. Top 3% rank by size. And one of the things I like to do is I go check the top posts. So this month, the top post...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
is a post that says, in case anyone questions why 50% of teachers leave in their first five years. And it's basically these text messages of parents just following up around report cards. It's so bad. It's like, I'm curious as to the interpretation of the grading rubric, right? And then there's 213 comments of other teachers being like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
one of the top comments, I don't care about grades, quote unquote, and proceeds to rant about grades. So I think the way to build this is the way I would build this teachers in transition or whatever in transition is I would actually go and build the subreddit if it doesn't exist. Like go and build a subreddit, moderate the subreddit. I would try to collect as many memes as possible.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
And the memes is how you attract the audience. You just end up sharing memes for teachers, nurses, dentists,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
um that sort of thing get a bunch of you know thousands of followers and from there then that's when you create your high ticket offer and that's when you you know you sell them stuff and teaching was just an example because just there's a lot of people in my life who've quit teaching and found it very stressful and and the
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
Yeah, and basically gossip, you know? But it's, you know, if you're a teacher and you're in the subreddit, you read a post and it's kind of like real recognize real, you know? Like I see you other teacher, like I've been there, we've all been there. And if you can get that feeling, that's basically the feeling that you want to reverse engineer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Supercharge your career with this one cheat code
No, nothing. My brain is never slow and is never stupid. It just hasn't happened ever yet.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
vertical sass you've probably heard the name and you're probably like yeah i wish i can create a vertical sass that prints millions of dollars well i brought on the number one guy who talks about vertical sass he's got the vertical sass bible and uh he spills all his secrets on the step-by-step way to create a vertical sass this is a guy luke safinos
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
So where do we start? Do we want to start with... Why vertical SaaS?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Makes sense. Follow the money. That's the follow the money step.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Does that make sense? It does. I'm just wondering if I'm, let's just say I'm building in the trade school space and I want to map out and I want to figure out who the competition is. Is there a way that AI could kind of do some of that heavy lifting? Have you tried that yet? Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and ai that could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses i wanted that i didn't want to have to rely on mark zuckerberg i didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses i wanted to rank high in google that's why i like seo and that's why i use boringmarketing.com and that's why i invested in it
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Let's try it out just for fun.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
I'm going to share my screen real quick. What do you think I should prompt Claude Maybe in your space. What do you think I should ask?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
For machine shops in the USA.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Walk me through what a machine shop's operation would look like end to end. Oh man.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
This is crazy. I actually didn't expect it to be this good, to be frank.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Wow. Do we need to include? Do we need to qualify at this point? Do they need to be doing a million in revenue? Is that just complicating it? Or what do you think?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Yeah, true. Let's let it rip. Because you know what you could do? You can also say... like in this list and you know, how many of these, how, how many of these softwares are like 20 or 15 years or older?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
I'm going to say list all the softwares here that are, isn't it older than five years or older than 10 years? Cause that's isn't, aren't those the ones that you want to disrupt? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
We should try. Why not? I mean, we're not. Let's just try it. Let's just say, let's just use it like a real person. So we're going to say, I'm trying to come up with a vertical sass with my friend, Luke. And we actually for machine jobs. my friend Luke, and we have a framework. So the first is, um, what'd you say? Legacy?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
What areas of machine shops are still being run on pen and paper? I'm going to say basically that says there is an opportunity for software. Okay. Second?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
This is an excellent approach, identifying opportunities for vertical SaaS. Whoa, you know it's getting real when they do this over here on the right. where it starts writing out in a document.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
For people listening, on the right-hand side, there's an analysis. Machine shop software opportunities analysis. Area still using pen and paper. It literally just lists it out. Job tracking and scheduling. many smaller shop sales, whiteboards, and paper schedules, tooling and inventory, often tracked manual and log books, machine maintenance log, frequently kept in binders, notebooks.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
It's literally telling you where there's opportunity here for pen and paper. What do you think of the pen and paper section? Reactions?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Does that work? Like people will do that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Yeah. Cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
know i just want to make sure that uh you know i'm building the right thing you know can i buy you guys lunches to let me kind of watch and see what happens perfect cool so pen and paper number two areas not leveraging ai predictive maintenance ai could anticipate machine failures before they occur
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
optimized job scheduling, AI could consider multiple factors to create efficient schedules, automated quality control, AI-powered computer vision could enhance inspection process, energy management, AI could optimize machine uses to reduce energy consumption. You get the idea here. Luke, what's your reaction to the areas not leveraging AI section?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Yeah. And by the way, there's probably an opportunity to just design this using V0 and just... design a prototype or a framer website even, and just show this to a machine shop owner and be like, hey, if I built this, would this be of interest? Like getting their feedback. Cool. And then section three, areas using multiple horizontal solution.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Project management, often common to gather general purpose apps, tools like Trello, Asana, spreadsheets, CRM. Many use generic CRMs not tailored to machine shops. Accounting and invoicing, general accounting software often lacks machine shop specific features, et cetera, et cetera. Luke, reaction?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
are all really great ideas. I honestly can't believe it. My issue is I don't know if these are validated ideas. I was thinking of going to machine shops to get their feedback IRL. But I hope you can save me a trip. Validate these ideas for me. Let's just see what happens. I don't have high hopes, but I was nice.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
This is insane.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
How important is building media being on social, like are the machine shop people of the world on social? Like what's your take?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
And I bet you, if you asked me, if you put me in a corner and you're like, Greg, how do I get the 1 million people who work in machine shops onto a newsletter? What I would do is I would do a daily funny machine shop meme email where you just start... It's like inside jokes. You hire someone who works in a machine shop in like Des Moines, Iowa.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And then you have all these people who are your advocates. And it's like, oh, by the way, I'm like, I sell this software. And then, you know, you start building up multiple pieces of software. And before you know it, you know, the lifeblood of your of your software is this newsletter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
You should, you honestly should. Uh, no brainer. Okay. So, you know, what else have, you know, where, where are we at on the scorecard?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Cool. Yeah. And it's working like you're making millions of dollars a year in revenue. And through the process, I think, and that's why I wanted to bring you on is you've kind of figured out a playbook for the different types of vertical SaaS businesses, how to think about wedges, which is like a wedge product, which is something I really would love for you to get into.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
He's got a vertical SaaS business that prints millions himself. He's a vertical SaaS advisor to Atomic, which builds billion-dollar businesses like his and hers. this might not be the most exciting podcast I've ever done. It might actually be a little bit boring. And that's the point. Vertical SaaS is boring, but that's why there's so much opportunity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
How to think about picking a market for your vertical SaaS. And maybe I'd also just love you to go through pricing. How do you think about pricing your vertical SaaS? So where do you want to start?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
I like it for a few reasons. One, it's follow the money because it's like, a proposal, you get it out there, and then you close the business, and then all of a sudden, Roofer is the hero because they helped close that business, which then, number two, increases the trust around the customer and the business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
So I think if you're trying to create, it sounds like if you're trying to create a wedge product, think about how you could, like, what is the wedge product that could create the most amount of trust?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
I like it. We're running out of time, but I have to ask one more piece to the scorecard because I know people in the comments section are going to be like, you got to ask this. Pricing. How do you think of it? Jake, do you have a framework for thinking about how you price these things?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
How much money am I making you? And then could you give me a portion of that money basically is what you're saying. So that it's anywhere, what is it? Anywhere between 20 to 50%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Luke, this has been a masterclass. I'm about to hack on a couple of Vertical SaaS ideas this weekend or markets and ideas this weekend. I appreciate you coming on. Where could people get to know you, your writings, learn more about Vertical SaaS?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
And you don't want 100,000 people competing in vertical SaaS. We're keeping it small. We're keeping it a little small. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. And I'll see you around. See you around Miami. Awesome, Greg. Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate you. Later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
And we do use AI to come up with some fun ideas. So watch the whole thing and take some notes. Enjoy. All right, I got my man Luke to come on and teach us about vertical SaaS, vertical software. And I know it sounds boring, but if you stick to the end of this, you're going to come out with a lot of knowledge. He's going to teach us the vertical SaaS Bible, and I'm excited to dig right into it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Shh, don't tell anyone. But I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database, compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you. Questions there, does that make sense? Yeah, go back to that for a second.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
When you scroll on this list, what is one or two industries that you're like, whoa, there's something here and I need to dig in? And why?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
And what do you say to people who are like, wow, he's right. There is an opportunity in machine shops, but I live in Tribeca and I've never even visited a machine shop in my entire life. I don't know anything about it. Is there still an opportunity for people?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
So there's hope. There's hope for you. Okay, cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
I've never thought about it like this and it makes so much sense because I always think about it from the software perspective. So there was a famous blog post called The Unbundling of Craigslist. A guy named Andrew Parker wrote it where he visualized Craigslist and all the different pieces of it and how each part was getting unbundled into, I guess, vertical software.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
So for example, there were dating, people use Craigslist for dating and then dating apps came out. People used Craigslist for short-term rentals. Airbnb came out. And there's better versions of it. And I've actually written a post called The Unbundling of Reddit, which is kind of the same idea. Different subreddits, different vertical software.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
But this is kind of taking it and flipping on its head. It's saying, these are industries that have a huge physical component to it. Visualize it. And then thinking about, okay, where does software play a role in making this way more efficient?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $1M+ vertical SaaS business (step-by-step guide)
Hit that scorecard.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I should have been more focused, but every day, I write down the three things that I need to get done today. What are the three most important things? How many hours do I work on average in 2024? Hot take, 40 hours a week. You can get a lot of stuff done in 40 hours per week. Honestly, 99% of my entire career has been working 40 hours a week.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Of course, there's been times where I worked 70 hours a week and there's some deadline to hit. But I think you can get a ton done in 40 hours per week. You've got to be very constrained and focused. What is everyone in your industry completely wrong about right now? that GPT wrappers aren't real businesses. Did anyone take business ideas and run with it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
People are always taking business ideas from this podcast and running with it. It's absolutely amazing. Those are some of the interesting questions from the tweet. Okay, let's talk about platform growth. YouTube. At the end of 2023, I was at 11,000 YouTube subscribers. Today we're sitting at 146,000 subscribers. So that's an absolutely insane growth trajectory. I actually cannot believe it. And
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
The insight here is, I talked a little bit about in the beginning, it's just like knowing who your audience is and really just leaning into it. I think another smart thing that we did was we got really good at titles and thumbnails. And I think that helped. And the way we did it is we reached out to people who are the best in the game. We reached out to
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
the guy who did titles and thumbnails for Mr. Beast and was like, would you give us 15 minutes of your time? You'd be surprised. Either you can ask these people to give feedback or just pay for their time. Be like, hey, how much is 15 minutes going to cost to give us a little bit of
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
direction on where on where we can go and and a lot of these people i mean you can even like here's a hack like go to and i'm not affiliated with these people but go to like intro.co and like see like what are popular youtubers on there and and and just be like there are youtubers there that have millions of subscribers that you can just be like hey i'll give you 250 dollars or whatever they cost for 15 minutes and tell me everything you need to know about type
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And it's just completely changed my perception about everything. I know all parents say this, but I'm still processing what... what it all means. Um, but I can tell you that it's, uh, it's just, yeah, it's one of the most beautiful things, if not the most beautiful things, uh, that has happened in my life.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I need to know about titles and thumbnails. So YouTube, big lesson there. Focus on the niche. And titles and thumbnails make a big difference. X, I grew from 361,000 followers to 420,000 followers. So about 59,000 followers there. A lot of people here know me from X. I think most of my followers came from a few tweets. That's just the reality of X today.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Either your tweets go ballistic or they go absolutely nowhere. But I still think it's a great place to gain followers in the business niche. And my strategy there is the same. I've talked about it before. I have a notes file with... just key observations I make through the week. On Fridays, I'll go through it. I'll make it more into actual tweets. Some of them are bad. I'll discard those.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And then I'll post the ones that I'm ready. And I try to make my social platforms a bit more aligned. I don't want YouTube and the pod to be the only place where I talk about startup ideas. So I started on X to just be like, okay, here's some free startup ideas you can take. And it started to work. And I think I started to become known more in 2024 as a guy who gives startup ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So that was a huge win on the X front. So not only did I grow, but I think I also kind of changed positioning and perception there. LinkedIn, I went from 82,000 to 149,000 followers. That's literally with doing zero work. It's just... copying and pasting my ex-tweets and posting some of them on LinkedIn. Podcast, again, big year for the podcast on audio and Spotify, which by the way, you know,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
A lot of people listen on video. Definitely go and listen on audio on Spotify and Apple if you prefer to just go for walks and listen. I know I enjoy that too. It went from 360,000 downloads in 2023 to 575,000 downloads. I think it grew, but not nearly as much as YouTube. I'm still trying to figure out audio. I'm still trying to figure it out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I also have a bunch of bad reviews on audio, some mean reviews. I don't like that. I don't know why I have some mean reviews there. In 2025, I'd love to get more podcast downloads and I'd love to get less mean reviews and more nice reviews. My newsletter went from 72,000
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
subs to about 120,000 subs so huge growth there and I finally cracked the nut with the newsletter so created a bit of a flywheel with people I post on X some free startup related content then there's a call to action to go and listen to the podcast or watch the podcast on YouTube and then people watch the podcast on YouTube mostly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Um, and, uh, yeah, just having like a, a mini you kind of in the world that you get to teach, um, is, is so cool. Um, Yeah, had a baby. Looking for all the baby advice that you can possibly give. And excited to join this adventure. So that was number one. The second thing is I started working out consistently. I started actually lifting consistently.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Um, and then there's a call to action with a lead magnet that says like, Hey, if you want more of this stuff, go and download X, Y, Z guide. So in 2024, I started creating guides that were lead magnets. So, uh, the, that flywheel works. Um, and it really started taking off towards the end of 2024. Um, I wouldn't be surprised if this time next year, uh, the newsletter exceeds 200,000 subscribers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I think that's relatively conservative and totally possible. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Okay, we're going to go into the next section. It's the wealth breakdown section. I'm going to tell you about some of the stocks I own, stuff like that. So this year, my net worth has gone up 38% year over year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So it was probably... It's my biggest year ever. A big reason for that, as I mentioned, is there was an investment that I made years ago that I got liquidity in. Also, the stock market ripped. The stock market absolutely ripped. Those are the two reasons. My net worth in terms of breakdown, it's 75% in stocks. 16% in private equity, 7% in real estate, and 2% in crypto.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So I'll just tell you some of the stocks that I own. This is not financial advice. Do your own research. I'm just sharing in case it's just interesting to people. 10% of my net worth is in Berkshire, Berkshire Hathaway. And the reason there really is I'm doing such more high-risk tech stuff. I'm just like, what's something that's extremely boring?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And that's why it's such a large percentage of my portfolio. Same is true with SPY, 10% of my portfolio. SPY is the S&P 500 index. Apple, 8%. Amazon, 7%. Microsoft 6%, WCLD 5%, which is a ETF for the Cloud Computing Index. In my last year, 2023 year interview, I talked about my thesis on this and it panned out. If you would have listened to that video and that episode.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
and actually bought WCLD, you would have done really well. The thesis at the time was, and it's still a similar thesis, is that if you're a cloud company, you're very well situated to be an AI company. So the thesis was that cloud companies were going to become AI companies, which turned out to be
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
true um in a lot in a lot of sense so you know that that's wcld google five percent i actually trimmed some google uh towards the end of 2023 shouldn't have done that i was worried about um they're losing their search uh you know advantage and of course i i do think that they will like they had they had a monopoly on search so uh And it is their big moneymaker.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
But at the same time, they have so many different business units now. It's such a conglomerate. Waymo is really crushing it right now. That's a part of Google. They've got Android, they've got YouTube, Google Cloud. Again, that's a part of my thesis. And Google Cloud is absolutely on a tear. So, I'm feeling good about Google, and it trades at 27 times PE or something like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So I don't think it's super overpriced. Pershing Square Holding is Bill Ackman's fund. He actually owns Google. He owns Chipotle. My thesis there is basically, he's kind of like a mini Warren Buffett. So I wanted to place a bet there and see what happens. Yeah, just place a bet there. IWM, which is an index of the Russell 2000.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
If you look at the growth of S&P 500 versus Russell 2000, which I think it's Small cap stocks under $1 billion. The S&P 500 has absolutely destroyed the IWM, the Russell 2000. Just pulling it up. For example, year to date, the IWM is up 11% where the S&P is up 26%. I actually think that
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And the amount of mental clarity that I've gotten from that has been amazing. I've also gained weight. I've gained a lot of muscle weight. I think 15, 20 pounds, something like that. So I'm bigger, which is kind of weird because when I look in the mirror, I look more broad. Honestly, I don't even know if I like the look. But the mental clarity is unmatched. So highly recommend lifting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
small caps are going to be they've just been not in favor but i actually think they will at some point come back in favor so that's why i placed the five percent bet in iwm constellation software constellation software is another part of like you know i invested five percent into a minute you know bill ackman's uh
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Pershing Square, which kind of operates similar to Berkshire, and Constellation Software also operates similar to Berkshire. They own vertical SaaS businesses, a bunch of them, and it's a 3% allocation there. Mark Leonard is the founder. He kind of looks like Rick Rubin. He's like a Canadian Rick Rubin, doesn't do interviews. He's like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
We'll put up a chart of how well Constellation has done over the last 20 years. It's absolutely insane. Gone up, let's see. I mean, it's up 24,000%. all time. It's just absolutely crazy. Absolutely crazy. So he's a good steward of capital. And we'll see. That's a bet. Other stocks at 8%. Fixed income and cash at 3%. The private equity is mostly in funds and startup investments. Real estate is
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I actually bought a new apartment for our growing family, so that's a part there. And crypto, 2%, and that's mostly Bitcoin. I guess this is a bit of a loss. I trim my... I rebalance my portfolio. I'm not one of those people that is glued to my phone to see how my...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
portfolios doing at any given time i think that's a huge distraction but you know every month or every three months i'll look into it um and rebalance so i was rebalancing crypto as it was going up huge loss there right um i was selling bitcoin you know when it was at 60 000 and 70 000 and 80 000 um But that's the way I roll. I keep it pretty disciplined.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I think that a crypto allocation of 2% is healthy. And also in my private equity investments, call it another 2% or 3% is in crypto funds there as well. So for all the crypto heads who are like, I can't believe you're so low investment in crypto, I think I probably have a 5% allocation in total. which I don't think is crazy. So that's my wealth breakdown 2024.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And I don't really think I'll make huge differences in 2025. Maybe just add to those positions as I get more information. Okay, business updates. Late checkout agency, which is our...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
design agency that builds new products uh for for the biggest brands in the world from you know shopify to nike to dropbox um had a great year it had an absolutely great year and i think we really hit our stride especially as you know we've we've designed some of the the biggest ai products um because people were coming to us and and you know years ago literally and saying hey like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
We're Dropbox and we're looking for a new AI product and we want to build a new AI product so we would build it for them. We would design it for them. We would help them to think through a lot of these things. I would say there that it was a good year. The lesson there I think is, especially with agencies in general, is you do need a niche down. I feel like we found
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
our two niches in 2024, which is building new products. I call them community-based products. So what is a community-based product? It's like, we'll basically go into your community and build them a website, an app, a new product that really speaks to that community, that drives revenue and drives word of mouth. And then just AI interfaces. We've become known as an AI interface agency.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And we are just booked up. We are so, so booked up. We'll probably do more partnering with some of the big AI companies and just basically take some cash and some equity as a part of those deals. So we did a little bit of that in 2024 and we'll continue to do that in 2025. And what's really cool about that is
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
The costs are covered, and then you basically just get upside in these really, really fast-growing businesses. They're not even startups at this point. And then you just build that portfolio, and I'm very excited about that. I don't think a lot of people are doing... equity for services. And we're very specific on there's only a few companies in the world that we'll do it with.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And how I got into it, I guess, is I got a personal trainer. So I got a personal trainer three times a week. I have to show up. I'm there. And I might reduce my personal trainer maybe to once a week. Now that I'm in the flow. But yeah, definitely enjoy just the benefits of lifting. I actually can't believe it took me until 35 to do it consistently.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And they need to be multi-billion dollar companies. But I expect to do more of that. Oh, and by the way, Late Checkout Agency, we actually kind of rebranded to LCA. I don't know if it was a good thing, honestly. I don't know if we should have just kept it Late Checkout Agency or just call it LCA. We did a whole rebranding thing, effort. It's definitely fun to rebrand, but did we need to do it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Does Late Checkout Agency, is that a better name? I'm starting to get used to LCA, but I do notice that people still call us Late Checkout or Late Checkout Agency. I don't know. That's a, that's a question mark. That's me being real with you. This is me having that friend to friend conversation. Uh, who knows there, but, uh, okay. Next business update is boring.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So boring marketing, the end of 2023, we had started to scale it. I was doing millions of dollars a year of revenue, AI assisted SEO. Um, And it continues to do that. It continues to scale. We're starting to use a lot more agents. The implementation of boringmarketing.com has a lot more agents and a lot more AI, a lot more proprietary technology that we built.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
What you're going to get from us in 2025 is just more tools that you can use on your own. So you won't need to you won't need to sign up to the service to actually get the amazing result of boringmarketing.com. That was one of the key insights, I guess, for 2024. Some people have their own SEO teams or have their own marketing teams and are just like, I just want to implement myself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And it's like, okay, great. We're unbundling a lot of the products. In early 2025, you'll see some cool stuff there. We also launched BoringAds.com. So boringads.com is crushing it, absolutely crushing it. And it's the same idea, which is AI-assisted for creative and the best possible ads. Because the reality is...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
meta and a lot of the platforms, they do a good enough job at actually managing it. But it's like, how do you actually analyze the best industry and competitive ads to find winning creative strategies fast? And I think it's really, really starting to pay off and work. We spent $100 million in ad spend. We've scaled billion-dollar brands in 2024. this is going to be a killer business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
It already is a killer business, but I wouldn't be surprised if boring ads becomes bigger than boring marketing. You'll see the same sort of approach, which is we start with consulting to figure out the problem. Then we build technology to optimize our workflows to be ahead of everyone else. Then we We sell that into our consulting clients. They start getting really good results.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Word of mouth goes like crazy. I'm boring marketing and boring ads, the word of mouth is absolutely insane. I got a note in our Slack yesterday that we have 76 booked meetings in the next couple weeks just for boring marketing. And I'm sure boring ads probably has more. It feels really good not to have a lead problem.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
It feels really good to have customers have great experiences and just tell other people. I think what will happen with boring ads is, again, same sort of thing with boring marketing, is we'll unbundle some of these ad tools that people will be able to use themselves. We're already doing that. Stay tuned.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And what's happened is now we have Boring Ads, Boring Marketing is now under a new company called Boring Holdings. So it's essentially we incubated a holding company. So it's pretty meta. We have Late Checkout, which is a holding company that owns LCA, owns Boring Holdings. So that's an interesting thing that's happened here in 2024. Okay, business updates and you probably need a robot.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
You probably need a robot was a newsletter, was a newsletter that 60,000 people signed up to to get information about AI and how to use it to become a better solopreneur, better an entrepreneur. And we shut it down. So we shut it down. Well, we shut down. Yeah, we shut down.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
You probably need a robot and as is and turned it into a bit, you know, added it to a business that we already had running called Startup Empire. Now, what is Startup Empire? A lot of you already know what Startup Empire is. It's a membership that people sign up to who want to accelerate their ideas, who want to build businesses. There's a ton of contents there, tools there, community there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
In some ways, it's almost like the de facto membership for this podcast. And there's like million plus dollars a year in savings and discounts for tools. You get a free school membership, which is worth $99 a month. And people pay $149 a month to be a part of it. And it's really designed to essentially break even. But for us, like the Late Checkout team, to basically...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And then the last biggest win is I basically grew this podcast into a serious platform. Actually, I'm going to give one more big one after this. I grew this podcast into a serious platform. Last year, going into 2024, there was a very small group of people who listened to this podcast. I switched the name from Where It Happens to the Startup Ideas Podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
hire from there, buy companies, invest companies, stay connected. What we basically realized is the startup empire monthly email was so similar to the you probably need a robot monthly email. It's like, why are we dividing and conquering? How do you simplify that in a way that just makes sense? We just basically said, okay, We're going to bring that email into Startup Empire.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
We're already doing so much of the same stuff, which is people in Startup Empire are interested in using AI and agents to build their businesses. Let's bring it in there. It was a win for the Startup Empire community because now all of a sudden they've got more content and they're getting better emails. And
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And it was a win for like late checkout in the sense that every time you add a new company, it's just like another trial that you have to manage. So if we can simplify things, that's something we really want to do. So that is what happened with you. You probably need a robot. Did it fail? I mean, it failed as is, but is it succeeding in some form? Yes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Startup empire, people are getting tons of value out of it, and it's nice to see it live on. DesignScientist.com. That is a design subscription that people pay monthly for and they get on-demand decks, on-demand social assets, that sort of thing. That business did... Oh, I think around 1.3 million in revenue.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So it has some staying power, like people like the product, but that is being evolved into something else. I'm not ready to talk about what that is going to be. But there's some product market fit there. But I think it could be a lot bigger. In the current setup, I don't see it getting to $10 million. It's one of those things where you have to ask yourself, if this gets to $10 million...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Do I want to be in that business? Do I want to have 200 clients I'm managing? And the answer is absolutely not. So it's a helpful exercise for people to basically ask yourself, if this scales, do I want to be in that business? Oh, if not, what is the business that I want to be in? And that's the current exercise that we're doing with Design Scientist.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
We actually have an off-site Jan 6th to 9th where we're going to be talking with all the partners of Late Checkout what we're going to be doing with it. So stay tuned. So that's the business update of all the businesses. Overall, super happy with how things are going. These are cash-flowing businesses every single day, spinning off cash, great teams, teams happy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
We don't have a lead problem, which is really good. It's just about fine-tuning, optimizing, and scaling these businesses to being Businesses that have more enterprise value, less services driven, more AI driven, working with more cool companies, and looking to acquire and partner with interesting entrepreneurs. That's something that...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I really started focusing on giving away everything I could in terms of value. I really just wanted people to take the ideas from the podcast and implement it and see what happens. It was in a lot of ways like a social experiment. People took these ideas. They learned... growth tactics on how to grow their businesses. They took a lot of the startup ideas and actually just went and built them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Boring, for example, came out of a 50% acquisition that we made in December 2022. We want to do more of these things. We want to find entrepreneurs to partner with and build businesses with. We want to do more of that in 2025. I didn't really mention it, but we're also incubating a bunch of new products. I talked about
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Offerbutton.com, which is kind of like a little widget to help you sell your company. And there's things like that that we're incubating. So we have a little dedicated team that's incubating a bunch of different products using AI coding, using agents.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And it's one of those things where you throw stuff against the wall and you see what works and you evolve them into something that you're excited about. And that's what it is. That's the big learning from running a holding company is You throw a lot against the wall, you make a cash flowing, you evolve it into something that excites you, you simplify it wherever you can.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Last year, 2023 going to 2024, I said my main mission is to build skyscrapers, not strip malls. Which what I mean by that is instead of having like a hundred little companies, how do we have only a few companies and build it up higher and higher? And that's kind of what we're doing. We're trying to simplify as much as possible.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And we're kind of asking ourselves the hard questions around, are we excited about these businesses? And if not, how do we evolve them into something that really gets us stoked? Okay, moving on to the next section, productivity gains and productivity gains. Unlocks, 2024, what's things I've changed? One is I started sipping on Yerba Mate.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Okay, I got to be honest, this is coffee, but Yerba Mate, I try to drink in the afternoons. I drink a brand called Amanda, I think it's Amanda Traditional. I can include the links in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
and uh i just i find i sleep better because i'm not like drinking coffee in the afternoon um i get the energy kick from it it's more sustained um the way i drink it is over ice with a little bit of honey because it's a bit bitter um you can also use maple syrup syrup shout out canada and uh And I've been enjoying it. So highly recommend Yerba Mate.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Number two, I started using Apple Notes way more. So from 2023 into 2024, I was using Notion for everything. Our whole business is run on Notion. Our team likes it. I'm not hating on Notion. But for me, it's too complicated. And Apple Notes is the bare minimum of what I need. And I just find I'm extremely more productive with Apple Notes. It's simplified my thinking process.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So I highly recommend just simplifying your productivity stack if you can. The last thing is I use an app called Things on my phone and on desktop. It's a to-do list app. It's just like the most beautiful to-do list app I've been able to find. And I honestly have had Things since 2011. But I haven't really been using it. I've used more complicated to-do list apps.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
What a year 2024 is done 2025 incoming. And today, what are we going to do today? We're going to talk about my big wins, my big losses, how much I've grown on social, a wealth breakdown, including all the different stocks and equities. I own some business updates, like how my business is doing, um, productivity unlocks that I've had any insights and learnings.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And again, you're hearing it again. It's like simplification things. It's very focused. It's a really pretty app. And it's been really helpful in terms of productivity gains for 24. Another section, new insights and learnings. I wanted to share a couple of these with you. There's something I call the Friday afternoon test. I didn't make it up. A friend of mine told me about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
He basically is a CEO of a few hundred million dollar company. He says he only makes big decisions on Friday afternoon. He says, if it feels right when you're tired and ready for the weekend, it's probably right. I thought that was really interesting. A lot of the time, you make these big decisions when you're in the moment and you're really stoked.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
It was a success and people just started talking about the pod and it's probably one of my biggest wins of the year. The last biggest win is I hit a financial net worth number that has always been in my head that I thought that I would never get to, but I hit it. I don't really want to say the number. That's not the point, but I did hit it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
You've got a lot of coffee in you and you're like, this is amazing, let's go. Take a second. Don't make any impulsive decisions. Let it sit for a bit. And when you're tired and ready for the weekend, let's say it's a Friday afternoon, how are you feeling about it? Are you still really excited about it? Are you more excited about it? Are you less excited about it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And maybe it doesn't need to be Friday afternoon for some people. Some people it could be 6 p.m. on a Wednesday, right? You're trying to get through it. But I think the point is have that weekly reminder, Friday afternoon, Wednesday night, whatever it is for you, and ask yourself, is this the big decisions I need to make this month? Maybe it's not a weekly meeting. Maybe it's a once a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
These are the big decisions I need to make. Am I excited about it? And the same founder actually gave me another insight in learning. He calls it the Day Zero Integrity Test. So he gives someone a small task with unclear instructions and then he, you know, he basically sees if they ask any questions or they just guess. What's cool about that is it tells you everything about their future behavior.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
This is for when you're interviewing someone or it's their first week on the job. Just give a small task with unclear instructions and you'll learn a lot about how someone works. I guess my last insight, and this is going to be obvious to people, but like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I don't know if I can sleep with all this like AI agent stuff that's going on, you know, like my insight here is there's a ton of opportunity right now. And, um, some of the biggest opportunities are, are in the kind of the most boring spaces. so I'm just, I'm trying to strike while the iron's hot. Um, I think the iron's going to be hot for at least 2025, maybe even 2026.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Um, but it's a really, really exciting time to be building. Um, and, uh, and I want to thank you for being with me in 2024. This has been the most fun year of my career. Uh, it's been so fun, you know, recording this podcast, having people listen, seeing the comment section blow up. Um, Thank you for being there. Thank you for commenting. Thank you for liking. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
This year I will give more startup ideas, more growth tactics. I will never gatekeep anything from you. This podcast is not about gatekeeping. This is about just giving you free value. I hope that in 2024 I gave you an ounce of free value. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. This is it. This is what I'm going through at the end of 2024. These are the things I'm thinking about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And I'm curious to know what's on your mind. So thank you for listening and see you in 2025.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I'll talk more at the end of why I hit it, but basically there was a company that I had stock in and it there was liquidity. I had a liquidity event and that was a good feeling. Okay, big losses and lessons. Obviously, not everything is rosy. I think one of the biggest ones is I felt that throughout 2024, I wasn't working on the most important thing. For example, I'm one of those people who
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
We're breaking it down in this video. Um, and the truth is I don't know where this video is going to go. I don't know where this pot is going to go. I didn't come super prepared. I just wanted to, I wanted it to be like a conversation that I'm having with a friend. I've got a few ideas on what we can talk about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
A lot of people tell me this, that I'm really quick on text and I'm quick on Twitter and I'm quick to answer people. And I don't think that's a very good thing. I find myself... I could get distracted by... Someone sends me a text message and be like, what do you think of this? I just find I get distracted a little bit too much. And I...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
it's not like I'm distracted in the sense that I'm going to go and play Fortnite, um, distracted. It means that some other business text comes in and then I end up or email comes in and I end up, uh, I just end up in a rabbit hole and all of a sudden like two hours, uh, goes by and I'm, I'm, I'm just really unable to, to get back to where I was thinking.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So, you know, I'm, I'm spending more time on do not disturb mode. Um, I really think that it's the only way to get work done. I'm spending more time with pen and paper. I'm starting to write things down more. I'm spending less time in more hardcore productivity software stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So less time in places like Notion where I get distracted and more time in places like Apple Notes where I feel more focused. So that has been a loss just because I haven't been able to get to the goals I've been wanting to get to just because I've been getting sidetracked throughout the year. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas, or it's for people who have a startup but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So You can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Another big loss has been I put too much trust in 2024 in certain teammates without checks and balances. So I'm one of those people that I look at
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Uh, you know, I hear people like Andrew Wilkinson, you know, friend of the pod talking about how he hires CEOs and he builds these businesses and he has complete trust, you know, and a lot of trust with these people or, you know, Warren Buffett talks a lot, a lot of, a lot similar to that too, where, uh, you know, he trusts management to do the right thing. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I feel like it's trust management or trust teammates but with checks and balances. There needs to be checks and balances and I didn't include enough checks and balances in 2024 and I had to pay the price. This is going to sound really dumb and I'll admit that this happened but we had someone on our finance team that was just putting in not the right numbers. The numbers were incorrect.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
This was a costly mistake, hundreds of thousands of dollars type mistake. And it's going to be OK. It's fine. But we figured it out. But this is a person who we hired remotely who is literally working a second job. She wasn't doing it maliciously. But you need to have these checks and balances. Especially in a remote work environment, you need to have checks and balances. Big lesson learned there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And it's just going to be me and you having a conversation about my 2024 year in review. And my hope is that by listening to this, you will get some ideas about your year. And it'll get your creative juices flowing. I'd like to start off by talking about my big wins. So I actually haven't announced this anywhere, but me and my wife had a baby. Yes, we had a baby. She's seven weeks old.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And then I'd say another big lesson or key learning, I should say, is that this year was a less profitable year than in 2023. And that's okay. On one hand, we did a year in review and like, oh my God, we made less money this year. We pride ourselves in building cash flowing businesses and And the reality is we were less profitable this year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
But it's okay because we are reinvesting our businesses, reinvesting more of our cash into technology and I'll talk more about that later. But It is a loss. The truth is, it's a loss. We should be at least 15 to 20% more profitable every single year. From a free cash flow perspective, we weren't. Next year, we'll do better.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I'm telling myself, we're just reinvesting more of the money into technology. That's true, but I think we can do that while also maintaining profitability. So right before I recorded this, I went on Twitter, X, and asked, recording your year-in-review podcast, what questions do you want me to answer? Nothing off-limits.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
So let's actually answer off-the-cuff some of the questions that you all have, and let's rock. Or says, what are you least happy about in your current life? I would say I still, I've gotten much better at sleep, but I find I still wake up sometimes at night and I wish I had more deep sleep. And I'm still trying to figure out how to optimize it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I know that sounds so trivial, but sleep matters so much. To me, it sets the tone for your whole day. Just crushing sleep is what I'm least happy about. Eric says, what are the stupidest things you're doing right now? Stupidest things I'm doing right now, honestly, is probably not just going harder, doubling down. This is such a good time to be building businesses.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
I feel like I have so many unfair advantages. I feel like I'm going fast, but if I'm being honest with myself, I think I could be going faster. What's the one best idea to have to grow your business next year? Invest in technology. Just build software around each of our businesses. If you were to focus on just one thing, what would it be?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Hiring great CEOs and finding partners to incubate businesses with. Is that two things? It's basically like finding partners. The one thing I want to focus on is finding business partners and business partners that I want to work with, not just for one year, four years, like for the rest of my freaking life. What was your primary leverage for expanding your personal brand this year by Cody?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Probably X is the leverage. I think that's what you're trying to ask, right? I used X to create the flywheel for everything else around my personal brand. How did that growth impact sales and revenue? I would say without my personal brand, sales and revenue would be like 40% less. So millions and millions of dollars a year. Yeah, it's actually crazy. Many, many millions of dollars a year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Joe Devon says, for obvious reasons, no one wants to talk publicly about hidden techniques to win at the social media game. From paid engagement to astroturfing and engagement pods, it's gotten harder to reach critical mass. What percentage of large accounts got there using these techniques? Honestly, I don't even know what astroturfing is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
The engagement pod stuff, I feel like it's definitely happening, but it's not the number one reason why someone grows. I don't like this mentality, to be honest. Yes, it's hard to grow, but it's also... I don't even know. Honestly, I think it's probably, on X specifically, it's probably easier to grow to 0 to 100,000 followers today than it was last year at this time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
And that's because the For You page of X... highlights more smaller accounts. So just like, honestly, like forget about paid engagement, AstroTurfing, whatever that is, and engagement pods, and just like create really great content that people need in a format that they want to accept it and do a lot of, and be a reply guy, like reply a lot to people, build relationships.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My 2024 Year in Review
Um, and just like, forget about, just forget about these things. What single thing is having the biggest impact on your biz? Building media around our businesses. What's your best return on investment item? Like physical item? I mean, MacBook? Right? Given the volume of ideas you've generated come across this year, how did you keep yourself focused?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Okay, last question before we move on to the next startup idea. Biggest thing you learned from Mark Zuckerberg shadowing him for hundreds of hours?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
All right, should we get into it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
So where do you want to start?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
I was just doing some quick Googling. Girl Scouts, wow, they do over a billion dollars a year in revenue. They make more money than Oreo makes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
It's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. But so, so I'm, I'm in on this idea. I'm in like, I think, I think it's a great one. I think it would work. I think it resonates. I think the why now is here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Yeah, you share your ideas and I will... Yeah, we can just talk about if we like it, we don't like it, how we'd start it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
And if you were, so the only thing that challenges me on this idea is the funding piece of it. You know, it's like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
I also wonder, I'm not a huge fan of cold emailing. But I imagine a lot of these teachers probably like you probably can get their email addresses. And if you did a really, really like tight, cold email campaign with like maybe like a selfie video from one of the girls talking about her experience and and then. you know, just very tight.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
I actually bet these people are not getting hit up that much with high value, like value add content that are actually going to make their jobs easier in a lot of ways, right? Like they're looking for this stuff, aren't they?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
In the past, I know you've... because you've been in media and you've probably done a lot of sponsorships. Do you have any advice for people on how to sell a Nike? Because people probably hear that and they're like, that's so out of reach. I don't even know how to do that. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
This conversation is reminding me about like the first time I ever went to New York city as like an 18 year old, I'm from Canada. And when I was in some of these meetings as like a kid, basically, and I heard people talk, like you were talking, it, it, it, it shattered, you know, it shattered my world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Like it made me realize that thinking big and mindset is such an important part of making things happen. In our minds, we're always kind of like, a lot of us are like, yeah, it would be nice to get it. I don't know if I can actually close it. I don't know if I can actually get their email. I don't know if I can actually, but you're right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
When you actually lay it out and you're like, okay, it's really just story and people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Before we move on to the next idea, because I need to hear your next idea because you're a legend. Can you give one quick story of someone who you met maybe in your early 20s or in your 20s that ended up being like, you would have never expected that person would be so valuable in your career?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Yeah, because he trusted you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Okay, last question before we move on to the next startup idea. Biggest thing you learned from Mark Zuckerberg shadowing him for hundreds of hours?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Okay, biggest thing that... non-obvious thing that you learned.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
So I totally buy the premise, by the way, like I especially buy the premise.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think the insight is correct, 100%. I think the insight around people are buying books from their favorite authors or new authors and it's an incredible experience. And even the best books, like the ones you mentioned, you kind of lose, you forget and you there needs to be a better way to get you in the habit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Now, I always think about, this is kind of old school with me, but I always think about who builds the best community in the world or one of them, or who's done a really good job, at least, of spreading the gospel, literally. It's like religion, like churches and stuff like that. And if you think about the Bible, literally,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
You know, in Christianity, for example, every Sunday, like you come, you listen to, you know, what what what you're reading or Judaism, every, you know, every. Every week you learn about a section of the Bible and that piece, that missing piece is what brings you back to actually reread the book, make it a part of your zeitgeist. And so I think that insight is so right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
And the other insight that you have, which I think is really right, is the why now around AI provides an ability to extend. Now, the question I have is like, how does, what does the extension look like? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
It's a great idea. It's a great idea. I think if I was doing it, if I was building an MVP here, I think the way I would do it is, first of all, I'd be selling to these authors. So I'd figure out what is the smallest thing that they'd pay for. So I'd go, I'd reach out to the, maybe not James Clear to start, but Bs and Cs first, get their feedback.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
then I would try to create an AI avatar bot, basically. And it doesn't need to be personalized from day one. I think to make it easier on yourself, whoever ends up building this, you could have it so that on day one after you finish the book, this happens. On day seven, this happens. And everyone's kind of In the future, you could personalize it based on your goals and other things like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
I think with the rise of AI avatars and stuff like that, you can make something that looks like James Clear, that talks like James Clear, that feels like James Clear. That could be really exciting to people. Imagine having James Clear as your coach. That's so cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Totally. And you can do a rev share. Like, don't even charge James Clear or whoever, anything. Just be like, yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Totally. You gave us the sauce. These are two good ideas. A Zuckerberg story. Come on. This is better than expectations. Plus a cat. Plus a cat, a dog. If you're listening to this on audio, you missed out because the YouTube animal appearances were iconic. Sarah, where do you want to plug? What do you want to plug, if anything?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Totally. Folks, you're sleeping on fiction. I'll include those links in the description so it's easier if you miss that. Go and do that. And Sarah, until next time, this has been a lot of fun.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions and I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built a hundred million dollars plus businesses. I've compiled them into a one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
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The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
So your vision of this, is it like an online thing? Is it an in-person thing? How does it look like?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Okay, cool. So yeah, I think the way... I think that makes sense. I think I would do it online. You put out the content online, but the challenges happen IRL, in schools. For example, my elementary school, for boys and girls, in order to teach entrepreneurship and charity, what they did was they handed us a bag of 20 chocolate bars and said, you need to sell these chocolate bars.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Each chocolate bar, was two dollars each the catch was we had to sign a paper that said we owe the school 40 40 so all of a sudden as a kid i'm like oh my god i'm in debt 40 like it's such a horrible feeling and you know uh you hated it um but you learned a lot um around like okay um debt is not good yeah um okay, now I need to sell this thing. How am I going to sell this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
And then there were some support structures around how to sell certain things. And then the money went to charity as well. So that could be an example of like, I can imagine like a monthly challenge like that so that people can go out in the world and learn as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
We got Sarah Lacey on the pod. She's an idea machine. I was emailing her before this. I was like, come with ideas. I'll give you 30 minutes. She's like, I don't need 30 minutes. I'll see you there in a few. Thank you, Sarah, for coming on the pod and sharing some of your ideas with us.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Yeah. So I think that's a really good point around on the door to door sales piece. Like what is the equivalent of door to door sales in 2025? It's probably more like, recording a video and posting it online and, you know, setting up a gum road and learning about how to sell and build a product on the internet. You know, it's, it's almost like the startup ideas podcast, but for tweens, you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow
Yeah. And I think we can do better for everyone is, you know, I think.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
That being said, I think that whatever, if 10% of Gen Z reads now, I think in the next five years, 20% reads. And I think it's because it's the shift around anti-tech. But I do think that the vast majority of them are just going to be like, I grew up in a Call of Duty world. It's just hard for me to sit down and be in an analog world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
So what is the math on these books? Just because I don't know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah. You know why it's called ideas and not startup ideas? Because when I have an idea for a startup, I need the least amount of time. The time between coming up with the idea and writing it down needs to be as quick as possible. So when I first came up with that note, I was like, I'm not writing startup ideas. It's going to take twice as long. Minimal number of friction.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
So what is the math on these books? Just because I don't know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And how long does that last? Is that just like, you know, for four months, it's 100 grand or 200 grand or?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
How many authors actually look at data first and then decide to write a book based on data?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
I was just on the phone with an operator.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
I'll tell you why. Because I was like, yeah, I'm looking to hire an operator. They have this idea for this business. And it's a great idea. And here's why it's going to work. And it's like a shoe in. And he goes, by the way, just so you know, no operator likes being called an operator. You know, like we're never call an operator operator. an operator. We're entrepreneurs. We build the business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
An operator- It sounds like a cop. He's like, it sounds like I'm operating a crane. Like I'm operating a crane.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
But yeah, I think that not enough people take their ideas and find, we'll create basically a mini idea lab where they're like, okay, instead of investing, let's say, let's say you have a couple hundred grand of, of cash, which is like Ehrlich Bachman is the only example from Silicon Valley of like the ideas guy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Exactly. So you take instead of investing, you know, into the S&P, you you find an operator and you use data to inform some of these bets. And you like this is a perfect bet where it's like, OK, if I'm going to invest five, four grand a month, three grand a month. share the upside, but this thing could potentially pay back 20 X and there's like IP in it. Yes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Do you know what the multiples are on publishing houses?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
So it, let's just say it's seven X.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Let's make it difficult. Let's say it's 7.28x. Perfect. Perfect number. You know what makes it 17.28x? Is if you have technology. Also true. So if you're like, hey, you know, Penguin, we're this like up and coming publishing house that uses our own technology that scrapes
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just need to keep going. Okay.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And later on, the deals that you have with creators and streamers... Could also do. Right. That, you know, for the next five years, you could license their name for all these books. Mm hmm.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
We just promised startup ideas. That's why you need to... talk with your friends about startup ideas, right? And put it on the internet. And put it on the internet so you get feedback, right? Now we went down that rabbit hole. We know it's probably not a good idea. But it might be.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Honestly, like that was pretty damn good. I like it. Yeah. I mean a lot there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
I also think that, yes, I do feel that way. But I also think that you got me thinking that there's a whole variety of competitive analysis tools that are probably great businesses to build. But the thing is you don't sell it. You use it for your own advantage. So you have things like Jungle Scout for Amazon, right? You have things, there's a tool I use called Gummy Search for Reddit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
There's all these tools in a bunch of different platforms. First of all, there's a whole, like here's a prompt for people listening. Like what are competitive analysis tools for platforms that are up and coming?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
that haven't been built yet and then go build them and then just use it for yourself and train yourself and think about ideas for yourself like for example there's another one I was using called Etsy Hunt it just goes on Etsy it's basically Jungle Scout which tells you like how- You pay for those? You pay for them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah, people pay a monthly fee, but it's one of those things where the price discrimination is completely wrong. Like I don't remember exactly what Etsy hunt charges, but it's probably like less than 50 bucks a month. But if you create a killer, like there's some Etsy sellers who make millions of dollars a year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Exactly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
I think it's a good question to ask. Like whenever you, especially people like us who are on the internet and like write and do podcasting and stuff like that, like you have to, it's important to have like a theme. Like it would be pretty random if I created an OnlyFans competitor, for example.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Or account. Both of those would be out of your ballpark. You'd be like, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't get it, but I hope you're okay, Greg. You know, like... I'd be getting a text saying like, you good or something like that. You good bro. Yeah. So, you know, one exercise I do just for myself is like, I have like, this is my, this is kind of like my mission.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
This is my MO and this is like my lane or my two lanes I want to be in. And here's the portfolio businesses that support that, that mission. And I think everyone should have that. You have that with like writing and start writing and that like that category. But that's one of the reasons why I started this podcast, which is the comment section of this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Maybe we might find someone who's like, yeah, I actually am passionate about lit RPG. I'm one of those people. If you want to do that, DM me. Yeah, DM him. There's probably someone screaming at their podcast listener right now and being like, these idiots. Yeah. Why am I still listening? There's hundreds of thousands. Lit RPG is like the biggest thing ever.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And that's where I think having these, spinning up these like small idea lab teams make a lot of sense where it's not you, but you're advising and you're accelerating them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
It's kind of like trends. We actually, we added a, so we have like a paid membership. It's $149 a month. And one of the things that people get a lot of value is this monthly, we go like, Hey, we were on Google trends and we were on Reddit and we found like these trends and here's like a couple of business ideas. That's cool. And it's a monthly email.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And like some people have said like just that email alone, it's kind of like a show.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
That's a great idea. You totally should. And you know what the beauty about all this is, is it puts you- at the focal point of an industry. So all of a sudden, even with Community Empire, I just see people building these types of businesses now. And then all of a sudden, I can invest in them. We can acquire them. Trends for X. It's one of the reasons why I actually event businesses.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
So B2B events... is interesting because the host of the event ends up meeting everyone.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah, no, I just like the idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
I'm not saying I'm doing it, but one of the best parts about the event business is that the host gets to know everyone in a particular industry. And there's a lot of value in being the gravity in a particular industry. And when you end up creating... What you would be doing here, which is really cool, is you're giving people an unfair advantage, basically.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And whenever you give someone an unfair advantage... That's really good.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
We can do it for you too. That's one of the reasons why I built a bunch of agencies is because now my agencies are my idea labs. I have a design agency when I need designs. I have an SEO agency when I need SEO. I have an ad agency when I need ads. I have a community team when I need community stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
I literally have everything and that's also one of the benefits of owning agencies but keeping, not growing agencies for the sake of growing it, keeping it like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And it's okay even if it breaks even. We talked about that a bit with the ghostwriting side. Even if it breaks even, even if your agency breaks even, it's not the end of the world because... you've compiled an amazing team who have this, who are gelling so well together. And then no agency works at 100% productivity. Good agencies work at 70% productivity at best.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
So realistically, if you're at 40 or 50%, you can use that 20, 30, 40, 50% on your own projects and you don't have to pay for it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for jamming. Oh, these are great. Yeah. And, um, where could people find you on the internet? I don't know. On the internet. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
We'll, we'll link it in the, in the, in the show notes. So people just click there and.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah, this was a lot of fun. All right. Thanks for coming on later. Boom. See everyone. It's the pod.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Okay. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
So that's exactly where my head went to, which was how do you build a SaaS tool that does that, except you don't want to sell that SaaS tool because you want to build the publishing houses yourself. So you build an internal tool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Okay, I want to riff on this idea a little bit. So, first of all, lit RPG.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
I'd read it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Dude, that's what this is. Well, you know what it is. It's analog Twitch. Exactly. It's analog Twitch. Yes. So... Here's what I would do. I would partner with the top hundred Twitch streamers and be like, I'm going to create... Oh, that's smart.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Because what's going to happen is people are going to notice, people are using this tool and they're going to notice, okay, lit RPG, search volume is going up, demand and supply mismatch. There's going to be the AI rush to create... you know, people are going to create these books with AI and stuff like that. And it's going to be like low to medium quality.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And it's like, what's going to separate you from them? Well, yes, it could be like a nice cover and actually doing it well with writing, but having a name in the audience. Yeah, exactly. The name in the audience and just be like, listen, um, you know, streamer, I'll give you 50% of the revenue and, um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
All right, should we begin? Sure. Let's do it. Where do you want to start? Do you have any ideas for me? You got ideas?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
That's too many Tuckers for me, by the way. No, I haven't seen.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
No, no. I mean, whenever I talk to you guys, I always leave just like rejuvenated with ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And okay, question, is Gen Z reading books? Are they reading books?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
It was also acquired by a South Korean company. So I imagine a bunch of the readers are.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah, from Asia. That's a thesis, I don't know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
If we did, it would be concerning. Right. You could take us to prison right away.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
That's the, yeah, old person, young person test right there. So my thesis, no data to support this. I don't, just prefacing it. As most good theses are. My thesis is most of Gen Z haven't read a book, have not read a book, and... It's a great question. And, actually not and, but... I think that's going to change. There's now this new trend around like. Anti-tech. Anti-tech.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
And books are going to be this like. I'm reading this paper thing. Exactly. You're not going to believe it. It's counterculture. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, the reality is a book is super hard to compete with, you know, a video game where a video game Call of Duty is like optimized, like literally for.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
Yeah, I know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
3 startup ideas using data/trends to get you paid featuring Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
I mean, you know this. You were a professional World of Warcraft person. These video games hijack your brain and you just get immersed in these worlds. Now, you can make the same argument that, well, a book could immerse you in these worlds. Yes, but it's just a lot more work. A lot more people don't go to the gym than go to the gym.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Dude, I would pay $13,000 a month for the ability to have a YouTube channel because I'm attracting people interested in the same things I'm interested in. And I could create products that I can sell them and services and stuff like that. I don't have to live in New York City or live in San Francisco because I have a YouTube channel now and I have a podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Totally. You sent me a text. You're on. And you sent me a text with a bunch of, I think, nine really amazing ideas. So I want you just to get right into it. Let's go.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
be more productive using AI. And the biggest lesson we learned is people were asking for AI, but what did they really want? Automation. So I think that in the SMB space, there's huge demand for automation because what is automation? Automation is cost savings. And everyone wants to save costs. So it's an easy sell. So I think from a pricing perspective, what you need to do is
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
just figure out, okay, if I'm going to save these guys $200,000, how much can I realistically charge them? And that's like the mental model that you need to come up with.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Yeah, that's the number, right? I mean, that's the way to think about it. And we're actually launching something in July in this space. And the beauty is we have this
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Totally. And I think it's also... Spend time on figuring out what's your tone, what's your voice, what's your personality, what's your style, what's your structure, what's your format of the content, and then how are you going to basically bring a pipeline of ideas, of content ideas in, and then use that system to help you create a lot of that content. That's what the game is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Think of yourself as more of a... An editor than a writer. A curator. You're a conductor of the orchestra. You're not playing the flute.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I mean, it doesn't exist yet. I think they're going to be going, I mean, they're going in that direction. Canva recently did, did you watch any of their, they did like a massive event where No, I didn't see it. No one on tech Twitter was talking about it. And that's the event. Forget WWDC. The Canva event actually had so much that if you're trying to create profitable startups, go watch it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Go watch what they announced. Dude, some of these titles are insane. Yeah. It's wild. So they're definitely going into AI territory. And I could see them doing some of this. But I think that even if they do it, it doesn't matter. There's always going to be demand for, hey, I need this asset ASAP. And I'm worse than... I'm worse... Even if I'm good at Canva... I'm not the best at Canva.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Do you know Design Pickle? Totally. Yeah. I mean, they're OG. Design... OG. Been around for, I don't know, 10, 15 years. They probably do... you know, 30 million a year in revenue. And from what I've seen, they generate a ton of customers from meta ads. I'm constantly seeing their ads on Instagram and they charge about $499, I believe, $499 a month. So it's very, very cheap to get in there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I think that if you're going to go build this, the way to do it is it's like $99 a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Cool. I like this one. I do think that the pricing undercutting Design Pickle. Design Pickle, my guess is they have a ton of offshore talent. So the reason they're able to charge so cheap is it's offshore. But my guess is they're not going to create a $99 a month plan. They rode the offshoring wave. You can ride the AI wave. And there's a business here. A hundred percent.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
He's got a good name with it too. What is it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Yeah, I like this idea for a few reasons. One is founders are going to look at this as ROAS. They're going to be like, okay, I'm going to pay you $100,000 a year, but... the lifetime value of a customer to me is worth $25,000. So I just need four of these to work. So I love that. And I think that's a new trend, just looking at audience as ROAS, return on audience spend. So that's number one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And number two, everyone knows that being dependent on any of these one platforms is a bad idea. So everyone's trying to get off these platforms into email or text. So this is just selling schmuck insurance.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
This is selling schmuck insurance. Don't be a schmuck. Have an email list is like the tagline.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Oh no. Did you hear about Roger? Oh, what happened to Roger? Oh, Roger got, Roger got, I thought it was a real person. Exactly. Roger's gone, dude.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I like how when I was, first of all, are you even friends with a person named Roger? Do you even know any Rogers? I know a Roger. I hate him. I've never met a Roger I like. I don't know about you. Yeah, that's true, actually. I don't know what it is about Rogers, but they're polarizing. Put it that way. They're like olives. They're like olives. That's right. Rogers are like olives.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
But yeah, I was like, did you hear what happened to Roger? And I saw your heart drop. Dude, immediately. I was like, wait, who? Is it somebody we know? And I saw your heart drop because you're basically not wearing a shirt right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
A hundred percent. They're dirty, but not calloused. Exactly. That's right. All right. I like that idea. Very straightforward. Idea number five. What's idea number six? Okay. Six.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And is he using AI to create the designs? Uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
So when I post to YouTube, me and my producer come up with a few title and thumbnail ideas. And then we kind of just... We pray for the best. That's basically it, right? So I think that there's an opportunity to, first of all, not just do only thumbnails, combine it with titles because titles are equally as important. And then putting data behind, oh, this title is... Yeah, and I knew you were.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I knew you were about to go there. This speaks to you, right? This idea around, okay, there's a 75% probability that if you use this title, it's going to generate 25% more traffic because the search volume, the this, the that. And you can even, like I use vidIQ. and vidIQ has a ton of really good data.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And this may be something that you like pitch to vidIQ or I don't know if they have an API or anything, but the data is available. Totally, 100%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Yeah. I like this. I also like, you know, it's just one of those things where more and more people just, and you said it yourself, they want to be creators. They want to be YouTubers. And it's interesting because now it's bleeding in bleeding into like the B2B space. There's so many founders I talk to now that are like secretly like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
In the last 30 days on my YouTube, 263,000 views. And that's like long form. Insane. 31,000 hours of time. What's the ad revenue for that to give people perspective? I'm going to give it at the end. I'm not just going to give it to people. That's not how this works. That's not how YouTube works, bro. I thought you wanted to be a YouTuber. And then I added 6,300 subscribers in the last 28 days.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And I made an estimated revenue of $3,000. Totally. $36,000 a year. Totally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I mean, that's a bonus business idea right there. You make a list of all the VC firms. And specifically, I mean, you start with enterprise B2B ones, and then you make the pitch that their founders need to be media companies and their businesses need to be media companies. And you try to sell it to them as a value add to their portfolio. Hey, we come in and we'll, we'll, we'll create content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
We'll create videos. We'll, you know, do thumbnails. We'll do titles, like all the stuff that we talked about on this pod, but it's going to cost and your customer isn't the founder. It's, it's the people who raise a hundred million dollar fund. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I actually think of a better idea is your idea, like selling, selling to them and because they... They could easily write that off as an expense because it's deal flow, right? They're in the business of getting the best possible deals and they need attention and audience to do that. That's why people forget.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
But in tech Twitter, in the beginning, the people who had the most amount of followers weren't the entrepreneurs. It was the VCs. Totally. Like the Fred Wilsons and all those guys.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Totally. Charging $3.99 a month, $3.99 a month. There's no real cost associated with it. His costs are his meta ads that he's doing. So this is a beautiful business. And I think just for people listening, don't just listen. Go take notes and actually do the thing. Because people are doing it. They're listening to this pod and they're cash flowing $10,000 to $100,000 a month sometimes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I love it. All right, man. What else you got for us? I think we're at idea number... I mean, I'm not even going to count those bonus ideas, but I think we're at idea number seven, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Yeah. So I was thinking the same thing. You get to 20K a month and then what you do is then you take like 20K of your profit and you spend it on PR and you just get into like TechCrunch and all these places. And that's when you reach out to Canva and you're like, here's all these articles about us. We're doing 20K a month. We love what you're doing. We want to be a part of the mission.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Is there an opportunity to talk about M&A? And then you sell it to them. Totally. And that's what you do. And that's the playbook for that one. So I like that idea. It's one of those sneaky small ones that could be big.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Here's what I would do in this space because I think you're onto something. You're right that Scott's Cheap Flights has no soul anymore. In fact, it was rebranded to going.com, which come on, that's like, There's no soul to that name versus Scott's Cheap Flights. Like I connect with that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
So I was doing a little bit of research and I found out that there's a Canadian version of Scott's Cheap Flights. What's it called? I'll share my screen real quick. It's called... So the holding company... is called, I think, YDeals.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And so what they do, which is really smart, is they own, for all the different Canadian cities, they have, so the airport in Montreal is YUL, so they own YULDeals.com. And Toronto is YYZ, so they own YYZDeals.com. Super smart. But if you look at the website, like 1998 vibes, and the guy claims that there's millions of Canadians that are subscribed.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
So there's an opportunity to reach out to someone like this and be like, how much? Because it doesn't feel like he's... I mean, literally, there's images of Travel 2000 and just... Toronto to Iceland.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
It totally has Craigslist vibes. It's Craigslist vibes. And whenever you see Craigslist vibes... You know they're printing money. You know it. You know it. They don't need to change anything. They've got something that's working. And there's probably an opportunity there. And if there isn't an opportunity to buy it, I think you can just clone a similar version and just bring it into 2024.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Absolutely. And then you can, you know, if you have these lists, 20,000, 50,000, 75,000, you can also do like, okay, now we're going to do a weekly, here's what's happening in my city newsletter. You know, you can create different newsletters off that foundational newsletter. So it's like come for the deals and stay for like local news. So I think there's a lot of opportunity here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I think it's a sneaky big idea too. And then, yeah, it's about getting the right domains. Like, I don't know, LGA, LaGuardia, LaGuardiaDeals.com or something like that. And also, even if those are taken in the US and Canada, there's also other countries. Think more globally. And so there's a lot of opportunity in this one. I like it a lot.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
All right, we promised people nine official ideas, but you actually had eight on your list. I'm going to give... Not that I feel bad, by the way, because we gave a bonus like three or four. But I'm going to give one more. I have a notes file with all my ideas. And I add, I don't know, two or three ideas per week that just come to me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And I just pulled it up and I'm going to bring up the latest idea. And I'm curious. I'll just give it away. Screw it. So did you see this? Finaloop? No. What is it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
so finna loop just raised 35 million dollars in series a funding which i didn't even know like series a funding 35 million no that's like yeah you know a typical series a is like five to ten million so it's it's a massive something is working um and basically what it is is uh E-commerce accounting software and service that never slows you down.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
So it's real-time bookkeeping for D2C, multi-channel, and wholesale.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Totally. So you saw that. That fired you up. And then you came up with nine ideas just from that. And here you are. What's idea number one?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
So they've taken something, which is basically QuickBooks, which we've talked about in the past. Oh, my God. And they've niched it down to D2C and e-com. I love it. And I think the old... So Late Checkout uses a service called Bench.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Bench.co. This is the old way of creating a startup. It's kind of like, we're cloud bookkeeping and it's going to be like 300 bucks a month and it's going to be great. But it doesn't speak to anyone, right? It doesn't speak to SaaS. It doesn't speak to crypto startups. It doesn't speak to... It's too broad. It's too broad. So here's my idea. My idea is... Okay, the idea is QuickBooks for X.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Now, what are those different categories? I don't know. They're probably something like QuickBooks for SaaS, QuickBooks for agencies. Real estate. Real estate.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
My hunch is that for internet businesses, there's probably a lot of competition. So I would probably go towards like non... I wouldn't start with SaaS. I bet you there's something maybe a little bit similar. Nonprofits, this is what you do.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
How I'd start this is I'd list out... I think your QuickBooks idea is really smart. Just look at the extensions. I think I would write in a list what are all the different categories based on that and by prompting ChatGBT. And then I would go look for competition. I would say, what is the competition? I'd put that in my Google Sheet.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And then I'd say, I'm not going after something with a lot of competition. I'm just not interested. At this stage in my life, I'm just not interested in going after companies that have raised hundreds or if not billions of dollars. Totally. And then I'd pick one based on, is it a growing trend? Does it have low competition?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
That's it, man. That's it. That's a wrap. Plus a bunch of bonus ideas. Cody Schneider, how are you feeling about this episode? Dude, I feel good.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
yeah cool so on YouTube comment if if you want to see that from Cody I know you want to see it and don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and also to follow what if you're listening on Spotify or you're listening on Apple podcast don't forget to follow because then then you'll know when Cody comes back on so appreciate it Cody thank you so much people can find you on Twitter and
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Yeah, I love when you get just so excited about an idea like halfway through and I just see your brain just like, it's like you're a kid getting really exciting. Totally. Yeah. You love it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Totally. Yeah, I think it's like a few frameworks. It's like, okay, this idea works. How do we bring it to another geography? Exactly. Okay, this is a trend here that's underserved. And that's why I love going through a bunch of ideas is because you're hearing, okay, it's starting to get into you. Okay, this is how I would approach the problem. It's not this specific idea that I want to take.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Totally. And you don't need that many followers for it to be super impactful. Like I know guys, girls, whatever, who have five, 10,000 followers are making millions of dollars a year from that, uh, from that group. It's just the right amount of followers with, it's, it's not the right amount of followers. It's, it's the right followers. It's about attracting the right people and it opens doors.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Um, you know, the way we met is kind of funny. which is you probably had like five or 10,000 followers on Twitter. And I was following you because you were, you were a real one. You were actually putting out, this is how I'd grow this thing. And I was like, oh man, in a world where, where Twitter is just like so sterile and manufactured, it felt so amazing to see what you were putting out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And I would basically feature you in my newsletter with like, has, you know, 75,000 subs every single week. So funny. Right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I mean, it also, you know, I think a bunch of people listen to this podcast and just it's entertainment for them. It's like watching Shark Tank. Totally. I think there's that. But I also think that there is a group of people who listen to this podcast, like the SVG Collections guy, who are like, wow, I never thought of that. I'm going to go and do this thing. And it's going to be a success.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And when it's a success, he's going to reach out. I mean, he reached out to us already, but... He's going to reach out to us and he's going to be like, thank you, Cody. Like you changed my life and I won't forget that. And then he's going to start his own podcast and he's going to, you know, pay it back. And so it does, you know, that's also just a cool part about doing this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
So, and, and one, one thing that I've learned is be yourself. You know, when I, when I first started podcasting, I wasn't myself really. And it was only recently where I was like, you know, I'm just going to, how has that changed? Just, I'll give you an example. People always, you know, people say that, uh, I talk slowly or I have a calm voice. So what I would do is I'd counteract that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And that would be, Like I try to put my Gary Vee hat on, you know, and try to get super, and it's just, it's not me. They're like, this guy, have you seen that meme?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
I was someone who, you know, I really wasn't. And the reason I did that is because I was like, oh, these are best practices. Therefore, I need to do it. As soon as I started being myself and also another part of that is talking about what I want to talk about, which is startup ideas, even though the best people in the world told me that's too niche. The best podcast is... This is insane to me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
When I pitched this idea originally, they were like, it's too niche. And as soon as they said that, I was like, I'm going to be on to something. And you know what? There are people who are listening to this who are going to be like, I wish you would talk faster. I wish you did have more energy. I wish you did these... And it's like, okay, well... You're listening to me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
You're listening to Cody because you like us, presumably. Or they just hate listening.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
It's an hour plus deep. And it's like, why are you listening to us? A thousand percent.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And you know what's exhausting? Being someone who you're not is exhausting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
So I'm guessing we got to run. We got to run. This has been great. Cody, thanks again for coming on. You also need a shave. We're doing a live stream, man. What was it? So we're going to get, we're going to give you a mullet. Is that what's happening?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Oh, I'll do anything for, for Cody Schneider mullet. So we'll figure it out. All right, dude. Later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
So- Hey everyone, if you're anything like me, you've got a ton of design work that you need. Websites, landing pages, emails, social assets, you name it. But you don't just want beautiful landing pages or beautiful websites. You want the stuff that's going to convert. You want the stuff that's going to actually drive value. That's where DesignScientist.com comes in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
It's an agency that for one monthly price will do all your design work, all your copy work, all your engineering and do stuff that actually scales your revenue. You don't need a designer. You need a design scientist. Let's go design scientist dot com. I liked it so much I invested in the business. A lot of people ask me, oh, how did how did I get such a big Twitter audience?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
And I got a big Twitter audience when Two things happen. Threads, the ability to create a thread. That wasn't a feature and became a feature on Twitter. And then number two, the feed was latest and it moved to algorithmic. So all of a sudden your content was getting recommended to new followers. My content game didn't change. It was just the platform change. So what you're saying is really smart.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
You're saying that the platform LinkedIn is changing and there's going to be a bunch of B2B creators that are going to take advantage of it, but they're going to need sort of a middleman to facilitate it, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Yeah, to me, there's the entry level pricing, which is probably like $2,500 a month, which is just exactly what you said. But then for like $5,000 to $8,000 a month, you can do lead magnets as a service. So it's like every month we'll create a lead magnet for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
because like a drip email course totally exactly totally yeah totally yeah and then the third thing is probably just design help so it's like we'll do your you know your band your your banner your cover art we'll go and create you know beautiful infographics so you put that together you target founders and that's the idea how do you actually get to founders though
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
With arms wide open, Cody Schneider. He's back on the pod, Startup Ideas pod. One of your YouTube videos on the pod has like 40 or 50,000 views. I'm hyped, man. It's insane.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Yeah, absolutely. Here's how I would do the community aspect. So I would get the domain founders going viral on LinkedIn.com. And I'd create a free community where every week I'd give one tip on how to go viral on LinkedIn, like what's working. And then one breaking down another founder and why it's working. So it's like this person, Cody Schneider just got a thousand likes on this post.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Let me break down why that matters. You do a monthly call where you... uh, you know, everyone kind of comes in and it's like a peer to peer group. And at the end, you just say like, Hey, you know, we've got this service. If you want the done for you service, it's going to cost X, Y, Z. Totally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
Someone in the comment section is going to be like, but, you know, LinkedIn isn't going to be video first forever. And then in 12 months, you're going to have to shift your business. And it's like, well, even if that is the case, at least now you have a 1 million ARR business with a bunch of founders and you'll just sell them another service to help them grow on LinkedIn.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
9 Startup ideas to make $1M+ in 2024
All right. My appetite is, is wet. You know, I had some, some bread and I'm ready for idea number two. Hell yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
I interviewed Oren Meets World. This guy has worked with everyone from Red Bull to Ciroc, you name it, but that's not why he's interesting. He's interesting because he has nailed TikTok and he has nailed how to create content that spreads to millions of people. TikTok shop, I didn't know much about it. He taught me and he's going to teach you. Enjoy this episode.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Insane that that exists. Because, you know, I did a tweet the other day about, you know, if you were going to create the YC of today in a world where software is commoditized, it's all about distribution. What does the YC for creators look like? And I feel like it's kind of this, right? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Just to finish up on the TikTok thing, what else do people need to know about building on TikTok, starting a business on TikTok?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Dude, once you hit like, I don't know, late 20s, early 30s, you're just like, I can't do it anymore.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Damn, dude. I do feel, and maybe other people listening, the whole supply chain just feels like a black box. I don't even know where to start.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Yeah, in terms of making a product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Exactly. So the idea is, how can you make the case a little more fun? And... Like a lot of us, you know, I'm into collectibles and I was thinking, oh, wouldn't it be cool if you can have a case and in the back of the case, there'd be like a holographic Charizard. So it's basically marrying a collectible with the case.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
What sort of software tools do you use to come up with ideas, figure out supply chain, competitive analysis? What's your content creation? What are the things that people probably need to look into?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. And so we've talked a lot about TikTok, but YouTube, do you do any sort of... competitive analysis on YouTube or you just don't really touch it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
And you're able to make a premium on it because obviously, let's say you're buying, okay, Charizard is probably a bad example because there's some Charizards that go for like $30,000. But there are like, I don't know, maybe it's a Squirtle or something like that, which you can put in, buy it for $20. It costs you $5 to make the case and you sell it for $75. What do you think?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Wow, that's a hot take, dude.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Yeah, that's a really hot take. I mean, first of all, the interesting thing is you don't even mention long form.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
And before we leave, I have to ask you, because you're the goat at this, besides format, if you're trying to create a TikTok audience, you're trying to create content that's going to land with people, how do you do it? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Beautiful. I appreciate it, my man. Where can people get to know the internet's creative director more?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Anytime, my man. Come back soon.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
So my initial reaction to that is, well, if you're building a luxury product, which this is, do you need to have utility? That was my initial reaction. And then you started talking about the colognes, which, by the way, I had no idea that cologne is like, you know, popular right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Exactly. We can unpack that later in the video. So what you're kind of saying is, you know, utility doesn't need to be like your standard utility around just covering the phone, but it could mean like, how do you put utility and marry that to what's happening in the cultural zeitgeist? Is that what you're saying? Exactly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
All right, new character unlocked. Oren, the internet's creative director. Welcome.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
But the main thing is most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash flowing business is waiting for you. Well, you know what's cool about this idea is When you think of... Okay, what's that brand? It's a men's cologne.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
I almost bought it and then I looked at the price and it was like $250 for a cologne. There's one... I think it starts with a C. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm not sure. What's the... Cree or...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Man, I'm excited to be here. Let's rip some ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
I got it. I got it. I was close. I called it Cree, but it was really Creed. And I just like the first link that came up is it's a 12 Creed, $1,260 for, I don't know, like 12 hours.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
It's like the La Mer of Cologne.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Yeah, exactly. So listen, if you're going to, I don't care how wealthy you are. If you're taking one spritz of that Creed, you're hoping that someone's like, wait, is that a, is that a Odo, you know, Aventus? You know, that's, but that's the problem with cologne is there's no easy way to share the status of your cologne.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Okay, I want to run. This is a Startup Ideas podcast, so I'm going to run an idea by you. Anyone can take it. You can take it for all I care. And I want to workshop it and just get into your brain to see how you would take this idea and turn it into a cult brand. You with me? Let's roll. So here's the idea. I have a iPhone case. It's kind of actually kind of falling apart. It's just black.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
How do you look at a TikTok shop and see how much revenue they are doing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
And so your buddy, you know... I don't know if you can say, but like what ballpark is he doing in revenue?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
And who else is... Because I'm fascinated, and I think a lot of people are fascinated with TikTok Shop. So how do you build a business on TikTok Shop? And who's doing it well? What... Are you following Goalie at all? No. Tell me about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
It's not that interesting. I will say I used to just have no iPhone case and I would crack it and crack it and crack it. So I've given up, you know, for the people in the comment section who are going to be like, oh, you know, I can't believe he has an iPhone case. Can't believe he's one of those people like I've given up on it. You know, it's so interesting. You feel me on that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
Dude, I actually love you. I... We have to unpack all of that. Cause I feel like there's to you, that's completely, uh, of course this is happening, you know, in my world, I'm like in the software world. So I don't like think about these things. You mentioned something at discord. I think you called it, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]
And then brands go and recruit in there. Explain exactly what it is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
I appreciate you coming on here and lending your brain to get people to think bigger about startup ideas and spaces that you're interested in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Totally. Consumers is more glory in consumer. There's also something interesting about Like hitting your face against the dirt kind of like it hurts, but it also feels nice in a way. Like people who do consumer are sick like that. Yeah. You know what I mean?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
That's really kind of you to say. It's true. One part of the show I'm trying to do is people who might not have as much internet fame, bring them and give them the platform. Dude, you're a smart guy. Thank you. What's on your mind today?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Okay, and going back to our AI agent world... I think a lot of people listening to this, they want to get their hands dirty. They see the opportunity. We're sharing all these products. They're like, yes, yes, this is cool, this is cool. But they don't know... Should I build a granola competitor? Should I build on top of one of these platforms?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
How should people think about what startup idea to pick? Do you have a framework for that? Why did you pick Sling versus the hundred other?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
I think that last part is probably the most important part. When I look back at all the products I worked on, the most successful products were the products that I I cared about the most, even though I didn't have high expectations that it was actually gonna work out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
The ones that I actually was like, oh my God, there's a huge market opportunity here and I'm gonna sell it to Adobe and I'm trying to time something, that hasn't worked out for me personally. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
In AI startup land, and also in financial services, it's an extremely competitive space. The smartest people in the world are going after this space. How much do you, as a product person, think about competition? When you're building out your product roadmap, are you mapping it to how the competitors work? How should people think about it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Um, I can probably, I can probably figure that out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think it's like like everything in life, balance is really important. And the way I think about it is I do keep tabs on competition and yeah, I I don't have a running list of what the competitors are doing, but I have a mental running list like I literally do in my head. I'm like, yeah, competitor X is doing Y. I look at their Twitter accounts. I follow them on Twitter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
But I try not to get sucked in with, oh my God, they just launched this thing. It's really smart. Because you don't want to be a me too person product builder. For sure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
A hundred percent. Okay. And yeah, You said you're going viral in Kenya. How do you think about, once you've built the product, getting people to the actual product? I know with Facebook, you attracted millions or hundreds of millions of people to the platform, directly or indirectly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
If you're trying to build an AI startup, let's say, do you go and, like we've done, you map out the problem, you build a landing page. How do you think about, you build a product, how do you think about getting people to the actual product?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
So it's funny you bring this up. So I was writing this down for myself. Maybe I'll post this on my newsletter. But I was thinking about, okay, what's a framework for thinking about creating AI agents from a product perspective? So here's what I wrote down. A single clear action, instant feedback, Bounded decisions and zero friction.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
100%. Yeah, I started thinking about short form video and how do you like reverse engineer the viral TikTok? So building for mobile specifically or an AI startup, like thinking about, okay, I need to give something to this group of micro influencers that is going to get them to create a 30 second or 15 second clip that is going to go viral. So what is that product?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
And then reverse engineering that, that's been really helpful in terms of creating an AI startup that gets millions of views and downloads.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
I think I'm going to name this episode something around the framework for starting an AI startup. We've covered ideas and coming up with ideas. We covered some really cool startups like Granola and how they're doing it. We covered user acquisition. We've covered competition. What haven't we covered that we should? Pricing, monetization, how you make money.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
And that makes it a no-brainer offer, which is kind of the goal, right? I think so.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
So I wrote down smart agents that can actually think, that can understand what you mean, learn from mistakes, explain decisions, handle new situations. So then I wrote down, by the way, I wasn't planning on sharing this, so these are just some rough notes. So I was like, okay, how do you build a smart agent that is going to be valuable? Start with one action that matters, add LLM understanding,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Are you of the belief to start, people say you can always go down on price, you can never go up. What's your thought on that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Yeah. And there's I mean, I remember Uber, for example, like when we first started using Uber and Uber and Lyft and SF when it first came out, it was like, well, not the black cars, but it was it was cheap. Like I remember, you know, they basically got us hooked on the product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
And once we were hooked and we were in the network, then they were like, okay, let's see if we can charge 10% more, 20% more, 30% more. I think customers don't remember your pricing, they remember the value. I agree.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
And probably use AI to help figure that out too. For sure, for sure. I just have to ask, before we leave, I know you spent some time with Mark Zuckerberg. What do you think Mark Zuckerberg is thinking about with AI and this whole AI world? What's going through his mind?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
build tight feedback loops, learn from every interaction and expand slowly. What do you think about that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Mike, thanks for coming on. People, if you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe so we know that you enjoy this type of stuff. I'll see you in the comment section. Mike, where can people get to know you better? My website is hudack.com and I'm mudack on Twitter and sling.money. Slink down money. We'll include both those in the description. And yeah, go check it out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Hope you learned something valuable. I know you did. And Mike, I'll see you soon. Sounds good. Thanks, Greg. Thank you. Cheers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Yeah, I mean, I shouldn't be sharing this because my team told me not to share this, but I can't help myself. Agencies are a really good business right now because it's super manual. It's humans doing things. It's in a particular niche. A good agency is focused on SaaS, FinTech. They're the best at just this one niche.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
And if you think about agencies, I wrote down in the same document, I was like, agencies, like agent, are the new agencies. So I think if I was trying to build an AI agent that I can sell to someone, of course we can come up with consumer ideas, but I'd probably start by just becoming a, I'd either build or buy an agency. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now, they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas. or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to startupempire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Wait, hold on. Greenlight? I haven't heard of this. Let me pull this up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Let me share my screen real quick and we can learn together.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
It looks beautiful. I've played with a bunch of these apps and I don't know, they haven't really stuck with me. Just because, like you, the product needs to be tight. But this looks worth trying. It's great.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
So today we have a very special guest. I would say on my Mount Rushmore of product people, I think I only have two people that come to mind. One is Scott Belsky, who I've had on the pod before, chief product officer of Adobe. He advised my last company. Super, super smart guy. And the other, way less known in the internet world, but people who know know, Mike Udak.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Yeah. Like, right. You look at it and it's like, So basically, for people listening not on YouTube, it's AI phone calls, basically. And you tell Blend your use case, sales, customer support, operations. It's in any language, which is crazy. And you can pick your voice, teach it like an employee, so there's intelligence there, and it integrates with your tools.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
So you can integrate it with Salesforce or whatever. I have a friend... who contacted a company like Bland and was like, I want to build the Bland for Germany, for example. I'm making that country up. And I think that there's a huge opportunity in taking some of these businesses, partnering with them, and being like, I'll just do your Canadian arm. And people think, oh, that's so small.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
That's such a small way of thinking. But like, Well Simple, which is the Robin Hood of Canada, is still a $3.5 billion company. There's opportunity in geographies. Yeah, for sure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
Yeah. And you could, I mean, you could just open up, for example, Claude and say, you know, list me all the pain points in social media management.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
And it'll give you some ideas. Yeah. So I'll just read a few. Content creation and scheduling, consistently producing engaging high-quality content across multiple platforms, managing content callers and approval workflows, community management, so managing crisis communication, negative feedback. Each of these could be multiple agents. For sure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
I know you've built consumer. Earlier in your career, you were really consumer. Blip TV back in the day, which I think is now owned by Disney. Facebook, can't get more consumer than that. You were at Facebook, I think running their ads.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
If you don't know what a faceless YouTube channel is, it's a YouTube channel where there's no creator, you don't see any person, and it's somebody doing a voiceover. And what's interesting about these, I didn't know these were basically businesses, and they're just pumping out this content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
That seems to be the vibe, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Should we do almost like, you know what I'd love to do actually at some time would be a video. Maybe this could be online or it could be live or whatever it is, but I'd love to do a video with you where we start on a Friday and we have to make X amount of dollars by like 72 hours later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Or we are just absolutely shitty entrepreneurs. But I'd love to also watch videos like that. I see people posting, oh, I helped a guy make blah, blah, blah in 72 hours. But whenever I watch the video, they don't actually make money. They always just ask their friends to give the money. But I'd want to have a video, me and you, where we actually try an idea like this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And the idea would be to make... $10,000 from strangers. And it has to also not fall apart. Like the second the video ends, you know, it should run for a little bit, but just to prove the, prove the point. So you would, so I, I don't know most of these tools and that's a different, so the cool thing about this is like, For me, the idea and the concept part would be super exciting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
The actual execution, that's where I would want to have the actual execution and someone going in and doing these things. That's where I would probably pull someone from Fiverr to actually pull these tools together and give me the end result. How long do you think it would take from the idea to having a video on YouTube?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Yeah. I think that, so choosing the niche, you would use this gummy search for it, or like, would you have a product in mind first that you would want to have at the end of the niche? Like, for example, I don't know this brick, we talked about it, the brick that bricks your phone, having a channel all about digital detox. And would you start with the product in mind or start with the niche in mind?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Without my phone. Dude, I do get that phone anxiety. When I go climbing, like bouldering, I leave my phone in like a locker. And this sounds really weird. So I was taking my Apple Watch with me. So that if somebody calls me, they can get through to my Apple Watch. Now I don't. But I basically tell everyone, hey, call this climbing hall if you need me. And then I feel calm.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
But yeah, there is something brain damaging about getting obsessive about always being contactable. I even got... a dumb phone for my apartment so that everybody who knows me can get through to me if my iPhone is just like somewhere in the apartment where I can't find it. So I feel more calm. It's a problem.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
No one's ever called, obviously. Yeah, they're like, hey, can you find a tall, skinny guy with glasses? Literally every other climber looks like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
So I, I ran with that and I found One or two things that I think could be pretty interesting. One, again, like a lot of the things that I find are not because I'm researching for this podcast. It's because I'm researching it for myself. And one of the things that, you know, I have a YouTube channel. Our YouTube channel is one of the best ways for us to get qualified leads for our business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Yeah. I'm going to do. Yeah. But, but totally separate, uh, totally separate topic. So you would start with a lifestyle. So like how you would write this out is I am targeting people who do this thing or people who are interested in this thing. How, like, how would you phrase it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Of the climbing community.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
another niche that I find really interesting so obviously I'm very into the video game niche I just want to give you another example just to also show you that they're not all the bros if you go to the channel and again I don't know anything about these people they might they might have videos that are like inappropriate or something I don't know but Zvoke Z-E-E-V-O-K-E he's like an Elden Ring lore content channel faceless again um
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And dude, I watch this channel. And now I'm also realizing I watch a lot of faceless channels, especially around specific niches. I mean, video gaming is an entire niche, but Elden Ring is a niche by itself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Which is big enough for most individuals to take care of just one video game.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Um... something has happened in my brain where I'm like, now I'm kind of, now it all makes sense, I guess. But I personally, so for me, I think the faceless videos that are acceptable
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
when the person really writes the script themselves, when it's content that they're not stealing from other people, where they're actually coming up with their own interpretation of the thing, like when someone's talking about Elden Ring lore, and of course they're reading through the wikis and they're reading through the lore in the game, but they're giving their own take on it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
But I'm always looking to like, what else can you do at YouTube? And I stumbled across this notion board and I sent it to you. It's called Six Figure Channel List. And it's a notion board full of different channels on YouTube. And they're kind of ordered by six figure channels and seven figure channels.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I'm not a fan of the purely AI generated voices and scripts that people are just using to pump out as much revenue as possible. But yeah, like the channels that I watch, I wouldn't have labeled them as faceless YouTube channels. I wasn't even thinking about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I wasn't thinking about this. I didn't know about this niche at all.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, the faceless thing is like I went to my my girlfriend's YouTube like on her TV. I opened up YouTube and like the almost every video that's recommend to her recommended to her. She likes, you know, she's into personal development, learning about consciousness, all of that kind of stuff. And I was like, wow, every one of these thumbnails is AI generated.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And when I click into it, it's always like some very distant voice. Oh, my God, I found a really good one as well. This sorry, I mean, I don't know how your team wants to edit this, but I want to show you an example of an amazing one. It has minimal personality, but really great kind of infographics, even though very, very simple. It's the guy, he does like one video a year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I don't know if you know, he did this Pentagon puzzle thing. This is it, cracking the uncrackable code. What's it called? Jim Sanborn. I'm just realizing now that this is a faceless. Oh yeah, the channel is called Lemino, L-E-M-M-I-N-O. Check that channel out. So this is like the definition of a good faceless YouTube channel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And I recently watched this one called The Unbreakable Cryptos Code has 4.1 million views. Kennedy Assassinations, 11 million views. his videos are great. I would never have put like a generic stamp on it saying, Oh yeah, this is just some crap to make money. Um, and he's, I guess making money with a combination of Patreon and YouTube, but yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I don't know if it's lame. I mean, it's still like, I know your audience is here to make millions, but if I was making like 25 K a month from being able to make like videos that I think people will enjoy, like, I would be okay with that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I would be okay with having it as... If you're saying, especially if some people are still working at a company, having a side hustle like that, I think is pretty cool. But of course, I also didn't know about this until this week. So you're so much more integrated into it. And the product approach is probably more... But if you're not good at selling stuff... It's not about selling stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And the idea here, or what's special about these channels, is that they're called faceless YouTube channels. And I want to give credit to facelesschannelacademy.com. Actually, it was a guy. Who's the guy? He looks like Cody Schneider a little bit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Oh my God, Internet Historian is also a faceless YouTube channel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
They're just taking also world events like, here's what happens to your body while you're having sex. Here's how the SEAL team took down Osama bin Laden minute by minute. How they caught Ted Bundy. What happens when you die, which is a seven minute video, which has 26 million views. The worst punishment in the history of mankind. The worst torture. What happens to your body when you smoke weed?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Evil punishments designed to be worse than death. I do want to watch that, actually. Oh, yeah. America's strangest serial killer. Man. Could two people repopulate the earth? I guess you're just looking at also Quora questions that get a lot of heat and just making a video of it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Yeah, it's not going to work. I mean, obviously, a lot of people know about this kind of thing. So you need some creativity. You need some level of intelligence or something to make it work. You can't just be like, it's not like you could just say, hey, chat GTP, make me a faceless YouTube channel and make it successful. It's not going to work.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I want to give credit to Cody Schneider, even though it isn't him. It's like the video, whatever the guy who runs the business faceless.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
All right. That was my, I mean, I don't know if it's a startup idea, but I'm thinking of adding elements of this to my, like, I do want to do a video game channel. I don't want to be the face of it. People in the comments are going to be like, yeah, Jonathan, you said that 10 times in this episode already. I don't want to be the face of it. I honestly could do an entire Elden Ring channel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I could do an entire Elden Ring or general video game art channel. I want to kind of do that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Because I didn't know about this fucking shit. And now I do. Now I actually might.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Don't do it, guys. Can we not post it? Don't do it. Let's not air this episode because I actually want to do it now. That's true. That is so true. Let's use a really crappy thumbnail and title so no one watches it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
It's worth the experiment anyway.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Whatever his name is. So I came across his video. Then he had this whole notion board. And by the way, I'll give you my first impression of faceless YouTube channels. If you don't know what a faceless YouTube channel is, it's a YouTube channel where there's no creator, you don't see any person, and it's somebody doing a voiceover. The most famous ones that you know are Daily Dose of Internet.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Yeah, that is the worst case.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I'm deeply appealed by this idea. I, there's a lot of appeal.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Yeah, the downside of starting a real YouTube channel is that you then have to deal with... Like, with your own face on it is that you have to learn to deal with trolls, like, talking about you and all that kind of stuff. Whereas the downside of starting a faceless YouTube channel is... I like that I could be a bit more... uh, personally detached from the outcome.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And then I could just say, okay, this episode didn't work well. Okay. Like for example, when an episode of this podcast that I am on doesn't work out well, I'm like, fuck, like I didn't do a good job. And my, my, I am here doing like, it's me. Right. And in your comments, someone will write, don't put this guy on your podcast again.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And no matter how long I've been making content, I still don't like that. Right. And it's It's like you're putting yourself out there and you know someone's going to shit on you no matter what. But I enjoy the art of making content. And so it feels like a more personally separate way where I can just think about it as an art project and as something that I'm building, like designing a website.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
There's something more mechanical about it that I actually enjoy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Totally. You know what I mean? Or like my accent or all these things. I've been on the internet for so many years. I'm still not used to it. I still don't like it. And so that's what would hold me personally back from making more content online. But yeah, there are so many things I want to talk about. I just don't want to be there having to film myself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I want to be able to do it in a more nerdy way, like making the visuals like, you know, I like to go into like a more nerdy, smelly mode to make things sometimes. That sounds perfect to me. But yeah, maybe we've dragged this on too long, but hopefully people. I don't think so.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
First time you've heard of it, Greg. I messaged Greg. This is just some behind the scenes. I do want to bring something interesting to the podcast. And I messaged Greg this stuff. And I was like, please tell me you don't know about this already. But he did, of course. Greg already knows about all this stuff. There's no way to surprise him.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Everyone, hello, this is your, what is it? Hello, welcome to your daily dose of internet. That guy, you know that guy?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I have another idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Totally separate to this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Um, or do you have an idea you want to put in or do you, or do you think we should just end it with this focused idea?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I think one topic is pretty good. I think one topic is pretty good. Yeah. That's cool, dude. I'm I let us know in the comments, if you're thinking of starting one of these, I really hope one thing I do want to say at the end is I really hope people, what people do not take away from this is,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I hope the lesson they do not take away is I'm going to fill up YouTube with absolute dog shit content, copy other people's stuff and just flood it with even with more crap and like hack the system and hack the SEO. And it's just all low quality stuff. I think there's.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
That could work in the short term, but I think the long-term winners here are going to be the people who put a lot of love into it. And even though you're not in the videos and even though you're getting help, maybe with script writers and doing the visuals, I do think that people who can come up with really interesting concepts, find a really interesting niche and then write well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And then I almost feel like it's just a replacement for writing blog articles. It's like people want to watch blog articles now. You are not maybe a videographer. You're maybe not a good presenter. And so instead of you now writing, what you're doing is making this type of faceless video work.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
What does he say? Is it that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
welcome to your daily dose of internet. Uh, so that, then there's Kurzgesagt, the, I think German channel, uh, which does animations. And then there's a ton of fucking absolute dog shit, uh, out there, but they, in between, there's also like some like interesting ones like charisma on command. Um, You've seen tons of them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Did you notice?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
We deeply love you. Deeply. Hey, look out for that Elden Ring channel. I'm going to do an Elden Ring channel, a Jet Set Radio channel, a Shenmue channel, a Choo Choo Rocket channel, a Crazy Taxi channel. It's going to be too much.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I love Crazy Taxi. So good. I was obsessively addicted to Crazy Taxi.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Probably when I was 14. Yeah. You know there's a remake or there's a new version. An open world, massively multiplayer online version of Crazy Taxi is coming out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
If they don't have the Offspring and Bad Religions music in there, I'm not playing it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
You got to race me. You got to race me to making that channel guys. All right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
If you go to this Notion board, I don't know if you'll share it, you're going to notice a lot of these. And what's interesting about these, I never even paid attention. I didn't even know what these things were. And I am obsessed with YouTube. I didn't know these were basically businesses where people are using people from Fiverr to write scripts, AI to write scripts, narrators from Fiverr.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
So it's not even the same person narrating all the time. and they're just pumping out this content. Charisma on Command is a very good example. Not necessarily saying this person is using AI or anything, but it's just like, okay, here's a thing that people want to know about charisma and human interaction. Here's a celebrity interaction that we can break down.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And I'm going to narrate this celebrity interaction that gets unbelievable amounts of views. And of course, then it makes money. Charisma on Command in particular makes seven figures apparently per year. But there's a lot of other very niche things in there, like, for example, survival, how to survive. Yeah, there's just so many different things in there. It's really interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
History seems to be a big thing, like talking about the Black Plague, or I just watched one about the White Death, which is tuberculosis. There's daily dose of football. There's so many different things. There's body cam channels. You've probably come across them, but you might not have realized that they're part of this movement on YouTube called faceless YouTube channels.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Now, why I find this interesting, again, there's tons of crap out there, and I don't like the idea of polluting YouTube with absolute dog shit, like crappy, stupid AI generated scripts that are useless. But a couple of these are actually interesting to watch. A couple of these are entertaining. A couple of these are actually kind of cool. And those are the ones that stand out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And those are the ones that get the most views. And what I love about it is I really think a lot of people would love to make content. So for example, I'd love to make some video game content, but I don't personally want to be in the content. Like I don't want to be, you know, trolled. I don't like actually to be a personality on the internet. I do it almost as like a...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
a necessity, basically, because making content is a cool way to get clients and to sell products. But I love the idea of being able to make channels that are purely based on other footage, maybe animation, maybe just taking interviews from other people and commenting on them. And I've been spending the last four or five days looking at these channels and thinking, how can I apply this to myself?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And Yeah, I think there's a way to wade through the absolute bullshit of the 90% of these channels and make actually good versions of them. So yeah, that's my first idea is looking into this idea of faceless YouTube channels. And now that I've started going down the rabbit hole, my entire...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
YouTube recommendations is full of different content creators talking about how to make faceless YouTube channels. So it's a super, yeah, super interesting concept. Didn't know about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
It's so cool. Yeah. And again, like I see the DTC bro kind of thing and I'm not interested in being that. But for example, I've always wanted to start a video game channel. Again, I want to do this nostalgia hacking thing. I want to talk about Halo. I want to talk about Jet Set Radio. I want to talk about the Dreamcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I want to talk about Shenmue, but I've always been, what's really helped me back is being a personality is like, People get very attached to internet personalities and get very weird about that. I have no interest in that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And now that I've learned about this faceless YouTube channel thing and found a couple of gaming faceless channels, I'm like, yeah, this would actually be a viable route for me to build a media empire around nostalgic gaming without having to be the face of it. maybe not even having to be the voice of it, just writing the scripts and coming up with the concepts and having someone else voice it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I honestly just never thought about it, but it's so obvious now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Using an AI Joe Rogan's voice?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I'm back. I can't get rid of you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I always come back. Yeah. You know, I've been watching the episodes of this podcast that do well. And you've also been messaging me. And generally people just want ideas. And as the name of the podcast is called, Podcast Ideas Podcast. What seems to do pretty well is things that one person can do that can make potentially a lot of money and doesn't require a whole team to set up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
And there's some really interesting faceless channels that I've come across as well. This week, I came across a channel. I don't know if you know it called Wormwood. And they're doing something like what you were just talking about, except in the art space. It's like an absurdist art project thing almost, basically. Bee Jocko is the one that I just laugh my ass off.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
It's a video that has 285,000 views. The voice is AI. I do think the script is a mixture of AI and written by the person. I don't know anything about this person, but the... Everything about it is just like mind bending and super interesting and super cool. And again, when I was looking at these things, I was like, yeah, I would never have put the label.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
We on this podcast, me and you now are saying that this thing is called a faceless YouTube channel. The general public doesn't know anything about this stuff. I didn't know about it until like a couple of days ago. And I think there again, I don't think you should be joining the bros on a race to the bottom.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I think that if you have interesting concepts and especially if you can write, which is like a crazy thing, if you can write, then you can make a YouTube channel now because more and more people are expecting to not have to see the person who's actually talking. So I think writers are going to have a killer advantage here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Um, the people who don't have to use AI to, to create, to generate the scripts. Um, but if you just have like great concepts and interesting ideas, take a look at that Wyrmwood channel, take a look at the Bijaco video. It's hilarious. It's really funny. It's really cool. And it's totally demented and insane. And it's in a completely different direction.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
It couldn't be less like the crypto bro guys you're talking about. It's a completely different world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
So I've never found this. I've never seen this before.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
I'm looking at this now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a profitable Faceless YouTube Channel in 72 Hours
Why are all AI websites purple? Is it just me or are all of them purple? I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying, why is everything purple?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I just brainstormed with one of the smartest people I know about 20 plus dating app ideas. It was a live brainstorm. She had this insight. I opened up a Google Doc. All of a sudden, one idea, three ideas, seven ideas. This is a playbook for how to come up with 20 plus dating app ideas. One of the most proven ways to make money on the internet. I think you'll enjoy this episode.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
So Lox Club is interesting. It's basically Raya or The League, but for Jewish people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
So more of a high-end... more of like a high-end version like a premium version and i believe they also launched uh recently one for asians so they're basically owned by the same company that's cool yeah i think that's pretty smart yeah and is it like in person online both i think it's i think it's online but they i think they must do a lot of events yeah
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
But I think just going premium, like looking at, basically going through, so going back to our document, it's like, what's the insight here? It's like go through Match.com and IAC, which is a huge multi-billion dollar conglomerate that owns a lot in dating apps. IAC's portfolio. And just create premium versions of what you see on their website. So if we pull up Match.com's portfolio, Match Group.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Okay. Did you see my screen?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
It's like A through Z. Literally A through Z. Asian people meet. Baby boomer people meet. Black people meet. Catholic people meet. Divorce people meet. India meat, Italian people meat, J people meat, etc., etc. You get the idea. Oh my God. Do you see this? Veggie people meat?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Just go through this and just build premium versions of this. Do the league pricing and...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Totally. And the beauty about some of these businesses is they know how much they'll pay per user, per multiple of revenue. So it's like when you're ready to sell this business, it's not, oh my God, I got to go run this crazy process. It's like, no, you're doing 2 million ARR. They pay 8x, whatever, I'm making this up. And you just call them up. You meet them in their office in New York.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
You get an offer. You take it and that's it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I like it. Cool. This idea. I think it's a good one to me. Like we have a thing on the show. Is it, is it a sip or a spit? And a sip means good. And spit means not good. And it's a huge, it's, it's a sip. This is like, it's validated. It's worked. I think the timing is good. The other idea. Okay. Can I, can I make this idea even crazier?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Okay, for people who don't know what The League is, maybe explain what it is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
People are going to hate this one, but it's an opportunity for someone to do. You just go through that list that we showed on Match.com and instead of creating a dating app, which is a bit more complex, you have to create liquidity, network effects, and you target locally first. It's just a bit more complex in terms of the user acquisition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I think the idea is you create...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
yeah i think uh quick ad break let me tell you about a business i invested in it's called boringmarketing.com so a few years ago i met this group of people that were some of the best seo experts in the world they were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on google And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Let's just use Locks Club as an example or the Jewish niche. It's like if we believe that AI girlfriends and AI boyfriends are going to be a thing and we don't have to believe it. Like I can pull it up on Google Trends right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I agree with you. I agree. And that's why maybe people listening don't work on it. You don't have to. I personally wouldn't want to work on this, but I do think that there's a huge financial opportunity to go and make millions of dollars doing this. Do I want to do it? Absolutely not. Here's the Google Trends data for AI Boyfriend, and charts are not nicer than this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Yeah, I use Glimpse. It's like a layer on top of... I'm not affiliated or anything like that. It's just a layer on top of Google Trends that adds a few more related trends or what are people talking about on different channels. It also just has these topics, related topics, and it gets you in these... I'll just click into... I know what Character AI is, but let's say I didn't.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I'd click into Character AI... And then it would bring me in this rabbit hole and it just allows me to get really smart about a topic that I'm trying to learn about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Yeah. Well, I think, uh, You have amazing insights. You go out in the world, you get these insights. And I think a lot of people get these insights. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a League 2.0? I'm sure a lot of people think about things like that. Whenever I come up with an insight, my next step is I start writing it down like I showed on the one pager.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I just get all my ideas out as quick as possible. And then I'll look in trends. I'll look at Reddit. I'll look at social to validate what I'm trying to build here. Because the way I think about it is I don't want to waste a year of my life or hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, building something. And this is really helpful. So point here, AI boyfriend, trending, AI girlfriend.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I don't even need to type it. I know it's going to be...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I actually think it might... Who knows? Let's check. I think it's going to be... I think it's going to be as popular.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Um, so I can't, I actually don't have the paid glimpse tool, but I mean, it looks pretty, they're both spiking. They're both spiking. They're both similar. They're both similar.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
She is. Shout out to Amanda. She's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. She is awesome. So, um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
point is ai girlfriends ai boyfriends for italians indians jewish people huge opportunity we don't want to do it but someone could do it somebody could do it and i'm sure they will do it yeah um and please don't shout me out when you do yeah me either um okay so is that a wrap on the league 2.0 that's a wrap on that let's do one more idea
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Like covered you max on the show.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
And is, would it be like something like, uh, a pendant or you, you wear it and it's listening or what are you thinking?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I mean, maybe it is helpful in the human improvement because the alternative is nothing or the alternative is anonymous apps that are very hurtful to people. People put up you know, these polls and they get sometimes really, really stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Yeah. I do like the insight around, um, report cards for riz basically that's the idea yeah um i think report cards for xyz in general is like a huge opportunity um people people constantly want to know are they doing good are they doing bad you know we we spend the first 21 years of our lives if we go to university and 18 years of our lives, let's say, going to school, getting report cards.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Did you do good? Did you do bad? And then, yes, we do have performance reviews at work and stuff like that, but I think people love report cards. They like to know how they're doing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Yeah. I like it. And if you're... Let's say you had this insight. I know you don't look at data and trends, but where do you go from here, from idea to actually taking it to the next level?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Hundreds of dollars a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
How low price? What are you thinking?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I think, by the way, under $5 apps and stuff like that, there's a huge...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Before we end, do you have a question for me?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
That's okay. No, that's, I like that. That's the perfect, you know, um, I can answer, I can answer, here's how I'll answer it. Okay. So we've been building audiences and communities in a bunch of different verticals.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
And I practice what I preach. I really, really do. I am trying to figure out which tools can I build for these individual audiences that ideally I can get some SaaS level multiple for some of these businesses and just be in the workflow of people. Be in the daily lives of people. Um, you know, I don't love monthly recurring revenue in the sense of a whole thing on this, by the way. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I mean, I mean, I love multi recurring revenue.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Okay, this is crazy. So... I just Googled, how much does the league membership cost? You'll pay anywhere from $99 a week to $24.99. That's $2,499 a month for a membership of the league.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
So yeah. Expand on that. Tell me more.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
And I think that's a bit of an unfair advantage is if you create a product and you just shift the business model. People are doing subscription, you're now pay what you want. Now there's certain businesses that, of course, there's monthly costs. So it might not make sense for every business and that's fine. But I do think, going back to prioritizing tools,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I'm kind of like, what are tools that I can prioritize that I don't have to do monthly recurring? Because I think that they're more interesting to people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I mean, Ben Tossall from Ben's Bites. I just want to pull it up real quick. So he has a AI tutorial, learn AI, basically community and content course thing. He could have easily charged, I don't know, 50 bucks a month, but I'm pretty sure it's like one time payment. Yeah, it's $250 one time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
It's content. It is content. So it's not SaaS.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I don't have a SaaS one on top of my head, but they do exist. Someone in the comment section, throw some of those. Yeah. But they're out there and they're coming more and more every day.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I think one of the... From what I remember, one of the... interesting things that the league did was they did connect with your LinkedIn.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
different parts of like the culture that are still very resonant and it doesn't just need to be like you know a group async podcast basically yes yeah so i think really smart growth tactic and insight which is live is pretty untapped um obviously it's tapped in some niches like gaming and stuff like that but there's whatever it is you're doing whatever it is you're working on
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
think about exploring new novel formats. Live is really interesting. And there is a way that you can... I was doing lives before. I did a bunch of lives where people would come on to my show and I'd be like, tell me your business and let me break it down for you. And it was really fun. And I will do that again. But my point is...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
It isn't easy to get started, but once I started doing it like four or five times, I, you know, it got a lot easier. So don't give up in the first time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Couldn't agree more. If you go back to old episodes of this podcast, I'm in the first episode, please don't because you can see how unhappy I am. You can see that I'm just trying to make it work. And sometimes you have to do that because on the other side of it could be something amazing. But the podcast, it was called Where It Happens. It was highly produced, which is not my vibe at all.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
I literally just pulled up a Google Doc and we just started jamming. That to me was like, that's fun to me. So I think asking yourself, what would this look like if it were to be fun in terms of content creation is a really important question that people don't ask themselves enough.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
We'll put the links in the YouTube description. Cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
A hundred percent. Um, let's make that comment section on YouTube thriving. Thanks again for coming on and I'll see you later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
can you list 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 status symbols that are more modern internet culture type status symbols? And the reason I say this is because I think people can actually go and create the league for insert status symbols.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Lovely to have you here. You're probably one of my favorite follows on Twitter because you're always putting out creative ideas. So I had to have you for the Startup Ideas podcast. It was only right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you. I want to try something new. I've never done this on the show ever. And I don't know why you're making me want to do it right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
But I am going to share my screen.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Yeah, we'll jam on that. So what I want to do here is I want to create a mini one-pager for this idea. So... Basically, I buy your insight. What is the insight? And by the way, if you're listening to this on audio, check it out on video. On YouTube, I'll try to explain it. I'll try to say what I'm typing out. The insight is basically, the league was dope.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
There was something that was working with the league. They ended up selling for millions. I don't know if we know the exact... 30-ish.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
And they didn't raise a lot of money.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Their insight at the time, I think, was go niche, go premium... And I really do think that LinkedIn Connect was an interesting filter. Ended up charging, what did we say?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Hundreds a month up to, I think it was $24.99 a month. So completely zapped the business model. So this is really interesting. If you're a match group and you have a competitor charging this amount of money per month, you might want to acquire this. Because whenever you completely change the business model, that's interesting to someone who does acquisitions.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
So then it's like, okay, so here's the idea. I can't write. Here we go. Here's the idea. So what other... Oh, okay. What... is a list of status symbols that exist today in 2024 and beyond. YC, you mentioned. I think it's interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Totally. Okay. So I think there, there, there might be, you know, these are things that might work, right? Like when you're creating an idea doc, like the idea, you know, you, what you really want to say is just like, I think these are hypotheses. This might work. It might not work. This, this is the insight, you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
So I, I do, I do think that that's, it's worth, it's worth putting in there and it's like a TBD. We'll, you know, in the future we'll, we'll go explore. You had a really, really, really good insight, which is people who... How did you describe it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Yeah, that'd be, and you, maybe you can play like a, make a game of that too. You know, it's like, I only want to date people who, you know, Elon Musk follows or something like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Yes, I think that's right. I think that's right. Um, what, uh, you know, I'm married by the way, so I don't know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Very cool. So let's start with ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
So I mean, mid amount of followers, like that was supposed to be Raya in the beginning. Um, Whereas like you needed a certain amount of followers basically. And you connected with your Instagram. Like what was, what was Raya? Raya was basically the league, but for like more celebrity. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Totally. Why now? Why should this business be created now? Well, it's easier than ever to create software. So it's basically cheap to launch a dating app, whereas it used to cost a couple million bucks.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint to build a $340k/mo premium dating app
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's right. I think that's right. So here, here's like, here's, this is what I start with, by the way, when I come up with an idea, it's literally this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Paddy Galloway. This is the guy that's worked with everyone from Mr. Beast to Red Bull on their YouTube strategy. And in this episode, he walks through in about 90 minutes, a 12 month plan for you to kickstart and build your very own YouTube channel that can scale to millions of subscribers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I mean, I'd be honored. You know, Patty, you work with the biggest creators in the game. You've worked with Mr. Beast. You've worked with small creators who have become big creators, the Noah Cagans of the world. I see you out there. So I'm excited to hear what you've got in this cheat sheet. By the end of this pod, what's someone going to be able to take away?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Go ahead. Because on my good days, that's what I believe. I'm like, yeah, YouTube has this stable algorithm and I'm building on such a solid foundation and I just have to create good content and I'm going to let the YouTube gods just lift me into Valhalla. But on my bad days, like today, for example... I posted a video. Okay, so I'm in Miami.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I spend thousands of dollars to bring people to Miami to do an IRL pod with Cody Schneider, a friend of the pod. And cameras and people, I think I have an incredible conversation about this concept called digital gravity around how to actually use a lot of AI tools, actually, to basically create internet audiences and how you funnel people into customers. And I post, me and my team post the video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
It goes nowhere. I refuse to believe that I was like, okay, I'm just going to have lunch. I'm not going to change the title right away. I'm not changing the title. I'm going to have lunch and just be a calm, stoic person. And by the time I get back, hopefully the comment section is buzzing and stuff like that. And by the way, I'm not talking about views. To me, again, likes and comments.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Specifically comments. And it's Ghost Town. Ghost Town, USA, bro. Yeah. So that's when I'm like, oh man, do I have to do a clickbait title change right now? Did the clickbait title change? Ended up, so the video was called, I'm going to tell you the official, here, I'm going to give it to you straight.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
The only marketing you need, the only marketing strategy you need for 2025, and then I changed, so that's what I had previously, then I changed it to He built a startup using AI that prints money. Full tutorial in brackets. Put that, you know, right now it's already at 3 on 10. In an hour, it went from a 10 on 10 to a 3 on 10. And the comment section and everything. And it's like, damn it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
What do you think about that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, don't hate the player, hate the game type thing. It's like, I'll tell you what works from that experience. It's like the only marketing strategy you need in 2025, dude, no one's looking for a marketing strategy. It's like eat your vegetables, right? If you tell a kid to eat your vegetables, they're not going to want to eat their vegetables. Not going to work.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But what we ended up with, which was he built a startup using AI that prints money, full tutorial. Ultimately, what do people want? They want to create startups that are successful. He built a startup that prints money. He, that kind of adds, who is this guy? Intrigue, maybe I'll click in. And full tutorial, just basically,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
It says without saying that here's a bunch of information that's going to be really valuable.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Totally. It just, I will say, I have to admit that it does make me feel a little bad. You know what I mean? Um, it makes me feel bad because I want people to, I wish I could say eat your vegetables, but I ended up having to make soup instead. You know, I'm making vegetable soup instead of here's a piece of broccoli. Here's a dry piece of broccoli.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
That's going to have like, you know, it's going to be like eating like a, a box and you're going to have like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
broccoli stuck in your teeth no one wants that but like here's a hot vegetable soup on like a cold day with like a slice of sourdough bread you know what i mean but i do i do feel a little bit bad because i'm like i don't want people to be like i'm gonna watch this and i'm gonna be able to build a business that will print money
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
That you have to put in the work and there's a certain degree of luck that is necessary and you have to place bets consistently. But again, I think that it's helpful for people to hear these stories and have these frameworks and have these tutorials because I do think it increases their odds of winning.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
if I'm thinking about it wrong or right. So I think that if you're going to be on YouTube, you have to have two different types of bets, affinity bets and attention bets. So affinity bets is, for example, I used to do these live streams where it was like, bring me your startup ideas and I'm going to work with you and give you feedback on it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
A hundred people would show up, but it would be the true a hundred fans. And that's about building that tribe. Attention bets are what we kind of talked about before, which was what's something that top of the funnel, pick your niche and then actually pick your sub-niche because I think your high-level niche is going to be too big. If I were to pick business, that's too big.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But I pick startup ideas. It's like a sub-niche, right? So pick your sub-niche and then think about what's top of the funnel for that sub-niche. And I think that if you do two-thirds attention with one-third affinity, it's probably your recipe for success.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But dude, you're like the pro. I'm just like, don't know what I'm doing putting out content. You know what I mean? This is just like based on what I've known building on YouTube over the last few years, this is what I've learned. But I could be completely wrong.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
now this is important not just if you want to create a personal brand this is also if you're creating a business youtube is an incredible place to have an audience and he walks through this whole whole whole youtube cheat sheet which he prepared for everyone on the startup ideas podcast you're gonna love this episode it's long i will say but if you stick through to the end
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Before we get into that, why should a founder or someone building a business even care about YouTube?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, I mean, this is... I wish I had this when I was starting out. Could you just walk us through it? Totally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
That's important. Even if you don't end up doing this, you know, even if you don't do go on YouTube for any reason,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Nothing gets people on this podcast more excited than when the guest starts sharing the screen. Oh, like dopamine. Just let's go. All right. Patty's sharing the screen. What do you got?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
It's hard to make two videos every week. It's really, really hard. It's not impossible. I do two to three pods a week, which is really hard. Because I'm not a creator, so to speak. I'm running businesses, so finding the time to do it. But I think the key is, when you're going through this, at least this list for yourself is, What would it look like so that I can actually make two videos per week?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
What would need to exist? Would I need a full-time editor? Would I need someone to help me research ideas? What would that look like? What is the cost for that? And then what do I think the ROI could be? And actually doing a financial model for YouTube. I don't think a lot of people do that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I guess I think about it more like SEO. When you think about SEO... you think about, okay, I'm going to spend $5,000 a month to create X amount of pieces of content. And then based on that, I'm going to get Y amount of visits. And then each visit is worth, you know, Z amount of cents.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So I think that, and this is probably something that you can use chat GPT to help you actually like, you know, pretend you're a financial model or modeler for Mr. Beast, you know, pretend like you're starting a new channel and you're starting from scratch and you have no help from anyone else. Maybe you have one Twitter account with 600 followers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Assuming I create two videos per week, what do you think, based on X, Y, Z, and then you get a first version of a financial model and then from that you can edit it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, I think this is like the broccoli kind of thing, which is like, I don't know what we're going to title this pod, but
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
All right, let's keep going.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
By the way, Matt, I think what we should do is you should title this podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like in terms of selecting the niche, I know we're selecting it using the triple Venn diagram, but That feels very human to me. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. That's how I picked my niche with startup ideas. It's not like I was like, oh, there's demand with startup ideas. It was what interests me. Do you have any tips for people with how to jumpstart your ability to find your niche?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah. And sometimes you're like, you're in the eye of the hurricane of the niche. So you know exactly what, what a particular niche or community is feeling at the moment, which allows you to create really well. Um, but sometimes, and, and people let me know if you want me to create a separate video or podcast around using some of these tools and to come up with ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Um, because I, I, I do find that that's helpful to like using view stats and some of these tools. Totally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Were they using tools or it's more like they're drinking Red Bull and coming up with ideas?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Side note, startup idea, someone needs to build an agent that does that for people. Basically, you put in your niche and then based on a bunch of sub-niches, it brings you formats and content that you should look at to help get you to come up with ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So I do do it. I do three thumbnails and then we do two to three backup thumbnails.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah. And I noticed like I, just the other day I got a comment being like, bro, stop changing your thumbnails, you know? And I do hate to see that. It might not be a great experience for people who might not see a video when it first comes out and be like, oh, I don't have time for this right now. I'll get to it later. And then they have issues finding it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But guys, I'm trying to get the videos to be seen here. You know what I mean? Try to get that comment section going. So I do do it and have noticed it helps.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, maybe it was like, it sounds like it was, that was actually the first time I ever got it. So I didn't even know that was a thing. But yeah, maybe he was like on his phone and then he came home. And yeah, so you're right. Do this, you know. And then what do you recommend for tools in order to create thumbnails? Like is Canva okay or? What do you, what do you say?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Cool. I mean, I, I would, I will use this, you know what I'm saying? You know? So it's like, I don't like plugs when they're just plugs, but when it's going to help people and save them time and money, that's, you know, it's my duty to, to go and, and, and show people these things. So yeah, this looks great.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Right. So I think the prompt there for people is, if I doubled my effort here... what would that look like and how would that affect the product, which is the video?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
This is kind of like we talked about on the channel before, the idea of a swipe file. So this is kind of like a swipe file for YouTube. So a place where you've curated what you think are the most interesting videos. I think, of course, titles and thumbnails is one thing. But for me, I think that's really important.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But equally as important is the formats and just trying to stay ahead of the formats because they're always changing. um and they get uh like a format could work work work work work and then all of a sudden not work so um this is step eight is you kind of have to do it if you want to win and something i think about this on it as well is like i find a lot of it is about
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Cool. I think, uh, I forgot the name of the creator, but I saw a creator do this where he kept a Google Sheet of every improvement he made on each YouTube video he did. So I think that could be really cool. I kind of want to do that. Because otherwise you forget and you're not as conscious about it. So I think creating a Google Sheet could be cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You'll know more about YouTube than 99% of people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
That's what I'm talking about, man. I feel like I'm not doing enough ideas. I'm looking at this and I'm like... I'm the idea guy and I'm not doing enough ideas. I feel like you do really, what I'm learning from you just taking me through this is you have to force yourself is the wrong word, maybe add systems so that you're really putting out the ideas. It does feel like a volume game.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
TikTok has some like evergreen longevity of content, but by the time we launched this podcast, actually it'll be January 15th. So it'll still be live. But, um, Yes, I hear you. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I was thinking of putting on my website, gregeisenberg.com, a little suggestion box, like a content suggestion box, where people can actually just give me suggestions on what they want to hear. So I'm going to try to do that. And I think that getting the communities what they want to hear about is just like no brainer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
A hundred percent. And sometimes you actually get community feedback and you're like, oh no, not at all. I don't want to do that. Like I want to do the opposite of that. And it just like clears your mind. But either way, if it's good feedback or bad feedback, you're still really, it does help sharpen, sharpen the ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas. or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description. My question to, I'm just looking at this, I'm like, yeah, I buy that videos are digital assets.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
you're like super powerful, wealthy, crushing it. I do think that anyone could have, you know, some form of that. It's just about packaging it in a way that is your unfair advantage.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Maybe we should replace, instead of having Patty as the thumbnail, we'll just put a girl and see if anyone, like Patty, like P-A-T-T-Y, you know? Yeah. And just like put, we'll use AI to make long hair. Yeah. And who knows?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But when I think about making content for myself, one of the things I've noticed is if I newsjack, meaning if I create a video that is based on some news event. Like TikTok is shutting down, here's the five things you need to do. Those videos end up outperforming by two, three, four, five X. So how should people think about newsjacking timely content versus what you call evergreen content?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
The thumbnail is the equivalent of... the dentist asking if you floss twice a day. And it's like you tell them, yeah, of course, I floss twice a day. And then you see the look on the dentist's face and she's like, there's no way this guy is flossing twice a day. I've seen this guy's teeth. I've seen those gums. Maybe you're flossing three times a week on a good week. That's thumbnails.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And could newsjack content become evergreen content?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
A bit of a cheat sheet. That's an understatement. Thank you. Dude, you've been really generous with your time and knowledge. Thank you so much. For people who made it to the end,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I was looking outside and I noticed that when we started recording, it was light and now it's dark. So it's good. I think people... In 90 minutes or so, people can actually go through this and really have a good primer around and plan to actually go and execute their YouTube channel. I think that YouTube is criminally underrated for entrepreneurs.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I think a lot of us go to X and LinkedIn and places like that. But I'm happy you shared the gospel. And Patty, I'll see you on X.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah. Yeah. And also sometimes I've noticed that there'd be these videos that actually I thought were timely at the time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
weren't timely and then like six months later and just become timely or become more timely you know what i mean it's just like i think of a i think of a youtube video and i'm curious your perspective on this i think of a youtube video is like a bet and i'm just like okay i'm putting this out there and the time scale for me is two years
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like I need to think about will this video get, and for me, my metric is comments and likes. If, if I see, like I, I care about views way less than comments and likes because the comments and likes to me tell me, am I pulling on the heartstrings of people? Am I actually creating value? Am I actually getting them to think? Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
if i do that then to me it's worth reinvesting in content in video content because it yeah i was worried where you were going to go at that point for a second
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
What are we learning today, Paddy?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
quite um like a tribe of people into similar things i guess that's a really good like noise indicator of how well you've done well i think i think for me like what gets me really excited is when people use the comment section as like a social network i think that's a good milestone for any creator so when you when people for example a startup ideas podcast
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
if people are like, I really like this idea, I'm looking for a co-founder and someone, like people have commented before, be like, DM me on Twitter or whatever. To me, that's like, you know, a sign that what you've built is working.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
It sounds like you're doing a very manual process in terms of responding to influencers, reaching out to influencers. There's probably a lot of ways that you can automate a lot of it. Especially with AI, you can just feed a list of, here's my niche and here's the 100 influencers and hit them up every week with
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
or every two weeks with an email saying, hey, are you willing to, your price is X, we're willing to pay you half X. Here's one more idea. There's one more idea. I mean, every idea births another idea is the issue, is my constant issues. I'm constantly having, when I come up with an idea, I'm like, oh, that's a good idea, or that's a bad idea, but you know, Oh, what if we change this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
And Oh, that could do this, you know? So there's, that's the idea maze. That's why they call it the maze. And yeah, I'm definitely always in it. But yeah, I love that. I think a lot of people go towards ads as a, they're just, it's just the easiest way, you know, it's so simple to set up an ad campaign and,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
But I do think that the micro-influencers, particularly when you're reaching out to them, there's a lot of alpha there. Not sure how long that alpha is going to last, that arbitrage is going to last, because as more and more marketplaces come up, the prices, I'd imagine, end up becoming more visible. It's kind of like how real estate was.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
in real, you know, today in real estate, you know, you have the MLS. So you have basically a database of all the different, at least in North America. Um, I don't know how it works in Turkey, but, um, In North America, you have this system and it's basically, you can set up alerts and you can see everything that's in the system.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
But back in the day, when things weren't online, you might have seen a building for sale and they listed it at 200,000 and it was really worth 600,000. But because they didn't have access to the data... It was wildly underpriced. It was a mispriced asset. And I think you're starting to see the same thing with that kind of concept. We're in that era with influencers right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Not everything is available. Actually, we're in that area specifically with micro-influencers. In influencers, mega-influencers, I feel like there's very little mispriced attention. But when it comes to smaller creators and smaller accounts, there is a ton of opportunity to get something that's worth $1,000 for $200. Yeah. I mean, I was just...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. I think the supply of... creators and influencers is going up and up. And especially with faceless YouTube channels and faceless accounts in general, meme pages, if the ability to create content becomes a lot easier, then more content exists, meaning more competition for eyeballs, which means that the monopoly that creators have become smaller and smaller.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
That's why I think right now is such a beautiful time to be creating products. And I don't know, like I said, I don't know how long this lasts, but it's beautiful because, as you said, number one, it's cheaper than ever to create. There's a mispriced influencer and creator opportunities. And number three, there's the ability to use
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
AI to enhance support and systematize and automate a lot of content. So you have these three things and it's just a beautiful time to be building. I want to segue to your and talk about ideas around directories, because when I think of directories, to me, you're like the directory king.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
And I just want you to talk about why are you building directories, and do you have any specific ideas that you can give away around directories?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah. So people are bought in. I mean, I don't know how you listen to that and aren't bought in. I think the idea around people, there's so much... and so much content that people just want a trusted source makes sense to, I think, a lot of people. And we talk about directories like, oh yeah, it's been around for the last few years.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
But the reality is, since the internet existed, directories have been a thing. Organizing information. From the first day. It's not the first day. And you have publicly traded companies Angie, which was formerly called Angie's List, does billion three in revenue. So big businesses that basically are just databases of curated content trusted people and people are willing to pay for it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
So that's what I like about directories too. I mean, it's proven, it's trusted. And you said the magic words, which is, it started to get uncool. If something started to get uncool, what does that mean if you're listening to this? It means if it's uncool, there's arbitrage. There's opportunity to come in and find something that's mispriced and do something. So yes. Now, We're bought in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
What directory ideas do you have for us?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
So is the idea there that, I'm going to go find validated English directories and then I'm just going to apply, let's say French, I'm going to apply my language, French, to it and then localize it to, for example, France and Canada and Senegal and French-speaking countries. Is that the idea? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah. I mean, you're talking to a guy. I mean, I'm literally sitting in a place where 94% of the people here where I'm sitting speak French as their first language. So, you know, there are... The American POV is always focused on America. It's such a big market. And it's true in a lot of ways. It is such a big market and it's an amazing market.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
But that doesn't mean that with what's happening around the ease to create directories and creating new tools, and we talked about audiences and stuff like that, why not just take something that's working and apply it to a local market? I think it makes a lot of sense. And again, this is not something that we're reinventing. Do you remember Rocket Internet? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
yeah yeah exactly yeah right those those guys in germany that basically would look at popular silicon valley startups that raised a ton of money and be like okay great ebay is popping off in the US. Let's go create the eBay for North Africa. It was a brilliant idea. I think their downfall a little bit was that they went public. But the idea of rocket internet, cash flowing makes a lot of sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
I think that's a huge idea. So this is a really, John, I hope you know, you're given a really good idea over here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Absolutely. So you were saying before I got really excited about that idea that you had a second idea around directories. What was that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah, and people will pay for growth is the other thing that people don't talk about, which is if you're able to generate customers for a startup, people are willing to basically share in the revenues. It's a revenue split, basically. So I think that what sort of prompt could you give to people in terms of... You know, how do you come up with an idea for, you know, in the space?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
So what would be an example prompt that you'd use with ChatGPT?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Well, I think what it is, is great entrepreneurs bet heavily when the odds are stacked in their favor. So what you're doing, the process that you're mentioning is pretty methodical. There's a lot of steps associated with it. So it's less creative in that sense. It's less, I'm taking a blank canvas and I'm drawing something beautiful and putting it out into the world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
And it's more like a science experiment. But what it does is when you use things like Google Keyword Planner is it reduces your risk and allows you to build something when the odds are stacked in your favor. You know that with a certain percentage
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
of probability that this is going to hit some level of success and of course it's going to be a numbers game so just like you know betting it's just you have to i don't think and correct me if i'm wrong i don't think that you're going to hit chat chat gpt what are high search terms uh directory stuff and then you pick the first one and it happens to you know
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
I think this is something that you have to apply a portfolio approach. Try multiple of them. But I think the key is you're reducing risk along the way. John, we're going to end it here because there's too much. There's too much goodness. I want people to check out John at his ex-account. He just posts every single day what he's learning in real time. building his 20 businesses is at JohnRushX.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
And he's also got a list of all his many projects, JohnRush.me. Check it out. And it's inspiring because I think the model that you're applying is really the future of building startups. So thank you for sharing it with us.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Of course. Later. Thanks, everyone.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
You were telling me about a startup idea you had around wait lists. Can you talk more about that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
If you're anything like me, you've got a ton of design work that you need. Websites, landing pages, emails, social assets, you name it. But you don't just want beautiful landing pages or beautiful websites. You want the stuff that's going to convert. You want the stuff that's going to actually drive value. That's where design scientist dot com comes in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
it's an agency that for one monthly price will do all your design work all your copy work all your engineering and do stuff that actually scales your revenue you don't need a designer you need a design scientist let's go designscientist.com i liked it so much i invested in the business
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
John Rush, Startup Ideas podcast. He's finally on. He's a fellow idea junkie. This guy is pushing out. I mean, what, you have 20 businesses now?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah, so this is a really smart idea because no one's doing it, you know? Yeah, yeah. No one is doing it. And of course there's marketplaces for startups like Acquire.com and Flippa, but also there's no marketplace for what you're describing, which is basically... What you're describing is... is let us do all the work for validating a startup idea. Let us get you your first 100,000 customers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah. You've got, John has 20 businesses that he's running, $2 million ARR, 10 million users that are B2B to see, 100,000 plus users on B2B. Come on, this guy is one of us. Welcome, John. Welcome, my friend. Good to have you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
And then once the uncertainty is taken away, a lot of the uncertainty, we are going to hand that over to you, but you are going to pay us a premium for that. It's a win-win situation because the person who's inheriting that new product, they didn't have to go through all that hassle of going through the idea maze, finding those customers. As you said, finding customers isn't easy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
Now all of a sudden, they can buy something for cheap because if they would have went on one of the startup marketplaces or buy a startup, you know, that's established, that's going to be already too expensive. So this is like a cheaper version of that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
And that's way too expensive. So you glossed over something that I think is really important that I want to unpack a little bit. So you said... You prefer influencers right now over ads and you're seeing rates like $300 for $100,000 views. Could you walk us through how you think about, how do you acquire these or how do you do these deals with these influencers? How do you reach out to them?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
What is your process to do this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he shared these $1M+/year startup ideas
All right, so what is on your mind right now? What sort of ideas and trends would you be willing to share with our audience?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I would say one thing you can do is get all the data around competition. Seeing where you sit in competition I think is really helpful. So make a list of all the data points around what people are selling it for. Take that data, go into Claude, let's say, and do a prompt. Be like, hey, I need you to help me price this. You're my pricing partner. Pretend like you're
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
the best pricing expert on the planet. I always say, pretend you work at Walmart or you're the head of pricing at Walmart and the best in the world and you get paid a million dollars a year to do this. And here's the data. I want to price this product. What do you think I should be priced at and why?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
And that, if you're like a solo indie hacker type person, just going back and forth with AI will help refine what your first price should be. Yeah, it's crazy good though. Yeah. And then the other thing to note about pricing, and by the way, comment on YouTube if you want us to do or you're interested in a pricing episode.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
You're here, man. You're here. And you came prepared too, which I love. So you've got a list of a bunch of ideas. And I take your ideas very seriously because you've been able to build a pretty big audience on YouTube. You've made money. in revenue, millions of dollars at this point. So which one of these ideas do you want to start with? Because they're all pretty interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I don't know if people are down for that, but I think you can always change your price too, right? Yeah. Yes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Who do you think does pricing well? What are examples of people who do pricing well? Before we move on to the next startup idea, I just have to ask selfishly. Examples from indie hikers or any company? Could be anything, any company.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I'm interested in it because I'm just interested in companies that do pricing well, because I think there's this shift happening right now to your point, which is like people are getting sick of monthly subscriptions. And so I'm just interested on who's innovating or who's doing interesting things in pricing. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and ai that could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses i wanted that i didn't want to have to rely on mark zuckerberg i didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses i wanted to rank high in google that's why i like seo and that's why i use boringmarketing.com and that's why i invested in it
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah, I think that's like the pay-per-usage model, which is the more you use it, the more... In theory, you're happy because, oh, you're making all this money there and you're happy to give them a cut. And if you're not making a lot of money, then you don't give them a cut. But the reality is it would be great if it was a sliding scale, meaning maybe it's 2.9%, let's say 3%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I don't know what Stripe fees are, but let's just say for the sake of this conversation, that's 3%. up until 100,000 of sales. And then for 100,000 to a million, it's 2%. And then a million and more, it's 1%. Man, yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
That is really smart. That is really smart. Like no one's doing that. Yeah. Yeah. That makes me want to ship something and just try it just to see. That's amazing. Okay. Um, moving on to your next idea and idea number two, what do you, what do you got? All right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
So you would have to... So I buy the thesis, which is gamification helps people do things and create streaks and results. So, but how would you like, which vertical is most interesting? You know, would you, I think sleep is really interesting. Um, but by the way, sleep, like I'll show you right now, like I use eight sleep, the mattress and it's like a smart mattress.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
And the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I check my sleep fitness score. There you go. And so I slept well last night, 99%. Um, And then you can see like your REM sleep and your deep sleep. So you can see that I like, you know, it's gamified. Like this is gamified. Yeah, yeah. You're not wearing any ring or anything. Is it the mattress tell you that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Just the mattress tells me that. I don't know how it does it. I don't ask questions.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah, and it's funny because sometimes the bad ideas end up being the good ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Wait, so Pokemon Sleep is making $100 million a year? Did I hear that correctly? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
It's pretty insane. Okay, wow. I'm just reading this now. This is absolutely bonkers. They have... They made $100 million on 9.8 million downloads. So... That's pretty crazy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Okay, so here's the unlock. Here's the idea. The idea is this. The idea is we all know the things that people want to do. Sleep better, eat better, all the things. You can ask Claude, you can ask whoever, you can ask your mom. These things don't change. Human beings don't change.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
We all know that gamification, leaderboard, status, badges, streaks is a product design tool that helps people achieve their goal. It sounds like, what is the unlock that Pokemon Sleep has done? Well, they've licensed... the intellectual property of Pokemon, and they've added that to this whole concept of gamification, et cetera.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
So the question is, the way I'm thinking about this, and I'm like really excited about this, as you can see, is what is an opportunity to license a brand and just basically, the idea is this, it's Pokemon Sleep for Axe. You license the IP. And by the way, someone's going to be listening to this and say, well, yeah, easy for them. They probably paid so much money for Pokemon.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah, exactly. And sometimes you just got to put it out there and make it ugly and just see what happens. And it strikes a chord and you're like, wow, I actually can't believe how bad of an idea this is, but it's actually... interesting to people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
And you'd be surprised... like how cheap some of these licenses are to, uh, to get, to get, um, maybe not Pokemon, but like to get amazing licenses for nostalgic intellectual property, you'd be surprised how cheap they are. I don't want to, uh, I don't want to say who it is cause it's, it's someone everyone knows, but there's someone who I know who got the license, like went to, um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Basically, what do they call it? Like a French, not a franchise. It's like an intellectual property conference, licensing conference in Las Vegas. He got a Star Wars for some apparel. He basically bought the Star Wars license for some apparel line. And he thought it was going to cost, he's like, Star Wars is huge, right? And he's like, oh my God, it's going to cost millions of dollars a year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
And it ended up costing $50,000 for the first two years. and some percentage of sale. I think it was like two or three percentage. But now all of a sudden you can do Facebook ads with Star Wars on it. So, huge. Yeah, that's crazy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Dude, you need to build that idea because that idea is so smart. Think about. During the Web3 craze, there was an app called Sweatcoin. I don't know if you saw this, but it was basically based on the amount of steps that you took, they would give you this coin. So it gamified walking. Think about credit card points.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
The more you use your credit card, the more... I think credit card points meets GitHub... commit idea is a massive idea. If you could be the place that people, like the more I commit, the more points I get. And yes, there's a leaderboard, but it also allows me to redeem for something. I think that's the idea that you should do. There you go, man. That is my way.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
There's a financial incentive, yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I need a notepad right here. That's a successful Startup Ideas podcast when you have to pull out your notepad and you're like, okay, let me just take a note on that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Cool. We have time for one last idea. Can I pick one? Okay. Because there's one I'm curious about that I've thought about for many years. I almost don't want to bring it up, but we'll bring it up because I said it already. Legal for entrepreneurs. What do you mean by that? Oh, okay. I thought it was your idea. No.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I've been exploring this in the space for a few years now, but I haven't built anything in this space. So I'm curious what you mean by legal for entrepreneurs.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I think so too. I use Stripe Atlas to set up my companies. It's just integrated with Stripe, obviously. It makes it pretty easy. But I wish there was someone I could talk to at Stripe Atlas too. Sometimes I'm like, I don't know if I should start an LLC versus S Corp. You know what I mean? It feels like there's an opportunity to make it a little more educational and have a more premium version.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I guess the idea I have here is more of a premium version of Stripe Atlas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah, I mean, so the example I'll use is we set up an LLC for one of our businesses in the States. And it started making a bunch of money. And we didn't realize that we should have converted it to an escort. Which is another type of corporation. And that cost us hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of taxes. And we would have set it up probably as an escort from the beginning.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Um, but we didn't know because we were just on Tribe Atlas. Um, so I wonder, so if you think about like legal, there's as a spectrum, right? On one end of the spectrum, you have, um, calling your, like calling my Manhattan name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
lawyer paying my manhattan lawyer eleven hundred dollars an hour to set up a company which is something we've done before you know which sucks like take it's painful literally so painful that you know just it hurts my soul that that's one end of the spectrum and the other end of the spectrum you have self-serve striped atlas type products that for like a couple hundred bucks get you all set up it feels like there's something in the middle
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
And you're American. I mean, you're from Canada, so... I'm a green card holder. So I live in the US now, mostly. But I'm still... It's, it's basically, I'm like an American. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah. I pay taxes in the U S I don't pay taxes to Canada. Okay.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
That's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't even consider opening a company outside Canada or the US. To me, it was like, that's where I would open a company because that's all I know. But you're right. There are probably other places that I should have considered for a bunch of reasons.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Like it's number one question. So I guess Stripe Atlas for indie hackers with maybe a little more support is probably an interesting idea. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
I'm going to go there and boom. I like it. There's something here. Someone in the comment section is going to be like, I'm going to do something. So I'm happy you flagged it and I appreciate it. Marc, merci. I appreciate you coming on and spending time with us. Where could people get to know you and your products a little bit more?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Beautiful. Check it out. I'm a big fan and hopefully you come on the pod again sometime. Cheers, man. It was nice having you. All right. Take care.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
So yeah, you're right. Everyone knows something, but how do you know, just because you know something doesn't mean the thing that you know is what someone wants to buy necessarily. So for example, It might be way easier to sell someone how to build a SaaS online than it is to sell someone how to make ceramics or pottery or cups.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Maybe there's a big market for that, but I just know that the customer value for... how to build SaaS maybe is bigger than maybe the ceramics. So the question to you is, how do you think about the customer here and how much they're willing to pay? Or does it matter?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
You need to build that idea because that idea is so smart. I'll build that with you. I need a notepad right here. That's a successful Startup Ideas podcast and you have to pull out your notepad and you're like, okay, let me just take a note on that. All right. I am so excited to have you, Mark, on the show, on the Startup Ideas podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash flowing business is waiting for you. So that's really interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
So when you were saying, you know, everyone knows something, basically package it up and you can sell it. I was thinking more of like a hobby or something like that. But what you're saying is actually, no, you might just know something about life. Meaning you might know... just some life hack, basically, like how to sleep better.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
And if you write out, like as a prompt, what are the 10 life hacks that you've learned in your life? Maybe it's how to get to the gym consistently. And then what you're saying is, okay, write down all the life hacks and Write a PDF. You can even use tools like gamma.app, which is kind of a really, it's like a tool to really make lead magnets quite easily that I've been using. Have you seen it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah. Yeah, I've been obsessed with it recently. If you go to their website, it doesn't say, like, we make lead magnets. But I use it for lead magnets. And I use it for just making beautiful websites out of content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah, I think the counter argument that someone makes when they hear something like this is they go, okay, great. How to sleep better. Like I'm going to go make, maybe I can make $50,000 a year with this. But I think what you're saying is, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what you're saying is that could just be the starting place. Meaning once you put out this PDF around how to sleep,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
You might have an idea for a sleep supplement or, I don't know, like an eye mask business, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
If you were, let's just say you were creating a digital product around how to sleep better, what are your next steps? Like, okay, you have the idea and then, you know, how do you name it? How do you, you know, what, how do you generate traffic to it? Like, how do you think about growing a digital product like that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Okay, so if we're talking about something very simple, like creating an ebook to sleep better,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah, and I want to say one quick thing on this. So, dude, I... and I applaud you for doing this, but I was, I was for a while, I was recording the direct to camera videos where I'd be like, here's the 10 ways to do X, Y, Z. And I, and I, you know, would do these videos and I hated it. I hated it, man. Like I, I really, really, it felt really unnatural to me. And, um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Whereas on Twitter and writing and even doing these long-form podcasts, it feels very natural to me. But writing a script and staring into the camera made me feel very weird. And sometimes feeling weird is... It's not really feeling weird, actually. Uncomfortable. Sometimes feeling uncomfortable is the necessary evil you need to go through in order to do something great.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
But at a certain point, I was just unhappy and I hated doing it. So I think the question for people, if they're going to document their path, you have to ask yourself, which format is good for you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
Yeah. And I think about format a lot too. So what you mean by format is. Like saying I did that today and not you should do that. Right. And, and, and how do you like, so a lot of people are going to agree with you. Yeah. A format, but how do you, How do you develop your own format?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
On my Mount Rushmore of indie hackers, I've got Peter Levels, I've got Danny Postma, and I definitely have Mark Liu. So I finally got you to come on. I agree to come on the pod. You're here and welcome.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
There's a lot of content around developing your own voice, but developing your own voice is very different than developing a format that is going to work and get shared by people. How do you think about that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
it's almost like you should create your own creator Mount Rushmore for your formats meaning pick three or four people who you really look up to and then write down what is the one or two things that you take away from their content that you want to implement into yours and then from that go and experiment with different formats exactly that cool All right. And then, okay.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to become a solopreneur (3 $1M+ startup ideas)
So then you start creating content and how do you, you know, how do you sell the PDF? How do you think about pricing it? Um, or ebook?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And you might not be able to afford this $3,500 eight-sleep mattress today. But in... six months, if that's your goal, then you can, you can save up for it. And what I like about it is it, it, it makes the merchant, like they can use this as a marketing thing. So you're getting them and it's at the point of sale. So they have the traffic. So you're swimming downstream, swimming downstream.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
So that's my, my question for you, which is like, how do you make, how do you make a business like this more, more swimming downstream versus swimming upstream? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
You know, what the idea is, why you think it's interesting, how you'd start them, how you'd grow them. Just give people all that sauce. And let's run.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
So... Or even worse, like luxury goods, right? Like you just bought, you know, a Louis Vuitton purse for $12,000, but it really cost, you know, $28. Yeah. So... yeah, I think, uh, you're circling around something that I think, uh, could be really a really good business idea. I think going back to your Apple pay, uh, idea, I think that's really smart.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
I think if I was trying to create a business idea around that, I would probably call it something like angel or devil, like an angel or a devil, you know, uh, an angel or devil decision. And it's like, you just, you just, you know, it's one in the morning and you get an Uber, an Uber Eats, you know, pay, Apple Pay notification. And then you get like a DM from,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
from, you know, angel or devil saying like, you probably shouldn't have done that. And I think the bigger idea is it's like a financial coach in your pocket that could be, that's just a lot more casual and does help you hit your goals and does know your goals. And, you know, this is like an AI coach basically.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
But it's a bit more whimsical and it's a bit more fun to help you actually like reach your goals and stuff like that. So I think that, that's something that could be a good business. Um, because I think, again, it's like one of those things that could go viral, has that viral moment. Um, and, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And I do think that you're tapping into this macro trend around people are really stressed right now around costs of any items, products, services, anything. Inflation is like top of mind. I don't even think people knew what the word inflation meant five years ago. Literally, you know, there's like, oh, inflation.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah, I think I remember, you know, that like, isn't that, you know, isn't that like an economics term? Like, what does that even mean? Now it's like people can't afford their lives, period. Yeah. And so I think that there's a ton of opportunities to create a set of products around that. So there's something here. I'm just not sure it's exactly the anti-spend app. What's your next idea?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
So I love this idea. There has been a lot of I'll give an analogy here. to this app. One of the most popular apps on the App Store is the Xero app, which is tracking your intermittent fasting. They literally have 500,000 five-star reviews on the App Store. People love it. They took a trend, intermittent fasting, And they just made it way more fun to see how many calories you're burning.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
When did your fast start? When did it end? Seeing your results. Just did an incredible job. And I think that the zerofication of all these things just... create a beautiful app, make it purpose-built, add game dynamics, add a social element. It's just going to work in so many categories.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And the word of mouth of these businesses is so great because how many people do you go, and I don't know about you, but at least myself, a lot of people, I just hear people telling me, oh, I'm intermittent fasting, I'm intermittent fasting. It's like the cold plunge community, right? They love talking about hi, my name is Greg and I cold plunge. That's the first thing they're talking about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
So with vaping, which has become a real problem and people are addicted to, I know one person in particular, a friend of mine, he tries to get off it and he really struggles. So I think that I like this idea. I wonder if you can add a financial element to it. So what if... I could donate to Nir's anti... If Nir hits 100 days without vaping, I'll give them $50.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And maybe companies could also support people as well. And so there's that additional incentive there and peer pressure to continue the streak. So that's just one idea for you. And so I do like this idea and... I think that with the model of Xero, all you really need is just the name, which actually this name is really good. A catchy name. Some beautiful designs.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And then you can just go on an Upwork or something like that and just be like, hey, I'm trying to build this. I'm trying to build an MVP. Try to build something pretty cheap. Get some micro-influencers to start promoting it. And then you're probably going to want to add some paid features where, you know, for more power features, you'll charge a monthly fee for it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
People are going to want to spend money and support this app because Again, you're helping them get off something that's very deadly. So I do really like this app for a lot of reasons.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Well, it's the Octalysis framework. Have you heard of that framework?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Okay, so Octalysis framework is for anyone who's thinking about creating a product that feels like a game. And so it's really just a checklist of all the things that you need to do. And I find it super helpful and I use it in most of the products I create. So number one is epic meaning and calling. So the drive to become part of something bigger than ourselves.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Number two, development and accomplishment, the drive to level up, improve, and achieve mastery. Number three, empowerment of creativity and feedback, the drive to use one's creativity and adjusting through feedback. Number four, ownership and possession, the drive to collect, accumulate, and organize.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Number five, social influence and relatedness, the drive to collaborate, compete, and express social appreciation. Number six, scarcity and impatience, the drive to obsess over what we see but cannot have. Number seven, unpredictability and curiosity, the drive to crave what is unpredictable and new.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And lastly, number eight, loss and avoidance, the drive to avoid what is undesirable or changing one's behavior. So this like, this octalysis framework, it's by a guy named Yuku Chu, is just a really helpful kind of like shorthand checklist of if you're creating something like this, like the zero app for X, it'll just, okay, I need, you know, call it epic meaning calling.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
So, and I think there's probably a thousand startup ideas that you can do just by looking at what's trending on TikTok in terms of challenges and making it easier for those people to do those challenges.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Like what, you know, how can I make this feel bigger than themselves? Or I need to, you know, you know, social influence the drive to collaborate and compete. So it just gives you these little reminders. And it works like it just works. So, Yeah, you know, I think that, yeah, it works.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah. What's your next idea?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
What you're talking about is the Starbucks app for kids. Yeah. That's what you're talking about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
I have a Starbucks app. This podcast is called the Startup Ideas Podcast. A lot of our listeners like to call it SIP. SIP, S-I-P. I've been sipping on a lot of nitro cold brew recently. I've been earning stars.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Literally stars. So for people listening, I'm showing my Starbucks app, which I know makes me sound super basic, but the nitro cold brew takes you to outer space and gets you in the zone. And it's basically, you know, you've got your star balances. It makes you feel good. There's basically a leaderboard of things that you can get. There's different offers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And you can just have a similar thing for kids. It's the same concept, but for kids. The way the Starbucks app works is you go and let's say you order a nitro cold brew and it's $5.00. you know, they scan the barcode, which is essentially your payment. And then you get the stars. And you can have a similar thing where it's like a QR code for scanning, like for completion and stuff like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah, it's a thing. From what I understand, it's a lot less popular today than it was 20 years ago. Um, yeah, but it's still a thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And yeah, man, I think this is like a really cool idea. I actually think that you can create, like the future phone for kids is called the star phone. And it's like built around this whole concept.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
So I think it's a cool idea. I think like, okay, tactically, like, you know, you don't want to start with the, you know, building a phone because that costs a lot of money. But I do think that, you know, building an app, make it super simple, let people like, you know, set what they're trying to incentivize, make it fun.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Where it's different than a Starbucks app is like, when I opened the Starbucks app, it's like this green, it kind of feels sterile. Like, how do you make it feel super fun? Make it feel like a video game.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like we're coming, like one of the themes in a lot of your ideas is pick something that's, you know, people don't want to do, that's boring, that's hard to do, that requires effort and make it fun. Tie a financial incentive a lot of the times, not in this case with kids, but there is some incentive there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
um, for the kids to complete it and, and then come up with a catchy name. Like that's, that's your, that's your thesis. It sounds, you know, am I, am I missing anything?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah, I mean, the thesis is algorithm breaking products.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
That's the stuff that's going to get shared and it's stuff that's going to, you know, really works now. So I do like that thesis. We have time for two more ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
This is probably my favorite idea that you dropped today just because it has the least amount of risk and it's the easiest to start. And I've actually talked about this before that scientific papers have all so much good data in it, but it's just hard to break through. So if you could, to your point, own the format. And I do really like the idea around there's some input from you
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
your own history, that sort of thing. I think that personalization piece is going to get open rates up, click-through rates up, more engagement. Going back to monetization, who's spending the most amount of money right now? It's people who are trying to live forever. The Brian Johnson community is who you want to target. The don't die community. I think there's Uh, this is really similar.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
I think this is a trend, like this is a great trend to be building in and, uh, I like it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Do we want a weird idea or do we want... If you were trying to make a million dollars in the next 12 months, which idea would you pick?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
No, I thought you were just having like a stroke over there. I thought you were having like a Joe Biden moment, you know, at the debate.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
So, yeah, it's like, why would you even try to build the product, you know, at first? I mean, isn't the move just to do the research for...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Well, that's why I think having a personal brand is probably helpful there, that you're not just some random person from the internet reaching out. So maybe if you don't have a personal brand, you haven't done this, you haven't done that, at least partner with someone who has that. So you can say like, hey, my co-founder is this person. She has 100,000 followers in this space.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
We love your product. I think white labeling...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
probably makes more sense than acquiring first because acquiring is just you don't know if it's going to work it's going to require more capital so I'd love the idea of white labeling and I guess at the very worst you can go to them and be like hey listen I'll buy your products wholesale so you're just you know you're they're making money and if they're like no we won't buy it wholesale it's like okay I'll buy your products retail and with all the brand work you're going to do and all the influencer work that you're going to do you'll be able to
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
you know, charge a lot for it. Um, so I think it's interesting. I, I'm always wary of physical products. Um, but, uh, it's, it would probably be a fun, like, this is something like a fun week, two weeks just to like explore and see if you're able to find these products, reach out to them. And, uh, yeah, it doesn't take up too much capital, right? You just need like a, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
a really dope brand, color palette, positioning, and you're off to the races.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
And that's where we're going to end it because I totally agree. Nir... I had high hopes for this podcast and you obviously over-delivered. I love these ideas. You're criminally under-followed. I think you have like 5,000 X followers. So where could people find you and get more of you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
I love it. Keep doing it. And if you made it this far... Comment on YouTube. We'll be in the comments replying, looking around. Like on YouTube and share this with a friend. Share these ideas with a friend. You might find a co-founder or they might tell you that these ideas are dumb. And that's a whole, you know, that's maybe what you need to hear. So thank you, Nir.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
This has been real and I'll catch you later. Thanks.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah. I mean, the thesis is algorithm breaking products. That's the stuff that's going to get shared and it's stuff that's going to, you know, really works now. So I do like that thesis. Okay. New character unlocked. Near. I had to... I stalked you on the internet because I saw that you posted some banger ideas. Verified bangers. And I was like, I need to get this guy on the pod sharing the ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
future parents actually share the link like is this during their wedding is this during like hey you know we're thinking of having a kid um fund it is this like my wife's pregnant, you know, we're pregnant. And you know, when, when is the right time?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
or one of those event platforms, but for baby showers or gender reveals. So this is really smart because you create the utility for that moment. So you essentially create like a SaaS product. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Then once you have them hooked, it's like, oh, you know, hey, now we have this like widget that is basically like the donate widget. And I think the way to do it and like the viral moment is let's say you give $100. you don't show that it's a hundred dollars. You show that it's, you know, $10,000 in 2055. Yes, exactly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah, totally. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah. So that's what you do. So, and then you allow those people to share that moment. So let's say I donate a hundred, a hundred dollars. I'm not, you know, the share widget isn't, I donate a hundred dollars. No, of course not. It's the, I donated the $15,000 and then in small writing in 2056.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Assuming this level of return with the S&P 500. Yeah, exactly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Yeah, exactly. And I think that's the way, sort of a framework for people to think about how do you come up with startup ideas. One is thinking about life moments, milestones. Then think about how you create a utility around that life moment or milestone. That could be consumer or B2B. And then it's what is the... viral moment that you can reverse engineer so that you just increase.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
All right, tell me more about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
So here's what I like about this idea. I like the idea that you looked at TikTok and challenges and said, how can I unbundle this challenge into an app? So, and I think there's probably a thousand startup ideas that you can do just by looking at what's trending on TikTok in terms of challenges and making it easier for those people to do those challenges.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
Give the people what they want. And you said okay. Thank you. Thank you for coming. So all I know from you are those ideas that you shared. And... They are some of the most interesting ideas that I have seen in a long time. And I see a lot of startup ideas. So I was hoping you could just take us through some of them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
What I don't love about this app is I'm kind of like, okay, if I actually were going to go and create this app, I have to get people, as you said, pressing that button on Uber Eats for 20 pounds and getting that pizza is like, at that moment, it feels like life or death. It is so important to you. And it's almost instinctive and primal to actually go and press that button.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
This is a completely new habit that isn't fun to do. I really like business ideas that are swimming downstream instead of swimming upstream. I think that's the best way to describe it. And for me, you're getting someone to download an app, which is upstream. And then you're getting people to save, which is upstream. And then you're getting people to input their goals, which is upstream.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
I think there's a business that our agency, LCA, actually worked with. I don't know if you've seen it. It's called Accrue. Have you seen this? So they have an interesting model going after, I think, a little bit of this business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these $1M+/year startup ideas
this market where they said, okay, there's all these buy now, pay later services and it's kind of like making the world a worse place because people are buying things that they can't afford. So, What they did is they integrated into these point of sales. And instead of buying now and paying later, it's like set your account goal. And it's like this wallet where you can add funds to it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
So today I brought my friend Romain on. And the reason I brought him on is he knows which AI apps are popping, why they're popping, how to get users to these AI apps, and just go through the ecosystem and some of the tools that Romain's using. And I'm excited to have you, man. Me too. Thank you for having me. Let's do it. All right, where do you want to start?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
what people are searching on the app store and capturing that demand with a title probably that's a little more interesting than maybe what else is out there. So for example, there might be a lot of calorie counters, but there might not be a ton of AI calorie counters. There might be some sleeping sounds app names, but there might not be a lot of green noise, which is actually...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
like a kind of a newer trend. So what they're doing is they're kind of looking at trends and maybe adding some AI-ness to it just because people are interested in the space. And because of that, and because they know how to rank, which by the way is a whole other black box. ASO is not my forte at all. I'm not really sure how to do it well. But they obviously know how to do it well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so that's ASO.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
now uh the second one wait sorry just on that just on that it could be helpful for people to look at traditional trend software that isn't even specific to aso um like for example google trends a hrefs and see like what are the trends and then just going and searching on um I don't know. What is that big... There is one big ASO software tool. I think we've talked about it in the past.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Yeah, exactly. And then also checking an AppFigures to see if it makes sense from an ASO standpoint. So yeah, just for people listening, I think... Using traditional software, totally trend software, Google Trends, Glimpse, some of these trends that I've talked a lot about on the channel, go ahead and use them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
100%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
id and um yeah another one so quick ad break let me tell you about a business i invested in it's called boringmarketing.com so a few years ago i met this group of people that were some of the best seo experts in the world they were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on google
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30 day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out, highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
and keep growing the app this way so i i think it's a very interesting way to to to grow an app now do you think they do you think they're paying people to promote some of these like in the early days of these like because now it's easy right because they've got 636 000 followers so now obviously they're gonna put they know their content's gonna work so when they post the reel it's
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
you know, with a good probability chance, I'll get hundreds of thousands of views. But you think in the early days going zero to a hundred thousand, do you think that they created content and were like, you know, some of these people here, like, Hey, you know, in, in these reels be like, Hey, I'll give you a hundred dollars if you post it on your Instagram. You think they did stuff like that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Yeah, talk us through this one because I think the scale of this one especially is pretty impressive.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
MARK MIRCHANDANI- It's probably going to even be more interesting, right? Because you know that he's going to iterate on that, and there's something here. So wait, sorry. Just looking at these numbers, if I'm reading this correctly, He's doing $400,000 of revenue a month and he did 200,000 downloads last month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Because I think a lot of people here are going to be inspired and they're going to think, yeah, I want to do something like that. Especially if there's a 17-year-old kid doing something like this. It definitely inspires a lot of people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Because if it's working organically, probably going to work with paid behind it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
It looks like he's outside his high school, you know, he's like outside his high school, just like filming $400,000 a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Yeah, I want you to go through the first one and how to use AI to sort of create some of these ads as well. And that's a great place that we can end on. FRANCESC CAMPOY- Amazing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Which, by the way, is the same strategy that we talked about with the calorie tracker, which was... Before AI, there were some plant identifier content apps, which basically... It was basically like a reference book, digital, around different plans. And it helped you figure that out. Yeah, exactly. And some of them were popular.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Now, today, that doesn't really make sense when you can integrate with GPT, Anthropic, some of these other LLMs. They just took the same idea, but just made it a lot more valuable. So they've added AI to the app. Now, all of a sudden, it's way more valuable. Your click-through rates are going up. You're on your ads, on your organic, on actually downloading your app.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
So that's why you're starting to see... That's why you can build an app. And by the way, their release date is quite interesting, right? We didn't mention this, but it says their release date was 2017. So it's not like they launched this yesterday. So they probably...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
My guess is they were doing not that much revenue up until two years ago, a year and a half ago, and then all of a sudden started to scale significantly because of this evolution of AI, adding AI to the app.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
That would be great. How to make one of these ads. I think your point is really interesting, which is you need to make hundreds, if not thousands of ads in order to find the formats that's going to be working. But in the past, that would be extremely costly. And today it's not that costly because of AI.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Yeah, I think it's a few interesting things about that particular app. So one is I think it got to spot eight in the App Store. So it's kind of crazy how embedding a little AI virality into it could get you to chart so much. So I think that was really interesting. I will say the other thing I think about Verse is It's a really hard product to build. There's two ways to build AI apps.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
What about different languages? Like, can you use something like arc ads and, and, you know, do an ad in French, for example?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Yeah, I think... So this is super cool. First of all, it opens my eyes to just like... this random Turkish company with no probably Silicon Valley backing is making $100 million plus a year using this strategy. So this is really, really interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
I agree with you, starting in the US generally is a good idea, but it is more competitive and there is an opportunity to just take some of these plant identifier, for example, apps and just... win on ads for different countries and localize the app, basically. And so I think that's a huge, there's a hundred ideas, a hundred startup ideas just from that. Um, so I, I'm happy. Yeah. I'm happy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Yeah. You can even do like plant AI for Canadians, plant AI for Turkish.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
people you know like just putting that as like this is an app for canadians you know um for example and maybe the logo is like a canadian flag and the ads are all canadian and not you know canada is maybe not the best example because canadians are so close to the u.s but like maybe and and they mostly speak english but maybe a a brazil app or or something like that
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
One is you come up with a completely new idea like they have and spend a lot of time thinking about a unique product. They have this canvas that I think is really cool. It really is a beautiful product. The other way to do it, which is what we're going to get deeper into during this episode, is What are existing popular apps and then how do you add an AI sizzle to it to capture that demand?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Love it. Roman, thanks for hopping on and giving us a masterclass around how to come up with app ideas, how to think about, uh, adding AI to our apps, the three different marketing playbooks for some of these apps and, and how to create AI assisted ads. So appreciate you coming on.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Where could people learn more about, you've got these amazing breakdowns on Twitter, um, for some of these app studios where, where could people go and find you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Of course. All right, my man. I'll catch you later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
And it's way easier to do that. However, by the way, I love doing number one too. Today I think we're going to talk more about there's demand out there. How do you capture that demand and just add a little AI sizzle to it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
And shh, don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions and I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database, compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Maybe let's just start by opening, what's it called, TensorFlow? A center tower. And yeah, we can just start sharing your screen and sort of walk people through the process of some other AI apps that are doing really well, how much revenue they're bringing in, and how they're acquiring users. And my goal is really just to show people how you think.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
A hundred percent. An example of every single strategy who's doing a well. Um, and on the, the last, the last sort of piece to you said the product, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
led growth of viral you know the viral features i actually have a lot of experience there so i just want to tell you one quick story i think you'd find this interesting so my last company it was called islands and it was kind of like a discord for college students and we wouldn't launch a new school we wouldn't launch a school until we had five percent of the school pre-signed up
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
So we would do a lot of marketing to, to get those 5% signed up. And then what we do is. We get you right before you like join the experience, it would say, keep university of Alabama safe, invite at least three people to make it a secure and fun environment, something like that. And then the average person would invite 2.7 people or something. Um, and then we'd go from 5% to 20%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
Like kind of overnight, you know, very quickly. And that little piece allowed us to be way more efficient in our marketing. So maybe it cost us $8,000 to get 5%, but now all of a sudden it cost us $8,000 to get 20%. So I think thinking about from a product perspective, how to... The way to think about product virality is it's basically a multiplier effect on your marketing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
But yes, let's go through your three things. And then while people are taking notes on these three ways to grow it, think about in your own app, what is the multiplier effect that you can add to it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
A little bit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $400k/mo AI App using ASO, Organic Growth, and Paid Ads
So this is a group of people. I actually know who this is, I think. They aren't reinventing anything, right? AI, you know, calorie counters exist already. Sleep sounds exist already. Green noise exists already. What you're saying is they are looking at
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah. Yeah. Dude, this is actually a good idea. You want to build that? Yeah, kind of. I do think I like it because it's one of those ideas that you can see how you'd connect the dots. You start with the Twitter account that is just showcasing who's sponsoring who and what sort of click-through rates you're probably getting and how much money they're making. And you tell those stories on Twitter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Maybe you do also. then you convert those people to the lead magnets, really, to the tools, to the databases. You get them to... Well, you just segment them between brands and creators. So you essentially create two different lists. And then your goal is to nurture both sides of the list. Then you create a simple product for them to connect them. So I like this idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Was SEO a part of your strategy for Tapio and Tweet Hunter? It was...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah, that's a common thing I hear is like using content to attract initially and always doing that in the background and then using SEO and ads to supercharge as you scale. So that's, yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Right, yeah. And for people who don't know, Tapio is an AI-assisted or an AI tool to help you schedule and manage your LinkedIn. So... Like that makes a lot of sense, right? The people that are downloading videos are the people that are creating content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So you just have to figure out, like the prompt for people is, whatever it is you're building, you have to say, what is a free tool that I can go and create that is going to generate a lot of top of the funnel? And it's a natural for them to use the tool and then use your tool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Totally. You just gave away a gem. Someone's going to listen to that and it's going to spend the next 12 months of their lives just building mini tools.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
It's okay. I mean, there's room for everyone. And I think like everyone has a perspective on it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
I also think that my prediction is tools will be embedded within a lot of these platforms. So... Right now, when you use Perplexity or use ChatGPT, really what you're getting back is mostly text. Sometimes you're getting some links or some images. And over time, what you're going to see is it's going to be more and more rich media from these platforms, images, videos, and stuff like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
But I think you're really going to start to see tools. So you're going to go on to ChatGPT and say, hey, I'm thinking about taking out a 30-year mortgage at 7%. My down payment is $150,000. Do you think I should do this? Or here's my net worth. What do you think I should do? Today that response is just going to be mostly text.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Tomorrow what that response is going to be is some text, some image, some video, and a calculator that Tebow's created. And then it's going to link back to whatever startup Tebow's created, thus getting him more traffic, and then also introducing that person to Tebow's brand.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
What do you think? I think it's really, I hear what you're saying. I mean, what have we learned from ChatGPT and Perplexity is that they scrape a lot of information. Like LLM scrape a lot of information. If we assume that they are scraping information, I got to think that they're going to scrape tools in the future. If... And I don't know how they do it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And when I say tomorrow this is going to happen, I don't really mean tomorrow. But I do mean within the next five years. I think where search engines generally go is where the best possible experience is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And I just happen to think that if you embed a tool within a search engine experience, if you search for something, if you have something that you want, you have a question that you want an answer for, It only makes the experience way better if there's a tool to help you figure out the answer to your question.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah, in the past, Google... was fat, rich, and happy just doing status quo. But things have changed, and now it is a game of user experience. So I think knowing that, why does this matter to the people that are listening and to me and you, is just that, okay, well, if we know that they're going to try to increase user experience, what are the things that we need to create such that we get ranked?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And one of those things is tools. So I think that's a big insight.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
I do, but tell people what passion fruit is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Sushi restaurant in Paris. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah. And the mistake I think a lot of people make is they use AI 100% to answer those questions. And yeah, Going back to user experience, that's probably not the best experience because you've seen some of these comments. You can tell right now, at least, if a comment is AI-generated or not. I think the ones that have stories associated with it. I walked into this...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
The sushi restaurant in the, you know, Bastille neighborhood in Paris. And, you know, at first, like the smell was like horrible. And I was like, what have I gotten myself into? But then I sat down and someone approached me and her name was Jenny. And we had this long talk about how, you know, I was in Naoshima and there was another sushi restaurant.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And then I had, you know, this Toro that was sent to me and it was incredible and it was mouthwatering. The human experience in creating content, I think, is undervalued right now. That doesn't mean you have to be 100% human generated. It just means that combining AI with humans, I think, is going to be the path forward. And I do agree that answering questions is... is underrated.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So it'll always be a cat and mouse game between the LLMs and content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
I mean, there's the average person. If the average person did that, there would probably be a lot of mistakes or a good amount of mistakes. Peter Levels, probably not. I mean, there's this one guy who has a well-known podcast who was an executive at one of the biggest tech companies in the world. And he replies to all my LinkedIn or a lot of my LinkedIn posts and Twitter posts.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And it's 100% AI generated. And I've been meaning, I've been thinking about, I've been like, should I reach out to this guy? Like I've met him twice, but should I reach out to this guy and be like, hey dude, like it is so obvious that you're using some AI tool and it's like really, really hurting your brand. Like you are an executive of like a multi hundred billion dollar company.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
I think in the B2B space, just don't do it. I don't think so. I don't think it's worth it being 100%. Going back to what I was saying, cat and mouse, number one. Number two is, if it's cat and mouse and text becomes so good that it's almost indistinguishable, then photos and videos are going to be...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
valued highly so not only will you have to create text about that sushi sushi restaurant experience but you'll have to actually take a photo of that toro and they're going to be able to tell is that a photo taken from an iphone at this point 20 an iphone 20 and and were you actually sitting there um or was it you know created with dolly 8 at this point
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
It's going to be fun to watch. I think where we're going with it, we'll move on to your next idea, but I think it's just like you kind of want to... The upside of you doing... Sorry, go ahead.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah. I mean, Scott Belsky, the chief product officer of Adobe, once told me that... Just this idea around when you walk into a grocery store, you see labels and on the labels, you could see what's in the product, right? You can see if there's seed oils, you can see if there's water, you can see how much sugar there is, all these things.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And when it comes to social products and digital products, we don't really have nutrition labels. And when it comes to content, we definitely don't have nutrition labels. We just see the content. Now, Instagram is doing, and TikTok are doing, you know, this video was made by, with this filter. So there is a little bit of, you can see this video was made by this filter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So there's starting to be like the nutrition label, but it's very just tip of the iceberg. The idea that you're talking about, which is like essentially organic content, just like how we have organic food and non-organic content, which is AI generated, is really compelling. I just don't know how you create a business out of it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
I think one of the reasons why we saw Be Real hit 20 million daily views or whatever it was, was because you were seeing the rise of filters and AI content And that product ended up not really working out. But the reason why I think it took off is there was this collective feeling that we all had that we were getting sick and tired of filters and AI content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So that insight, I think, is really good. How that manifests into a business, I think there's probably a social app idea. There's probably... another version of a social network that exists that just encapsulates everything that we hate about social networks today, which is AI generated filters, uh, negative places.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So just, you know, when I go, I was just on Twitter right before this and it was just like, I'm seeing like video, like horrible videos of war and, and, and people arguing about politics. Um, and 100% organic content, I think, would be the answer. So I think that there's... The ideas I have for this is you either create a social network... hard to do, have to raise money, so good luck.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Or you build services businesses that help companies create organic content, subscription-based content type of ideas for people. Off the top of my head, that's all I got.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah, totally. Anti-AI positioning, that's a key insight. I got to think more about that one. I think you are right on that. I don't know. I think so. I got a good feeling about it because... Like I said, people are thinking about it and there are benefits to going anti-AI. Just like there's benefits going AI, right? I'm not saying going AI is bad.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
I'm just saying there's some places that it makes sense and some places it doesn't. And there's so much competition in the AI-assisted, AI-led landscape that there's probably a lot of opportunity in the human stuff. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Exactly. You know where you're not having 10 competitors in anti-AI human stuff. That's for sure. So that's where the arbitrage is. Always look for the arbitrage. Always look where there's opportunity. So I like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Totally. Yeah. I'm following them. And I do think they're really good at sniffing out how people are feeling. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah. Anti-positioning. It's so underrated. Yeah. So underrated because when you're posting something on Twitter, if everything looks the same, you're not going to stop and you're just going to keep scrolling. But when you see something that... in the zeitgeist and just feels, smells, tastes different, then you're stopping, you're sharing, you're replying, you're engaging.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So that's where the arbitrage is. Thibaut, this has been really fun. You're a legend. Where could people find more about you and your products?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Cool. Yeah. Check it out. Uh, Obviously, you know what time it is. Go to YouTube, like this video, comment on videos so people hear more about Thibaut and his great ideas. Hope this has been fun. And Thibaut, good seeing you. And hopefully next time in France or here in Quebec. I would love to welcome you here. Thank you, Greg. It was very awesome. Later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah. I'll be real with you too. So I thought that the space was saturated too. There is like 100 of these marketplace startups. I think what was interesting about Passionfruit is they focused on creators like me and you. So like the B2B type creators. And the other thing that they did was they allowed creators who had newsletters to create almost like a link tree, but for sponsorships.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So it was like a really easy way to create a profile where it's like, okay, gregisenberg.com is a newsletter. There's 75,000 people. A sponsorship costs X amount of dollars. And it was just like a beautiful webpage. So I think the question I have here is, okay, I buy the point. I agree that sometimes you can look at a space and it's overloading with startups.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
You just gave away a gem. Someone someone's going to listen to that and it's going to it's going to spend the next 12 months of their lives just building mini tools. Yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation. I've been following you for a long time. And when you sold Tweet Hunter and you sold Tapio for $10 million, I was like, okay, this guy is legit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And that's the creator space right now. But what would you build if you can build anything in this space?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30 day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So that's really interesting. So something happened to me for the first time ever recently where I had a brand reach out to me I'm just going to pull up the email. So Logitech reached out to me. And they're launching this new product. And they wanted to send it to me. And then they were like, we want a text-based post and a YouTube video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Obviously I didn't do it because I don't use any Logitech products. And it's not really my model. My model is to give a lot of value away for free. And in the future, hopefully that pays back to me somehow. But... I think it's really interesting that you have brands. What are brands doing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
They're either going to marketplaces or they're going to agencies to find these creators and deals or they're just cold DMing people. They're just saying, hey, you're an interesting YouTube channel. So I think what you're suggesting is to flip the model on its head. What you're saying is Logitech should actually create a page and say, we're really interested to do this. Is that what you're saying?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah, I think obviously what a lot of marketplaces do is they charge for access. But you can't charge if you're just beginning. You can't go to L'Oreal or Logitech and be like, hey, it's going to be $500 a month for access to this. And we're going to take a cut of whatever the transaction is going to be. Because when you're starting out, you are no one. Like that's the reality.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And that's the thing that a lot of people don't say is you're starting off with like no credibility or very little credibility. Your goal right now is to prove that you can create value. So I think what you do is initially you just prove out that you can actually do this thing. So get the brands on board. Don't charge anything.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Once you get the brands on board, you're going to get the creators on board, which is beautiful, right? And then eventually you can take a cut. Eventually you can take a 10 to 20% cut. And some of these brand deals, like I think Logitech wanted to pay me like 10 grand for like a text post, you know, it's like.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And just seeing your process of how you come up with an idea, how you name it, how you come up with unconventional ways to grow it. how you care about design and copy, I was like, I need to get this guy on the podcast. So thank you for coming on. That's pretty cool. Thank you. So what is on your mind these days?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And how would you, how would you go about getting the brands? Like, how do you go from having no brands to 25 brands?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
Yeah, I think... Use a couple of those tools. I think that's great. One of the things I was thinking about is you do really need to niche down a little bit. You can't be the creator network for everyone. So I think I'd probably start, if I was building this, in the B2B space. So I'd probably look at Passionfruit. I'd probably go on Passionfruit and say, who's...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
you know, who, who are the top creators and on passion fruit, they actually like list the top creators. Um, they list like, you know, you've got Ali Abdaal, you've got Eastlow, the notion guy, you've got, you know, Dan goes a high performance coach. Um, all these people, um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
So I'd reach out to them and then I would see, I'd make a air table or Google sheet of who are the, over the last 12 months, who has sponsored an Ali Abdaal newsletter or YouTube video. And you create this list and this create this database, which by the way, you later use as a lead magnet, right? Super cool. Yeah. So once you scrape all of passion fruit,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
And sorry, Passion Fruit, if you're listening to this and you're like, that's against my terms of service. I don't know if it's against the terms of service, but let's just say you can go and do that. Then you create this database and then you say to people like, hey, do you want to see who's sponsoring the world's largest newsletters? You put some Twitter ads behind that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He gave me 3 creator tool ideas that will print money
All of a sudden, you're getting leads at $0.50 to $1.50 a lead.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Cool. All right. Thanks for that free idea, Career AI. What's idea number two?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
So when I hear that, kind of like, maybe because I've been around for a while, like there's so many journaling apps. Is your thesis is that the AI angle is enough to kind of to get people excited? Is that, is that the thesis?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Yeah. I remember Peter levels. I'm sure you know him. He, he did AI therapist.com or something and he, he closed it down. Also like there's like, you can't just call it a therapist. Cause like therapy is like, you know, uh, It's not a therapist. You have to go to school and stuff like that to be a therapist. Journaling also, the other interesting thing is it's something that people know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
They know what a journal is. If you call it AI Journal or Journal AI, that's a question for you. How do you think about naming some of these products? We're really getting into the nitty-gritty, but I think it's important. Is putting AI in the name important?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Yeah, but I think all your names resonate. My thesis is that if Cal AI was just called... calorie tracker, it might not be like, it probably wouldn't be where it is today.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and ai that could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses i wanted that i didn't want to have to rely on mark zuckerberg i didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses i wanted to rank high in google that's why i like seo and that's why i use boringmarketing.com and that's why i invested in it
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Okay, cool. And let's just talk, before we move to the next idea, can we talk about... how you think about paywalls and are there any tools that you use for testing paywalls and stuff like that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
And how do you think about just like pricing strategy?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
For this in particular too. Like this idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Absolutely, man. And I think a lot of people like me who are in my 30s and I'm sure people listening in their 40s, 50s, 60s are kind of like, what's going on? uh, with the TikTok kids. And, um, it's interesting to see that a lot of the products have AI with it. I mean, I'm not surprised, but, um, yeah. What's your take on that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
When you, when you say that, are you talking about like it's a quiz or something like that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Totally, because people are investing. They might see a TikTok about it or a reel, whatever. They download the app. They're super excited. They're filling in their information. They're investing, essentially, their time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
At some cost, you use it again. And then they're just like, oh, $6.99 a week or something. Yeah. Yeah, I think.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
I guess it depends on how you do it, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Dude, we have, we have to do one more idea. We have to give us one last idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Like, is there an opportunity before you get into your ideas and before we like start cooking, basically, is there an opportunity to create apps that are like not AI, or do you have to come up with an AI app idea for TikTok?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
What do you say to people who say, but Duolingo just announced two AI features. I think it's called like adventures or something like that. Like, how are you going to compete with Duolingo?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Yeah, I mean... The short answer is you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You know, I was actually earlier this morning, I was on TikTok creator insights. And for people who don't know, go on TikTok, search for TikTok creator insights.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
And you basically get like a Google trends, but for TikTok and you can see, you know, how much, what are people searching for and what's trending and stuff like that. And one of the interesting things was today, what was trending a ton of how to learn French, how to learn Spanish, how to learn Arabic, how to learn Arabic. I remember search volumes up a thousand percent. So,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Yes, Duolingo may continue to grow, may continue to be a juggernaut, and that's cool. But there's an opportunity right now with creating AI-first apps that I think when you pair that with great creator content, there's just an opportunity to... not even take part of their market share because the reality is these people are not even using Duolingo. That's the reality.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
But they might be like, I want to come up with more AI app ideas. And then I want to create a framework. I want a framework for that. Do you use things like Sensor Tower? Do you use things like any tools like that? Or are you just coming up with these ideas while you're walking on the beach in San Diego?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Amazing, man. That's awesome. This has been a lot of fun. I think what you've drilled home for me personally is that sometimes the most obvious ideas are the best ideas. Calorie dragging, language learning, journaling. This is things that you look around in your everyday life and you see these people doing it. You put an AI twist on it. You get good content out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
You make friends with influencers. Um, and you know, you build small MVPs, right? You, you don't need to, to, to boil the ocean when it comes to building an MVP, get something out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Thanks, my man. I appreciate you. We appreciate you. Later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
never underestimate the kids and did some research. And they were talking about you and your friends and how you have kind of like a AI mobile app studio doing, I think, you know, 15 million in ARR. So I was hoping that you can come on today and share with everyone some AI app ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
So I want to go deeper into basically how, how you have, like, what's the Blake Anderson framework for, for taking an idea and actually making it like a mainstream product, I guess. Um, So for example, you said, yeah, just target students with Instagram Reels and LinkedIn and TikTok. Could you walk us through what you would do if you were building this and you had this idea?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
Okay, you have the idea. Where do you go from here?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
And how do you find the influencers? Like, do you, do you go through, um, do you just like kind of reach out to them? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
I decided to reach out to you. I've been following you for a while, but I saw a tweet about a month ago that said, I recently discovered a part of the internet where a bunch of cracked 18 to 22 year old indie hacker kids from no-name unis run bootstrap mobile apps, growth hacked on TikTok. Each app has 100,000 monthly users and makes $1 to $5 million a year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
So, yeah, I mean, it's funny you mention it. It's like you say this and it's obvious. You're basically like, yeah, they're human beings. Create a relationship with them, get to know them better, and... That's kind of like the most effective way of doing it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
But yeah, that's kind of like a bit of the opposite of what other people say, which is they're like, go onto these platforms, reach out to, you know what I mean?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
The product. Like we kind of, you know, we said it's an all in one product, but like, how do you, how do you take an idea? How do you take this idea and actually flesh it out and make it a real product? Like, how do you think about it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps
And with career AI specifically, like if you were building this, like what features do you think would be need to have?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
You said you had something to talk to me about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
And maybe you do game nights with entrepreneurs like Halo for entrepreneurs, Halo for designers, Halo for XYZ. And then you move on to other games. And then you can eventually charge for it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
I am the multiplayer gamer. My favorite part about gaming is... like what Internet Vin was talking about, five versus five and being on a team and playing in a team sport and coming up with strategies. Do you still do it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Not nearly enough because I... I have a Mac and Counter-Strike 2, which is the latest Counter-Strike, I can't play because it's on a Mac. And I just can't... I don't know. I don't want to set up a separate rig just for Counter-Strike.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
It's more of just like... Yeah, honestly, you're right. I should.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
The other tangential idea I have to your insight is... How do you take something like a nostalgic product, like let's say the Game Boy Color, and create high-end expensive art out of it? So that's what, this is like the prompt for people listening, which is go think about what was meaningful to you as a 14-year-old. Because if it was meaningful to you,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
There's probably other people it was meaningful to. It could be as silly as poutine. It could be as fun as a dreamcast, and everything in between. And then go think, okay, how do I create a really expensive object that's somehow a piece of art that I can sell on the internet?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
And then talking tactics, then you either build niche websites, get a lot of SEO traffic, and then convert them to the high-end products, or you just
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Oh, 100%. People who are listening to this podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
And seeing us hang out at this particular time, and it's going to be like 2042 and they're going to be listening and they're going to be like, oh, I remember when, you know, it was 10pm and Jonathan... was like hanging on a couch and he was eating this USB drive.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, isn't there a quote there? You don't step into a river twice. No man steps into a river twice.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
No, but sort of. It's related to a river. It's related to... This is a great explanation. The river changes. It's a flowing river, right? So it's changing over time. So if you step in it in 2024 and you step in it in 2025, it's a different river. It's seeing different things.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Here's the quote. No man ever steps into the same river twice.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah. Oh, smart quote there, Greg.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
It is a really good quote because the whole point is that nothing is the same. Nothing is the same. No. Before we head out, nostalgia, if you wanted to create a high-end collectible company based on nostalgia, how do you come up with the idea? And actually, how do you get started? Do you create a landing page? Do you use SEO, paid ads?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Walk us through a bit of your framework for thinking about how to start one of these businesses.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
I would really, really niche down. So I would be like that channel for
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Mario Brothers you know just really really niche niche down and just talk about that video first 100% yeah short form probably first and then you really just need like one or two of those clips to go viral to get you know I was talking to a friend of mine this morning he just had one of he's like in the entrepreneur space and he had one of his clips get 10 to
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
10 or 12 million views and he got like 30,000 or 20,000 subs from it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
And you, so you just need like one of those to go viral and then you have your base. And then from there you can create other channels and just start using your Mario channel to, to push to, uh, your Zelda channel. And I would think about what our games, I think the silent Hill, uh, example is really smart because now all of a sudden people are like, oh, I forgot about Silent Hill.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
But there's a group of people who are not going to buy Silent Hill 2, but who would buy Silent Hill 1 nostalgic items. So that's where it comes, it all comes back to searching on Reddit and seeing where there's growth areas in certain games and picking the ones strategically that I think also is something what I would be doing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Remember the good old days?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
First of all, that means quite literally nothing to me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
No, I was a Nintendo guy and a PC gamer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
ocarina of time man yeah all right can i tell you about a business related to nostalgia that i think you're gonna like and i think it probably does at least five million dollars a year yes all right it is called grid studio.cc do you know about this business i don't i'm looking it up now So it's brilliant.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
It's basically doing something similar to what I was talking about, where you take nostalgia and you make high-end art pieces of it. Although I actually don't think it's as high-end as I would do it. So what do they do? They get original parts from original Game Boys, iPhones.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
I knew you'd love this. I knew you'd love this. And they take the original parts and even newer-ish things like the Apple Watch, but first generation, and they put it in a art frame and they just kind of...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
annotate it and it's just a beautiful piece of art like so they'll take out a game boy and you can see all the inner workings on on a beautiful art piece and it's just it's a beautiful homage to the device
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
I don't, but on their website, I think what's really interesting is their influencer program is at the bottom. And I bet that a lot of their revenue comes from... I mean, if you're like a YouTuber, creator type person, like you just want to talk about this, you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
So that's really cool. I think they're doing really well. And I also, I found out about them because I saw their paid ads absolutely everywhere for a long period of time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah. I feel like I'm going to bankrupt you. This just bankrupted you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Oh, no, not again.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
So I was eating, okay, so I'm in Montreal right now, and the dish here that people eat is poutine, which is fries. You know it. You know it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah, horrible URL. Gridstudio.cc. I would love to acquire this business, rebrand it, add some higher-end art pieces to it. So their stuff looks amazing. But imagine if it was in... The frame to me looks kind of Ikea cheap. But I think that there's some collectors that would spend thousands of dollars for some of these.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
And if they were numbered and there was rarity associated with it, this is a mega, mega business. So I'm really interested in that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
That's my goal. It's to get people to listen to this and stop what you're doing and go do something that you hear on this podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah, you know it. And it's fries, gravy, and cheese curds. So I'm chowing down on this poutine, and my American friend, who's never seen a poutine in his life, goes, why are you eating that? And I... Never even, they didn't question it, you know, I've been eating it my whole life. And he's like, you know, it's just soggy fries.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Because people need us to...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
All right. This is big. This is big. This is a really big idea. And it's a big idea because it's a thousand ideas. It's not just one idea. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah. Someone's got to fund your excessive nostalgic collectibles habit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Turn your cost center into a profit center.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Thanks for bringing this to us. And... If folks liked this episode, you have two little things you could do. One is you can subscribe on YouTube because we're trying to grow that YouTube as much as possible. So go at Greg Eisenberg. Just go and do it. And two... Comment on the YouTube. And we will be in the comments. The last episode with Jai Scream didn't get as much love as it deserved.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
We need to know if you love Jai Scream or not.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yes, exactly. And thank you for coming on. It's been real. I'll see you later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
So I was thinking, do I like this or do I just like it because it reminds me of my childhood?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
It is. Yeah, maybe a bit of both. So I think that I mean, what I want to talk about is why does this matter within the context of startup ideas?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
If you're anything like me, you've got a ton of design work that you need. Websites, landing pages, emails, social assets, you name it. But you don't just want beautiful landing pages or beautiful websites. You want the stuff that's going to convert. You want the stuff that's going to actually drive value. That's where design scientist dot com comes in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
It's an agency that for one monthly price will do all your design work, all your copy work, all your engineering and do stuff that actually scales your revenue. You don't need a designer. You need a design scientist. Let's go design scientist.com. I liked it so much. I invested in the business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Dude, this hits home. This really, really hits home to me. But I want to respond to your idea. I'm going to respond to your idea first.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
I wasn't a console boy. I was a Counter-Strike aficionado. You were a PC gamer. I was a PC gamer. And I took it really, really seriously. And that honestly was what got me onto the internet and really just like meeting... People from all over the world joining teams, competing, competed in the World Cyber Games Tournament, the Worldwide Tournament.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
The Cyber Games. So yeah, I'm a nerd, I'll say it. And it was an incredible experience. So I think the idea of a LAN party is something that is extremely special, but I wouldn't go about it from a Twitch angle. Because there's the secondary trend around IRL happening right now. So I think that there's an opportunity to... If Soho House was creating LAN parties, what would that look like?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
And we are back. Jonathan, Jice Cream, Courtney.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah. And that, I also think the, yeah, with the other trend around sober, curious people and people becoming sober, uh, board games are becoming more popular. Card games are becoming more popular. You throw in land parties there. Maybe during the day it could be a place where you can kind of, we work, work. Maybe you can, you can work there and, and be creative.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
But at night, that's when maybe there's just organized games. You need someone to organize it. And there needs to be structure. So for example, I saw a friend of mine actually, this is a guy, his Twitter handle is Internet Vin. He's like a... an entrepreneur, and I was actually surprised. He wrote, playing Counter-Strike tomorrow night in North York, which is in Toronto, getting two rooms for 5v5.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
We have eight people, but need two more. Let me know ASAP if you want in. And you're just starting to see little things like that where people are like, yeah, I do want a game. I do want to be in real life. So that's why I like this idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
It's literally you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah. I'm talking about couches.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024
Yeah. Yeah. And I know someone's going to be listening to this and be like, but that's going to cost me $200,000 to open up a space like that. And then I'm going to be on the hook for $10,000 a month of rent. And then my answer to you, listener, is slow down. What does the smallest version of this look like? Well, it looks like just organizing games. It's organizing game nights.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
This episode with Omar was really cool. So Omar listens to the pod, but he also creates these incredible Disney-style content, Disney-style images. Literally, it feels like you're in Pixar. And these are the type of things that you can create for your startup, for your business, for content that could actually drive tons of revenue for your business. Marketing's about storytelling.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
It's literally like a Disney, Pixar universe.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Yeah, I mean... I just... It almost feels like... It's obviously super hyped, but it's underhyped relative to how much this is going to change things and how much opportunity there is to use this for content, to tell stories. So I'm just excited to get into this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
By the end of this video, what are people going to get out of this episode?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
All right, let's get into it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Dude, it's ridiculous. Like, look at it. Look how incredible that looks.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
And how fast, it took, it took like what, like four seconds?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Yeah, and we'll get into it, but the startup ideas on top of this, it's cool that we're just doing this and getting output, but there's tons of businesses that could be built on top of it. One thing that this got me thinking of is, I remember when I was 13 years old, I had a birthday party and my... My dad had a shop and there was someone who worked at the shop who was good at graphic design.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
And we actually took, for the invite of the birthday party, we took a scene from The Simpsons. This is in 2000 and... two, I guess, um, the scene from the Simpsons. And then they put my face like where, like in a TV where like the Simpsons were all watching it and like gave it to my friends and they were all like, wow, this is like the coolest birthday invite ever. Right. It blew their mind.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
This is like before Photoshop became popular and stuff like that. Think about that, you know, in today in 2025, it's like, you know, invites to parties. Right. Um, you know, is just one idea around, like, if you can make invites more of a story and more interesting, um, you know, would people be willing to pay for that? And I think that at the end of the day, like, what are you doing here?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
You are storytelling and the way your story telling is through animation and the style is Pixar, Disney. Um, But any human being is going to look at any of these images and fall in love with it, frankly, because it's a tried and tested way of communicating information in this 3D format. So yeah, I'm excited about some of the business opportunities on top of it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
And I think, you know, the time is now in the sense that not everyone is using these tools well. A lot of people are using the tools, but they're not prompting it at this level of quality. So there's an opportunity to build a lot of awareness really quickly right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
A few thoughts. One is Moon Pig, which I've never heard of, does $400 million and increasing every single year. $400 million a year of revenue. This is a huge business. Absolutely huge. It sounds like they're really big in the UK. When you look at some of these ideas... They might seem kitschy and fun. It's like, okay, maybe I'll use that once.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Yeah, maybe as a little gift, but gifts are a big business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
One of the things I like to do is, you know, okay, we've got this insight. There's an opportunity to create an AI first version of Moonpig. Let's prompt ChatGPT or prompt Claude and say, I want you to act as my co-founder.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
I want you to act as my co-founder.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
I want to create an AI-first version of Moonpig. How do we describe Moonpig in one sentence? We should describe Moonpig. Moonpig is... Moonpig...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Personalized greeting cards.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
I found out that using Leonardo plus this prompt, we should include the prompt.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
The prompt above, right? You can create compelling stories with these 3D characters. And then the question is, what does an AI-first version of MoonPig look like that could generate me $10 million a year of cash flow? And then let's see what happens. And sometimes you get some good stuff, sometimes you get some bad stuff, but I just find that it's helpful.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
You know what I'm saying? Like, here we go. I'm already, I'm already getting tingly. So for the people listening on, on audio, um, you know, some AI driven features, dynamic character and scene creation, um, AI generated stories, turn every card into a mini story. For example, Caden, the brave Explorer celebrated his son's name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Amazing. AI-enhanced templates offer dynamic templates that adapt in real time based on user inputs, such as preferred tone, voice and video integration, let users add generated voiceovers or short animated videos, smart recommendations. Okay, revenue streams. This is literally a business plan. This is an actual business plan. Premium card sales. So they sell for between $5 to $10.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
AI-driven personalization justifies a 20-30% markup over traditional cards. Good to know. Monthly memberships, $10 to $15 a month for unlimited cards. Upselling gifts, matching items, flowers, chocolates. That's good. It gives you the technology stack.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Okay, the marketing and growth strategy, social media, stuff like that. And you can, you know, we won't do it today, but you can like double click into those things. Ooh, let's go up. Let's see the, yeah. The projections. So the key assumption is the card price is $7.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
The CAC is $15 a customer, which by the way, isn't crazy if you're, you know, using, you know, I think right now in terms of paid ads, like There's probably a bunch of formats where you can use these 3D characters and you'll get your cack down. It's just very engaging. Add-on sales. Okay, so 200,000 users purchase an average of five cards annually, $7 million.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Add-on sales, $10 million total revenue. So it gives you... Oh, and exit potential.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
It's really, yeah. The other thing I do sometimes is I'll say, this looks great. Put this into a PRD that I can show to my, that I can show to my team. PRD? Yeah. PRD stands for product requirement document. So this is something that, this is a document that you can show to an engineering team, a product team, an agency, if you want to outsource the work. Yeah. Just mad, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
And then it just, it gives it to you, man.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Hey, I've got an idea for something. I wanted to get your feedback on it. And I actually tweeted about this yesterday, but sometimes what we'll do is we'll have a product meeting and in the meeting we'll literally use Replit or Bolt or lovable to actually, you know, build what the prototype looks like and then be like, what do we think about this by the end of the meeting? Like in the meeting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Absolutely.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
you can build teeny tales, but you can also build teeny tales for, you know, you mentioned memes, teeny tales for memes, teeny tales for, you know, B2B social content or B2C social content. Like these are all like kind of niche ideas around that whole workflow that you can go and build that all have, several million dollar a year opportunities to build around.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Um, and so that's also really exciting, uh, right now. And then it's like, well, so someone might be listening to this and be like, yeah, but like, can't, you know, Leonardo just do this or chat GPT just do this. And it's like, yeah, I mean, they could, um, and they're, you know, Leonardo is going to make it easier and easier for people to find prompts because they want people to
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
ultimately get as much value from the product as possible. But if you're like, I saw what you did with teeny tails at the front end, like it's very specific to the use case that you're going after.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Do you have another business idea you want to share or something else you want to share?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
That's so bad. That is the equivalent of Will Smith eating spaghetti. Yeah, it is. And let's just go up, scroll up, and how they spell school also is just the icing on the cake.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
But I'm happy you did that. You know why? Because some people are going to... see some of these Pixar photos and be like, oh, I can never do that. They do one prompt on ChatGPT, they get this, they're like, I can't do that. And they don't realize that their prompt is wrong and that they're using the wrong product. They should be using Leonardo, not ChatGPT 4.0.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
And if you know how to use these AI tools, like Leonardo AI, Kling AI, and what prompts to do, you are going to clean up. So this episode is a really special one. He goes and does a tutorial of a lot of these AI tools. And we sprinkle in a bunch of startup ideas throughout the episode that you can start today that generate revenue and cash flow using some of these tools.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
That's awesome.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
And then... While that's adding, do you do things like the motion brush? How do you think about... No, I don't really, man.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Let's do it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
By the way, that would go viral within that school, right? Like who doesn't want a sticker that looks like that? It'll at least put, it puts a smile on everyone's face. I mean, I mean, even when you sent me. that Greg video, I was smiling from ear to ear because I thought it was so nice.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
What you were saying is using these tools to create digital assets, finding what APIs to create physical assets, and then even doing some old school marketing techniques. literally sending the product to people. I mean, stickers doesn't cost a lot. So it's definitely a huge opportunity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
I mean, you might even be able to grab people's display pictures on Instagram and X and just DM them. Be like, hey, what do you think of this? And that's maybe a way to grow top of the funnel in a really systematic way. I love this idea. I think it's really smart. I think it doesn't reinvent the wheel. It creates a product that people want that make them smile.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
And I think, I think the world is looking for fun tools and fun things like this more and more. So thank you for sharing it. And always great to have you. Before we end, though, does the Kling AI, like we can put what we had, but I'm curious if it, just to close the loop.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
It's still good. It's still good. We got it, you know. People can connect the dots. Omar, this... Always a pleasure talking tactics and ideas with you. And I appreciate you sharing how the sausage is made. And we'll include the link to your school community in the show notes for anyone who wants to go and check that out. Thank you. And it's just great chatting with you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
I'll let the listeners grab it, you know. But I can't wait to see what people build. And please let us know in the comment section. I actually read every single comment. So let us know if you enjoyed this or just let us know your thoughts in general. So we'll be in there. Later, Omar.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Thank you. Cheers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
now they're looking for content to help accelerate that they're looking for potential co-founders they're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them how do you do email marketing how do you build an audience how do you go viral on twitter all these different things that's exactly what startup empire is and it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
I hope you enjoy the episode. Okay, Omar, I've got one question and one question only. What are we building today?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Beautiful.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
Yeah, yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I built an AI startup in 65 minutes (using ChatGPT, Leonardo AI, Kling AI, ElevenLabs)
You know that's music to our ears here on this podcast, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startups from the founder of exploding topics
Okay, not going to argue with that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startups from the founder of exploding topics
Okay. See you later. Later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startups from the founder of exploding topics
Yeah, that's what we're going for. Production meeting we had before is what we talked about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah. I think I think that that's what they say. Nicotine is what is it's like more addictive than heroin or something like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And I mean, of course I get stressed. Like, okay, business, revenue's down 30% month over month. We lost our biggest client. I don't know. Our technology is built on this API and they just shut it off. That's stressful. But being stressed isn't going to help the problem. What helps the problem is figuring out what is your most productive time zone.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
How do you get in the state to get most productive? And then what are the things that you need to do to move the needle the quickest? And go and do that. And that's it. And just do it every day. And I know that sounds really simple. But that's what it is. Everything else is noise and fluff. And this is the system that worked for me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I don't know. I don't know because I think when they see me, it's always in a moment of there's something wrong and me being like, you know, ask, I'm also very direct.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah, I don't think people say that. I mean, I don't know, but I don't think internally people are like, Greg is super chill because it's the same situation. When they see me, I'm generally with a firefighter hat on.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
All right. And it's like you. It's like, yeah, here are all my questions. Let me collect all the data points. Once I have the data points, then it's like, okay, based on this, here's what we need to do. Also, why didn't we do these three things? And the reason why I say that is because I don't want to dress up as a sexy firefighter. You know? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I always said that for you because I know that you'd appreciate that. I love it. I love it. And I don't want to do that because... I'm sorry. You know, I want... to spawn many firefighters within the organizations, right? So as a hold co-entrepreneur, that's what you're trying to do.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
You're trying to build the, you know, the reflexes for the companies within themselves to come and be like, whoa, you know, Michelle is the firefighter because she sees something and she sees revenues down or she hears that, you know,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah. So I'm ready to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about because I'm in the matrix.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
No, I don't. I can honestly say that doesn't cross my mind.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Why? That business has generated millions of dollars of profits for you. Why would you go and just decide, hey, it's no longer for me?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And why don't you just hire a CEO?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
so i did let that one happen although it did work well for two years like brought in a ceo kept the numbers stable it didn't really grow and then it was like um yeah it's but well that's a bad answer because it's a bad answer like okay the hiring okay i've hired a ceo before and it didn't really work out is like is like saying well
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I had a broken heart before, therefore I'm never going to date again. So that's a bad answer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
The assessment is yes. This is the assessment. If you are having racing thoughts from time to time that you want to sell the business and like, It's only when I'm annoyed with it. How many times per year do you think that thought hits you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
No, no brainer. If that thought is coming at least once per quarter, then see you later. Life's too short for it. You'll hire someone who actually cares a lot about it more. Now, you have to be okay with the fact that CEO might be worse than you and it might not work out. And it might take three CEOs for it to work out. And that's just the nature of, yeah, I know. And it's crazy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Or you might get lucky. But I think that that's just the reality of giving your baby to someone else.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
What do you think a holding company is?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Dude, this is the same thing as the CEO thing where it's like your heart has been broken by paperwork in the past. I hate it. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah, but why don't you just abstract away the paperwork? So for example, I own a holding company. I'm a co-founder in a holding company, Late Checkout. And there's deals that get signed all the time and paperwork and inked up, but I'm not involved in signing them. I just trust other people to sign them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I think that you can still have an easy, simple life if you just abstract away things. And I think what you need to do is figure out how you can abstract away the things that you really don't like.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
You know, it happened once per quarter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
You need to do, and people listening should do this too, is like just an audit, a straight up audit of all the things you do. Is it necessary? Is it unnecessary? What can you abstract away? What can you not abstract away? And then what's your goal? What is the goal you want to come to? And I think that's, That's it. That's going to help you. That's the framework.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I don't. Really? Yeah, I don't. I don't let it get to that point. If I'm ever feeling like I'm overwhelmed and too much stuff is going on, I just take a step back. Here's one thing I'll say. I actually work every day, like seven days a week. I'm working some amount of time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
That's the non-framework framework. So you have some serious thinking you got to do, Jonathan.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Just the way I want it. This couldn't have gone better. So I have a... financial rate of return that I want to hit in my portfolio, which includes liquid and non-liquid. And I have goals for each of my individual businesses, which, you know, some are financial and some are not, but they're all kind of made up goals. It's just pretty arbitrary. Right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
But it's just, what isn't measured, what's the expression? What isn't measured doesn't get managed?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Something like that. That's the basic.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
That's a basic idea. I mean, if you don't, basically, if you don't, if you don't measure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
if you don't measure you don't manage we did this a few times ago in the pot into the river the river's moving yeah exactly so i'm not good at sayings i'm not good at saying but i'm good at balance you still go for the sayings yeah i still go for it that's the type of guy i am
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I mean, I think it's great. This is like the real life of entrepreneurs, right? This is it. This conversation, everything we're saying is real. And that's what I want to put out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
The most painful part about being an entrepreneur to me is the uncertainty, period. So anything could happen. You know, you wake up If you're building a SaaS startup, for example, you wake up every day and you check product hunt and you're like, I hope that if you're competing against Figma, Figma didn't launch something to compete directly against you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And I know that's not what you're supposed to do, but I do it because especially in the mornings for me, I noticed that like, I'm really like, I get like one hour of work is like in the morning is like eight hours in the afternoon and night for me. So if I noticed that I'm like getting close to being burnt out, like maybe instead of working two hours every day, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
There's like 800 pound gorillas literally everywhere that could squash you in a moment. And I just think that the uncertainty and the slot machine nature of being an entrepreneur is, Just, it is tough. It is really tough. You have to be at peace with it. If you're not able to be at peace with the uncertainty, then you'll never survive as an entrepreneur at all, at all.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
So that's another reason I like being a holdco entrepreneur or multi-preneur, as I call it, because if you have a bunch of revenue lines and product lines, even if one of them suffers from one of these 800 pound gorillas or an upstart or a black swan event like COVID, it's okay. And because you have other revenue lines that are doing well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Like you have people, I feel like you, you might, cause like there's a lot of people listening to podcasts like this and just seeing entrepreneurs out there and they're like, I want that. And then once they take the plunge and their heartbeat goes from 120 to, you know, their resting heartbeat goes from 120 to 180 overnight. Then, uh, they're like, what did I just sign up for? What have I done?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Dude, I love the podcast. Not one startup idea. By the way, I'm going to give a startup idea at the end of this podcast. Okay, okay, okay. And then talk smack about startup ideas. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
You came on the podcast to say execution is everything?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I mean, obviously, execution is important, right? You can't just come up with ideas. But when I say... Yeah, debate me. Yeah, I'll debate you. I'll debate you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Or on a weekend type thing, I'll go to 30 minutes. Or I'll go to zero. So I'm very conscious about the burnout and I just don't get too close to the sun.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Ideas and execution are really important. You can't do that one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
The reality is this. If you have really good ideas on a product, a niche, how to grow it, and then who to hire to execute on it, then you're Gucci.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah. I mean, tomato, tomato. You know what I'm saying? Tomato, tomato.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I'm here in Canada in a small town and every Saturday there's this farmer's market. And I've noticed that This farmer's market over the years has gotten busier and busier and people are getting just cultish over it. And I've noticed this in when I'm in Miami, the farmer's markets and other places, there's farmer markets.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And it's just this whole like shop local, shop organic vibe that I think, and I don't know how it is in Europe.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
is a really small town but there's so many people that come during on Saturdays that it's like really good for the town they find out about the town they're coming from all over there's then the you know restaurants are popping up and on all these sorts of things and
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I think that there's an opportunity to basically be the person that manages, organizes farmers markets and then goes to, you know, you can go to cities and be or towns and villages and be like, hey, like we want to set up this farmers market. Give us some space. You curate the merchants.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
The business model could be you either charge rent, essentially, for the merchants, or you just take a percentage of revenue. And you're making the world a better place because shop local, shop organic, all these things. So I just think that there's an opportunity. This is a non-digital idea, but I just think that there's a pretty simple idea where if you...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
if you care about shop local, you can probably convince a lot of these entrepreneurs to set up shop. You don't need that many of them, maybe like six or 10 to start and definitely make, and I think you can make a few thousand dollars a week, just get going.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And then the last thing I'll say is you can, what I like about this idea is, you know, if it works in this small town, you can bring it to other small towns and replicate the model. So I actually think that this is like a several million dollar a year idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
There's like 800 pound gorillas literally everywhere could squash you in a moment. And I just think that the uncertainty and the slot machine nature of being an entrepreneur, it is tough. It is really tough. You have to be at peace with it. If you're not able to be at peace with the uncertainty, then you'll never survive as an entrepreneur. Jay Scream is back. Hello. What's up, dude?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
this concept of local also like local art local yes pottery yes local furniture making uh i love the idea i think it's great yeah yeah that's the idea and that's when you're giving it away because you know no one can execute it i'm giving it away because i would like to see a lot of nitro coffee for that one that's true i i do i do i would like to see more of these pop up and i just think that it's one of those
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
like really validated ideas. The hard part about the idea is just getting these entrepreneurs to agree to show up on a Saturday morning or whatever because they have to staff it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
digital ideas right now okay yeah and but I think someone should do it
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Step one would be, I'd create an audience in my town. So I would, you know, local like restaurant reviews and- hotel reviews and things like that, like build a email list or TikTok following in my local town. Once I have that, then I have leverage with the merchants and I say like, hey, I'm thinking about creating this, you know, flea market meets farmer's market.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
By the way, I think there's like a name that you can own there. Like, what is that? You know, what is that called? You know, flea and farmer. I don't put it together.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah. Something like that. And. you know, if I was able to pull, pull this together and get hundreds of people to come on a Saturday, would this be of interest? And that's all you need. You just need them to say yes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And then once you have five or eight or 12 of those, you go to the, the, the city and there's, there's always someone or town and there's always someone there who's like their job is, is commerce. And in my little town in Canada, uh, that I'm, that I'm, that I'm in, um, I actually met with the government official, and he was just like, you'd be surprised. You can walk right in into the town hall.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Well, I work every day because I don't look at it like on a week to week basis. I'm like, okay, I've got like some stuff to do this year and some goals I want to hit this year and I want to hit them. And so my average day is like I wake up, I wake up pretty early and I have three things I need to do every single day. And if I do those three things by 2 p.m., I'm out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
These are small towns. And just be like, hey, is, in this case, is Denis around? And you just have a chat with him. These people are open to having conversations with citizens or people who live there. And then you get them to support it in some way. And then once you have both sides, I don't think you're going to need that much of your own cash to actually get this going.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
So it has a lot of the ingredients I like for a business idea. It doesn't require a lot of cash to get going. It's something that could be replicated. It's...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
it's there's also probably an opportunity to create like the brand for for this category for this type of experience like for example in new york i think they have something called smorgasbord have you heard about this i've heard the word smorgasbord but not the event smorgasbord I think it's like, you know, someone's going to kill me on this because I'm getting it wrong.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
But it's basically like in Brooklyn and a few other places. I think there's just like, you know, a huge, huge, almost like a food truck festival. All the different, a smorgasbord of food. And there's, it's kind of like this in some ways. But then it becomes a brand. It's like, oh, you're going to Smorgasburg this week. You're going to Smorgasburg.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And they're able to like... If they open one up in Portland, Oregon, I'm sure that would get buzz as well. Another example of someone who's done this, by the way, is Time Out. So they have these Time Out food halls where they went to... Like the...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
popular but landmark food institutions and cities and then they created like a uh what's it called the food court so instead of having like subway and mcdonald's it it's it's like the the local shawarma stand that everyone knows in the town
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
But if it takes me longer, you know, I don't stop until I finish those three things every day.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah. Yeah. So there are experiential agencies that do like, you know, if you're Evian and you want to, you know, throw an event at, you know, Wimbledon, there's big agencies that do that. A buddy of mine owns one. I think he does like 30 million a year in revenue. Oh, my God.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah. So that exists. Yes. But, you know, I think for smaller companies, more like new types of events like the ones we're talking doesn't exist. And I wonder what you can do also on the business model. to make it different and interesting. Like maybe you can do like rev shares and maybe you can make it a productized service in some capacity. So there's a lot, there's a lot here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
You don't want to, but you will.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Good idea. Good pod. Thank you. Good friend.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
You always save yourself, I think. If you enjoyed this episode... Give us a like on YouTube and a comment. We do read every single darn comment.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I think people who over optimize on like this whole productivity system stuff, like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And we're texting each other about the comments. So like it and comment. And if you are listening to this on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, rate, review, and then join us on YouTube where the fun is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
If you want to make fun of Jonathan, go for it. Go for it. Go for it. Go for it. But don't do that unless you give us a thumbs up on YouTube. If you want to follow Jonathan, you can follow him on his crappy username on X, Ice Cream, J, Ice Cream.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
take it too far you inherently you inherently know that there's like two or three things that you need to do just do the thing and and also can we be honest it's not like we're toiling away mining you know doing mining you know going down in a mine shaft we're literally pressing buttons on the internet that's like our work you know absolutely and it's so fun it is so fun
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I just told people to follow you and then you're like, I don't use social media, you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
All right. Go build some internet audiences, people. Go build some internet audiences. There you go. Later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
No. For some people, that might be 8.30. For some people, that might be 4.30. So whatever it is for you, wake up relatively early. Take out a piece of paper or an iOS note and pick three things that you need to do. Do the three things. and don't get burned out. Don't fly two coats to the sun. That's what it is. That's all it is. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
100% of the money I have and the wealth I made has been self-made.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
100% of the money I made has been from inheritance and winning the lottery, you know? Yes, yes, yes. No, I think this system is a system I developed when I was 18 or 19. So when I had nothing, when I had no companies, when I was just getting started, this is what I developed. So it's not like now that I quote unquote made it or I have a little bit of money, it's like, yeah, I'm way more chill.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
It's like, no, no, no. I've always, this is how I've always been.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
And so I'm like... You can't wrap your brain around it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
The most painful part about being an entrepreneur to me is the uncertainty, period. Anything could happen. You know, if you're building a SaaS startup, for example, you wake up every day and you check Product Hunt and you're like, I hope that You know, if you're competing against Figma, Figma didn't launch something to compete directly against you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
I drag myself into it. I don't think, you know, we have a bunch of companies under late checkout and a lot of, you know, a lot of the times some of them are struggling more than others. And, but a lot of the people running it don't want to bring me in because that's like, you know, an area of last resort and they want to fix the problem themselves. And, and that's, that's amazing. Right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
But I don't want to make it seem like I'm so chill that I'm just like, All right. Yeah, good luck, all these companies. I'm not. I really care about these businesses seeing full potential. So I'm in the slack. I'm looking at things. I'm asking questions. But you can do those things and not work 20 hours a day.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah. I mean, of course it comes to your mind, but I think people are going to, I think people are going to listen to this and are going to be like, this is champagne problems, Jonathan.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
Yeah. Wouldn't be the first time. Hey. How are you doing, man? I'm good. I'm good. I'm at the Cabot in the Woods on the lake, Canada. Very nice. Feeling good. Just had a nitro cold brew. Oh, shit. Which makes you feel real good. There's about 350 milligrams of caffeine in it. So that's an average cup of coffee I think has 80.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
get financial freedom right now i want to like require my parents i want to do all these things i need to you know buy a house have you seen the have you seen the price of coffee lately you know yeah someone okay is this your audience okay let me ask you let me change the topic uh maybe i thought all your audience were millionaire uh entrepreneur no maybe maybe i mean to put a bow on this topic i think that realistically you can get a lot done in
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Local businesses to start with NO startup costs
eight hours a day just figure out yeah what what are the most productive hours and slap do not disturb mode and have a cold you know a nitro cold brew and uh see you in outer space do you use zin do you use nicotine pouches i'm not i'm not a i'm not a zin i'm not a zin boy no
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Okay, this is going to be a fun one. Today, I just need to get something off my chest. I think that the name of a startup is more important than ever. There's a lot of bad names out there. So I don't want you to be naming your startup something bad. I want you to name it something good. And why does it matter more than ever?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I don't really connect to it. And I know I'm not the target audience, obviously, for this. But I just don't think it's a memorable name. And when you don't have a memorable name and you have a tofu name, your job gets harder. Your job gets a lot harder. And who needs it? Building a startup is hard as it is. You need all the luck on your side. So I think that's a pretty tofu name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
We actually changed the name. Before we were DesignScientist.com, which is a design agency that is part copywriting agency, part marketing agency, part design agency. We create design assets that convert. And before we did that, We were called such a tofu name. It was called Dispatch. Dispatch could be like literally a coffee shop. It could be a recruiting agency. It could be a design agency.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So it didn't mean anything. And we change it. And as soon as we change it, revenue, conversion, everything went up. Put together a little kind of checklist around how do you hack your way to a novel name. So step one, create a note on your phone. I call it the name game, just like on your iPhone or whatever. Call it the name game.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And then as you're going along life, you're going to hear a word that is going to captivate you. or you're going to be like, that's super catchy. So for example, maybe you get poured a Coke and you start drinking it and you're like, oh my God, that's a flat soda. And then you're like, whoa, flat soda? That's a good name for a startup. Boom, put it in. Now,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
once every two weeks, see if that name is available on places like IG, Twitter, X, TikTok. Go and grab as many handles as you can. You can be a hoarder of some of these names. Don't worry, these handles, nothing wrong with that. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So if you go to that Instagram account, and we can put it up on the screen, I think it has millions of users or millions of followers. 838,000 followers. And what does it mean? When I quick follow, what am I getting? Well, I'm getting beautiful photos of somewhere I would live. So this is also a takeaway, which is the name of your startup could be the name of your handle.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And then like test the name out at dinner with your friends, in conversation with your family, with your friends. Just like, hey, what do you think about this name for this thing? And the ones that resonate make a logo for them. can the name be transferred into a visual representation of what you imagine? So that's the path.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And if you can't come up with names by just walking, going for a walk, and things are not hitting for you, I would say start with the community. What are you building? uh for who like who's it for so if it's for dentists um what are the pain points that dentists have what are some new phrases that they have um and then what's the essence of these phrases um
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And just start brainstorming from there. I usually go to Claude and I'm saying, I use this prompt, then you can have it. I'm brainstorming names around XYZ topic. So as an example, I'm brainstorming names around an AI software agent that answers restaurants and takes orders. What are some interesting, clear, direct names that speak to this community?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
We can just do it live because we're live cooking. And I know you all love the live cooking. Let's do this. Do that. Boom. And then let's see what people, what it comes up with. So we got like Dinebot, OrderMind, Cuisinassist, MenuMate, FoodieAI, ServeLogic, DishDecider, ByteBot. Bytebot's like pretty good because it's got that alliteration. But yeah, I think then you see like, is this a phrase?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Is this descriptive? Is it funny? And you could say like, I want more of a funny one. I want more of a descriptive one. Can you make a one word versus two words? Do you want it three words? Do you want it short? Do you want it long? Yeah. And then you just use Claude as your naming assistant, as your Greg Eisenberg. It's just me, you know... Make Claude me, basically, and get feedback.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And then put that on your name list and get feedback. So that's most of what I got. I wanted to give you a few names on my list, on my name game list, just as like, you made it here, you know? You made it here, I'm going to give you these names. So... One is called after party.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I don't know what it's for, like what you'd use it for, but like the after party is something that a lot of people, uh, you know, want to go to. It's fun. Maybe it's exclusive. I think there's something there. Um, and by the way, some of these you might not like, and they might be bad. And that's the other thing is on your name game, uh, list. It's okay to have bad names.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Um, and then you can just remove them or just keep them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Nothing wrong with that. Um, pretty perfect.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Not sure what it'd be before, but like the idea of pretty perfect, you got that alliterations. I think that it sounds, uh, pretty beautiful. Um, what else we got? Inventation only, you know, by invitation only. I think I saw that on like, uh, a wedding invitation, something nice about that. Maybe you create like a paid community that's invite only for a particular group.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
InCred, so it's short for incredible. You want to create something that's incredible, InCred, you probably can get that domain, probably can't get incredible.com. So that's kind of an interesting one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And maybe that's it for now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
If you like this, I'll share more ideas, more names. I want you all to comment on what are some tofu names, what are some good names, what are some bad names. Hope this has been helpful. I love doing these tutorials because I think it really does
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
hopefully make a difference in how you think about doing stuff, how you actually not just create startup ideas, but actually go and build the startup ideas. So, um, that's what the channel is evolving to. It's not just about ideas. It's about tutorials, about making things happen, about putting things into the world. It's about shipping. Uh, it's about getting customers, about building community.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Um, and you know, or it could not, and you could have a separate process for, uh, coming up with the name of your handle, but having almost a million people, uh, who are interested in somewhere I would live, you can sell them a lot of things. You can sell them real estate, you can sell them furniture, interior design services.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
It's about building internet audiences. So if you like this, uh, you can give me a little tip with a like comment, subscribe, share, and, uh, I think that's it for today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And happy naming.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So I think that having a descriptive name, uh, is really important, um, nowadays and just works really well. Um, because, uh, people see it and they're like somewhere I would like to live. Yeah, I could use some, you know, furniture, interior house inspo in my Instagram. I'm a click follow. So descriptive names, super underrated, uh, and something I use a lot. Phrases.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So what do I mean by a phrase? So a phrase could be something that is starting to take off in the cultural zeitgeist. So a few years ago, I'll just pull up Google Trends, there was a popular term and is now less popular, but it was called boss babe. So as you can see on my screen, let's go to Max. And this is Google Trends.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
it's because you need a name that's going to be scroll stopping so in today's podcast i'm going to just walk you through how i think about names some of my frameworks and if you stick until the end i'll even tell you a few of some names that come from my list that you can have so this is going to be a tutorial on how to name your startup how to come up with a good name
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And I use a tool called Glimpse to just give you some more information and just some related terms. So a friend of mine, I think it was around 2013, sort of picked up on this name Boss Babe. She grabbed the handle, created a meme page, theme page called Boss Babe on Instagram. And it just started to grow as... searches for Boss Babe grew.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And she started sharing, you know, quotes, you know, for female entrepreneurs and empowerment, female empowerment, and just really started to go up. And she created an account with millions and millions of followers. I think it's about 6 or so million followers and was able to create, you know, a five plus million dollar a year business on the back of it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So a phrase, when a phrase starts being on the come up, you really do need to just take stock of it, see if you can grab that handle, see if you can buy that handle, create a business around it. I think phrases are underrated. I've had another, and he's actually been on the pod, I had a friend of mine who had a phrase that he owned called at the most famous artist. So he was an artist.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
No one was sort of listening to him for a while. So he just decided to be called the most famous artist so that when you would Google him, he would come up. The most famous artist. Just Google him for a second. He's literally the number one person that comes up ahead of Pablo Picasso, ahead of Rembrandt, ahead of Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Michelangelo, these people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
He's the first person. His name is Matty Moe. And phrases, if you own a phrase, it's super, super valuable. And then there's humor. The internet... revolves around funny memes and stuff like that. So if you can pick a funny name, it will go far and you will get a lot of dividends of that. There's a lot of examples of that. I think the whole Manscaped brand, their content is...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Their social is a little bit around humor and stuff like that. I think they did a pretty good job at it and just leaning into it. Shh, don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I've compiled them into one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So a funny name, I'll give you a couple of examples of what that could look like. When COVID happened and people couldn't get their haircuts, I actually, as a fun side project, 24 hours, I launched this thing called You Probably Need a Haircut. And it was basically a tool that connected barbers in Brooklyn to people who needed haircuts. Um, and they would like coach you on how to cut it yourself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Um, and it was funny because obviously you needed a haircut, um, because, um, you know, it'd been a couple months and it got picked up by like good morning America and everywhere, millions and millions of visits to the website, um, all from making people laugh and smile. Um, and, And that was that was a really fun one. So and we actually use that same idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
We created a sort of an AI automation business called You Probably Need a Robot, which is that same idea. And we've gotten free traffic the same way. So humor goes a long way. And these are like the three sort of ways to think about how I think about creating a name for the Internet. It's going to go super, super far.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And then I want to just show examples of what could good names be, what would bad names be, what would tofu names be. And then I'll talk more about hacking your way to a novel name. But let's go into some bad names. So I actually think WhatsApp is a garbage name.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
It's a garbage name because, first of all, it's like when they were first starting and they were trying to get product market fit and it just basically didn't pass the telephone test. Now, what's the telephone test? It's when you call your friend and you're like, you need to download this app called WhatsApp.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And then they go to the app store and then they try to download it and they spell it wrong. WhatsApp, right? Right. Um, so, you know, passing the telephone test is pretty important, just easier. Um, obviously now it's a success. So it kind of doesn't, once you're like mega successful, it doesn't really matter what your name is, but it is probably one of the worst names.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Uh, GameStop is a pretty bad, uh, GameStop.com is a pretty bad name. So, Um, game is good to have in the name. They sell games, although now they're selling like collectibles. So it's not perfect, but, um, you want, you don't want to stop. You want to, you know, it should be game start of anything. You want to play the game.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So then you don't want to have negative vibes, negative, uh, sort of, you don't want people not to do the thing that you want them to do. So GameStop, I think is actually a pretty, pretty bad name. This name was changed, but Google Gemini, their chat GPT competitor, was originally called Google Bard. Bard literally sounds like I'm throwing up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
When I throw up, I sound, I just bard all over the place. So I'm happy they changed it. Gemini to me is a tofu name. We're going to talk more about tofu names in a second. But just, yeah, just not a really good name at all.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I just tweeted about this app called Social AI, which went viral, which is this idea around, it's basically like a Twitter app, except you have zero human followers and they just give you like a million AI followers and you post and then you get like thousands of replies, all AI generated. But it's called social AI and it's like the least social thing it is. To me, what's a sort of phrase?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
What would I call this? I'd probably use a phrase and I'd call it maincharacter.ai. It makes you the main character. I just think that this feels a bit tofu to me. I don't really get it. But maincharacter.ai, I totally get. Claude. Um, clode.ai is, you know, on one hand is good because it's like a person and a brand and you can kind of see it and it's French.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So maybe it's like, I don't know, higher quality. Um, but it's hard to spell for the, for Americans. They don't really get it, you know? So I think, I think that they were on the right track, but, um, Maybe pick Pierre over Claude, easier to spell. And also, come on, Claude, people. Where's the vibe here? Where's the brand? This just feels so lame. It's like that gray could be so much more.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I believe that there's three types of names. Bad names, good names, and what I call tofu names, which are kind of like mid names. So what I mean by that is it doesn't really stick out. You know, tofu takes on the sauce of whatever is around it. It's kind of bland. So it's kind of a bad name, but it's not, you know, it's not offensive. And I do have a framework for naming.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
They could be making a more lovable brand, minimal lovable product here. And by the way, I'm sharing all this stuff so you just get in my head, so you become the biggest, best name expert on the planet. I have some of the biggest brands call me up And they're just like, hey, Greg, I need a name. They know I'm the name guy. So I try to give you all that alpha free.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I think perplexity is a really good name. Perplexity.ai, the search engine, because being perplexed, you don't have the answers. So here's where the answers are. And I think, I don't know if you all have seen, but the perplexity ads, they go hard. Like here, look at this, Perplexity, know it all, search and discover with AI. So this is their, I guess their splash, well, it's not a splash screen.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
It's really just like, yeah, it's a kind of a logged out screen on web. And it's beautiful. And it gets you connected to the Perplexity brand. I think they do a really, really, really, really good job here. And probably one of the reasons why they're, I think their last valuation was 3 billion. The brand matters, the name matters. This is an app called Bump. It's a location sharing app.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And when you're with your friend, you shake your phone and you bump. And basically that sends a notification to all your friends who... who are following you, so you bump when you're together. And it's starting to take off, like 79th in social networking in the US. I think this is really cool as a name because it's the action that they want you to do.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So thinking about if you're doing an app, you're doing a consumer app, consumer software, picking the verb is a pretty smart way of naming an app. I had to throw this one in here when I was like, Claude is kind of a not great name. Most of you probably don't remember this search engine. It was in the 90s. It was called Ask Jeeves. And they took out all the branding here, but back in the day...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
it was this dude. It looked like this. He showed up and you went to Google something and you had this legend right over here and it was Ash Jeeves and he was handing you the results on a silver platter. Love that name. Can do a lot with the brand and definitely goes viral. This is an app. I'm actually going to bring the founder on the pod as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
So depending on when this goes live, check it out. His name is Chris Josephs. So Autopilot is this really cool thing. And they started off with a Twitter account, like the Nancy Pelosi tracker, where they would see what Nancy Pelosi would trade. And then they started doing Michael Burry, the dude from the Big Short. So they created an app based on these Twitter, I guess, and Instagram handles.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And they said, do you want to copy these people's trades? Go for it. And I think Autopilot is such a good name because it's just... you're not going to, I don't care how good of an investor you are. You're not going to outcompete Nancy Pelosi. We all know this by now. Don't even try. So, uh, pressing a button and just copying trades, I think is really, really smart.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I took this from our membership community empire.co website. And there's three ways where you can actually, you know, I come up with names. So the first thing is I come up with a descriptive name, a phrase, or a funny name. And I'll explain exactly what I mean by each name. So a descriptive name is something like the Instagram account at somewhere I will live.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
Um, and calling it autopilot, just like, I get it. Um, Last good name, this is a sauna slash ice bath slash breath work company. They started off in Toronto, now they're in New York City. And then they built an app that became quite popular, which is just you can tune into these breathing exercises. And it's called Other Ship. And Other Ship, I have no idea really what it means.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
I just know that the people that go to this are the types of people that are sober, that care about their health, that talk about clean living. Um, and it just feels like other ship. It's like a ship that's like another ship that you probably should be on. It's leaving, you know, it's leaving the Marina, go jump on. Um, and it's just like other lifestyle that you can go ahead and have.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)
And, and, and, you know, I've been, I've actually been to one of these and the Toronto one, and it is like a very unique experience. It's not just like a, uh, uh, It's not just like a steam sauna place. It's more than that. And it's just like an other experience. So I think they did a good job. Now, what's an example of a tofu brand? Aloe. It's like... What? It doesn't speak to me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
What's the scale of a big lead gen business?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I needed to have you on the Startup Ideas podcast and you said yes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I was driving with a buddy of mine. He's a big real estate agent. And we get to a red light and we see these signs that say, we buy houses for cash and then a phone number. So it was like a bit of a lull in the conversation. So I just brought it up, making small talk. I'm like, I wonder who actually sells their house by calling these phone numbers. It's also a really nice area.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
It didn't really make that much sense to me. If you're going to sell your house, the average house in Miami Beach is at least a million dollars, let's say. Are you really going to call this random phone number? And then he goes, oh, you don't understand. This is actually a lead gen business. So they have these signs all over North America. And then they
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
call these people, they get insight to people who are kind of on the fence if they want to sell their house. They're just basically fishing to see what is their house worth. And there's so many people that are just curious that, oh, if you can sell your house for $1.2 million today, yeah, maybe you would. But if it's only worth $800,000, maybe not. And then they sell those leads.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I don't know who they sell it to, Are they selling it to other real estate brokers? Are they selling it to private equity who want to buy Blackstone, who want to buy them? I don't know. But it was just interesting to see how this one funnel that isn't digital at all is probably crushing it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
This is your people. You're going to get a lot of comments on YouTube and stuff like that. People are going to be like, Chris guy. Yeah, he's one of us.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Idea number three, what do you got for us?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So I think the thesis that Facebook is only for people over 65, which is basically in our world, we're kind of like, that's what Facebook is, isn't necessarily true.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah. All right. So you have a list of ideas. Let's start from the top and let's give it to the people. Give them some actionable, tactical ideas. Each one of these ideas are better than the next. So let's get right into it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
There's only one thing that's missing from this idea that I would love, which is give me a prediction of how many impressions, likes, follows I'm going to get from posting this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And I know that's not going to be perfect and sometimes it's going to be wrong. But I think that one killer feature around... Tell me how many impressions... Start with one platform. How many impressions will I get on Twitter? That itself is so, so, so valuable. And I think you're absolutely right. There isn't really a lot of... data on the lifecycle of content and news stories.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And I know I would be willing to pay for a service that served that up to me on a silver platter. I care less about scheduling it and automating it, to be honest, because there's tons of platforms that do that. But I think that there's a huge opportunity around, definitely an eight-figure opportunity around exactly the trending nature of stories and content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I created a Greg GPT, like a custom GPT. I uploaded all my newsletters that I've written for years, all my tweets. I exported all my tweets. I trained it on that. And it's not there. Like I don't get, I'll say, I'll give it, hey, I want to write a tweet. Here's my outline. you know, write it in the listicle format, like I normally write it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And it's just, maybe it's just, I, I just hate anything that isn't me personally. Um, because it's my voice. Um, but so maybe it's me. Um, but I actually think that, I don't know, man, these, it's just not there yet. It's not there yet. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Oh, Delphi. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
friend of the pod I won't say who he started a billion dollar business sent me a text yesterday hey brother do you do your own writing or do you work with a writer and I wrote 100% myself and he's like you have no idea how much I was hoping you say working with a writer or working with AI you know we're going to say this and people listening are going to be like oh I wish they were just going to say here's one tool I used there isn't one tool you can use you can definitely use AI like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
You can definitely use chat GPT or clode, as I say. Clode to train a little bit and be like right in this style. It's not going to get you ready to post anything. material, but it might get you, it's not going to get you from point A to Z, but it might get you from point A to B. That's the state of where we are with AI writing and AI content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
It gets you, could get you from point A to B, which is great. It moves you forward and that's awesome. One thing, I'll give a tip for content creation and using some of these AI tools. What you can do is you can give it an outline of here's the tweet I want to write and this is the style I want it to be in. Ask me questions. if you don't know how to do this or you're missing any information.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And then it becomes your writing assistant. So you've now turned ChatGPT into a writing assistant and you're going back and forth. And then the chances that it gets from point A to B is instead of 30%, it's like 70%. Mm-hmm.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah. What's my problem? You be honest. You be vulnerable with it. And you're like, listen, I know you might not know me. I know we're just getting to know each other. Like, make it fun. Have fun with ChatGPT a little bit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. All right. Next idea. Number four. I like this idea. Tell me more about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Okay, so this is the first time I've heard of Shady Rays. Did you know that they have this VIP program? I don't think so. So the way the restocking fee works is if you lose your glasses, if you're a part of the VIP program, it's like $15 to restock. But if you're not a part of the VIP program, it's like $20, let's say. Brilliant. And to join the VIP... What do you get by...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Being a VIP is you get like 5% extra discount, priority order, early access to sales, dedicated customer support. Now, it would be really smart if they charge for this VIP program. I don't know if they charge for it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
They should. They should. I don't know. It doesn't say. It just says, are you in? So I'm not in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Wow. Okay, so that could be optimized. That could be optimized. I think if I'm them, I'm creating a $5 to $10 a month. Call it even $4 a month. Something no-brainer. And the whole goal is to get you to buy more things. So I love it. I love your idea. I think there's probably a hundred other niches you can go and apply this to.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Love it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah, this is your last one. This is your last idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Go with the Shopify one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Okay, and say someone wants to start this business, how do they get to the Shopify merchants? Someone might be listening to this and be like, yeah, cool. I like that there's a no-brainer offer. I love the ICP. I love that it's going to bring in monthly cash flow, but I just don't know how I would get to hundreds if not thousands of merchants.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
My man. Drop them gold. Appreciate you coming on. Where could people get to know you a little bit better on the internet?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Beautiful. You got a last question for me. What's on your mind?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I mean, it's really just this podcast YouTube thing. The Startup Ideas podcast, Spotify, Apple, YouTube. And why? Just because... it's the, it's the, it really does build affinity with people. And if they listen to you every week, um, that affinity compounds and it's cool. It's really cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Like, especially the audience that I'm attracting right now, which is a lot of people building indie hackers, people who, you know, are at their desk job, but at Google or something, but daydreaming about building a startup zero to one, um, Like we talked about in the beginning, these are your people, these are my people. And I feel lucky I get to... This is my job.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I don't do this full time, right? I just get to come on here a couple hours a week and jam ideas. And someone told me this morning, yeah, I love the Startup Ideas podcast. It's like junk food for my entrepreneurial brain. I don't know how I feel about that, junk food, but... I get it. I get it, right? There's ideas people and there's not ideas people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And there's this, people say like, whoa, ideas are nothing. Execution is everything. But that's not how we talk about ideas. When we talk about ideas, we're talking about, okay, here's this Shopify abandoned cart idea, but here's actually how you'd go and start it. And here's the idea of the sub ideas on how to do it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I don't know where this podcast goes and I don't know where this YouTube goes, but I'm getting energy from it. That's for sure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
It's a trick question because I know a lot of, I'm not going to name them, but I know a lot of other podcasts, like B2B creator type people who have tons of subscribers, but it's low quality views and low quality comments and just low quality.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I think that YouTube is the most valuable because they're listening to you, they're watching you, and they see you. So I don't know, a YouTube subscriber, if it's high quality, $7. I would say close second is probably Spotify and Apple, like audio listeners, maybe $6. And then newsletter subscribers, like quite low, like $1 or less.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
No. And that's like, I'm not trying to grow my YouTube to 5 million subscribers. I'm not trying to grow my podcast of, you know, 20 million, you know, followers, stuff like that. I'm, I'm, I want to grow slow and steady. And I want people every week. There's more and more people. And it just feels like this groundswell. And I don't need to be Lex Friedman. I don't want to be that big.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I just want this group of people who are interested in building stuff. And I do think that audio and video is the best. I will say, this past weekend, something cool happened to me. I'm drinking my coffee and... Actually, I drank a few coffees and that got me to tweet a lot. Usually, you can tell that I have a lot of coffees when I'm tweeting a lot. That's how I get it out. And I tweet something.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And then all of a sudden, I see my notifications blowing up. Who replies to me? Elon Musk.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So, okay, I'll pull it up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I'm sorry about that. That must suck. You know, that must suck. So here's what went down. So I go, the current state of the X algorithm is your tweet will literally never be seen by a soul or you go ballistic with one to a hundred million impressions and nothing in between. So then he goes, I agree. We need to fix this. So then I go, I want to help. First of all, context.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
It was like 11.13 or something or whenever I got that. It was like 11 something when I got that, when I saw it. And I was on my way to go work out with a friend. and I didn't want to be late. So I was like, Oh my God, Elon Musk just tweeted at me and I don't have Twitter on my phone cause it's smart.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Right. Cause I'm a, yeah, I'm a, I'm not going to put a Twitter on my phone. Of course not. You know why? So I down, I'm like, Oh, I'll download Twitter. Download Twitter. I responded and I just responded quickly. Um, And yeah, I was like, I want to help. I advised some of the biggest social apps before, like TikTok and Reddit, DMs open. So then I'm doing dumbbells, just checking Twitter, my DMs.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I'm like, is Elon writing? Is Elon writing? Because I don't have notifications, again, because I'm a sane person. Okay, and then one more quick thing happened that Elon said. So then he said, because Robert Scoble, this other guy was like, Oh no, here's what he said. Hold on. Elon Musk writes, I saw his post because a friend sent it to me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Forwarding links is taken as a signal, but should be a far stronger signal. So first of all, the fact that someone forwarded my tweet to him is insane. Yeah. And then the fact that he later tweeted out that he's changing the Twitter algorithm to focus more on small accounts... And he acknowledged it. So like, did I just change social media?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I've got almost 400,000 followers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah. And that's the story of how I met Elon Musk and he never DM'd me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
All right, Chris, this has been fun. I'll catch you later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
What do you think? So first of all, I'm just going to put this out there. I need to get this off my chest for a long time. I still log into Facebook probably once a week. I'm just putting it out there. Yes, I'm a 35-year-old male. And yes, I do log into Facebook from time to time. And that's because sometimes their emails bring me back. Sometimes their memory emails bring me back.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I'm a very nostalgic person. So I'm always like, oh, what was I doing on this day 11 years ago? The birthdays, sometimes I'll be like, oh, I think it's my friend Jeremy's birthday that I went to high school with, but it could be tomorrow. So let me go check Facebook.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I think there's a lot of millennials who are actually on quote unquote Facebook, like count it as weekly active users or monthly active users, that if you ask them, hey, are you on Facebook? They'd probably say no. It's kind of like how when you look at the polls, people just say they don't vote for Trump, but secretly they vote for Trump. Yeah. That's where we're at with Facebook.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
It's like, who's eating it, right? Like, there's someone eating it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So that's where we're at with Facebook. So I think the thesis that Facebook is only for people over 65, which is basically in our world, we're kind of like, that's what Facebook is, isn't necessarily true. Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions, and I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you. Yes. It is for older people, it does skew older, but it's not necessarily just for old people. There are some random WAUs like me, weekly active users. This is a gift that you're giving people that this exists, that this is like an arbitrage opportunity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I do think that there's, obviously this is a growth idea, so anyone who's building anything could go and now start posting, cross-promoting, so thank you for sharing that. There's also an agency idea here where I think the tagline could be something like, we go where you don't have time to go. And it's basically, there's a bunch of social networks.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
There's a bunch of places where you know you probably should be there, but you don't have the time because if you're building an audience, you want to focus on one platform or two at most. So for example, Quora. Everyone knows that answering questions on Quora is really great for SEO and drives traffic. But who does that? Do you know anyone who does that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
This is a gift that you're giving people that this exists, that this is like an arbitrage opportunity. There's also an agency idea here where I think the tagline could be something like, And we are live. Chris Kerner, you're on the pod. Thank God. Thank God because you are an idea machine. You own eight RV parks. You own seven companies and you're constantly sharing ideas with the world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah, neither do I. Neither do I. But I go onto Google sometimes. And Cora comes up and I'm like, that was a great answer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Totally. So I think there's an agency that you can build here, small to medium-sized businesses you approach and you say, we'll do it for you. There's also focusing just on creators. So you're like, hey, for $500 a month, I'll go do this for you. You don't have time to do it. You're not thinking about it. I'll do it for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Totally. We can call that threadheads.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yep. Cool. Anything else before we hop on to the next one?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
All right, what's Numero Dos?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Wait, I got to explain what those tools do for people who don't know what that is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
That's interesting. So basically what you're saying is, let's just say painting, like house painting. So I'll use programmatic SEO to generate a ton of demand in house painting in Miami Beach. And I built the landing pages and suite of landing pages. It's generate, you know, I built the SEO juice. It's working. I just need someone to fulfill the service at a high quality.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And I'm willing to basically partner with someone to, and then basically split the revenue with them. So basically focusing on cash flowing businesses, I would imagine local businesses because SEO is especially good for local businesses. Um, and is that what you're saying?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Do you know much about lead gen businesses? I feel like they're not really talked too much about in tech Twitter, Silicon Valley.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 validated startup ideas to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Who can we study that does lead generation really well? And what's the scale of a big lead gen business?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
I think you're totally right. I think there's also an opportunity. When a market gets really big, there's just an opportunity to be a me too. And if you just innovate on like your $5 less or your black, you know, your red and black, you know, just a color way. Yeah, totally. That could also be enough. So you're a... I would consider you a growth guy or marketing guy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
If you were going to create Yonder for rich people, let's just say you did some quick testing. People are like, yeah, that's something I want. If it looked like a, I don't know, really dope cigar, high-end cigar case, I would totally buy that for $799, $799 instead of $149 or $249, which Yonder charges. How would you go about actually growing the thing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
So anyway, so you were on that mountain top, you were brainstorming startup ideas. You decided, you decided to text me. We're now here. Um, and, and I'm ecstatic cause I, you're the real deal. You've built, I mean, you've built businesses from zero to 20 million ARR completely bootstrapped. So when you talk, I listen. That's rare.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
And you don't need to incentivize these people. It's really as simple as just sending them the product and being like, if you like it. Look, here's the thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Not many people end up doing that for a lot of reasons, which we agree are stupid. Some of them, you know, exactly, exactly. So, um, let's just, let's just get into it. You know, what's on your mind right now and what could you share with, with people? So look, I, um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
And if you don't like it, will you throw it away? Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30 day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend BoringMarketing.com. Someone's going to listen to this and be like, yeah, but I can't write copy as well as you, Adam.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
And I think a really easy way to do it is if you find another product that has great sales copy, like let's say Jolie, like go and sign up, buy a Jolie, for example. Just study their copy, map out their funnel, and then just go to Claude or go to ChatGBT and be like, hey, this is what I'm trying to write for this product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
I want it to be in the style of Jolie because I like it for the following reasons. Could you take a first stab at it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Totally. You know, totally. Totally. Yeah, I think what you can steal is not the individual recipe, but the direction of the recipe. So for example, one of my favorite websites is once.com, Jason Freed's company. And it's this beautiful manifesto around how they see the world and how things have changed and all that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
I'm not saying go and copy ones.com, but what you can copy is the recipe of a manifesto and a main character encountering problems and stuff like that and apply it to whatever it is you're trying to do. Because recipes like that don't really change. Human beings don't really change and it's really just about adapting... that to whatever it is you're doing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Yeah. Um, they love being different, but like, did they invent the manifesto? Probably not.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Totally. Well, I thought, you know, I was listening to that. I was like, maybe I'll be the guy too.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
That's the pod. There you go. Mic drop. Thanks for coming on. Where could people learn more about you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Damn. And I like how you gave the email, you know, people, your email is about to blow up. Sweet. Yeah, that's cool. And dude, you should, you totally could create a system that takes your LinkedIn content and just in a, in a, elegant way moves it to X, but that's a story I got to, you know, we got to talk about that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Totally. And going back to your yonder idea, it's like, if I was going to start that idea, I'd start with a TikTok account and Instagram somewhere, build content around phone-free spaces, go review phone-free spaces, phone-free, like get at phone-free experiences on Instagram or whatever it is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Um, so it's a good place to start, not just for personal, but for, as I always think about it as like my minimal viable product is my, my social account.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
So Adam, I'll catch you later and, uh, maybe on a mountaintop somewhere.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
So there's probably people who don't even know what a yonder patch is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
If you were going to create Yonder 2.0 or Yonder for XYZ niche, how would you actually go about doing so? Adam Robinson, you've made it to the Startup Ideas podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
But the main thing is most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you. I am...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Yeah. From a scale perspective, from what I heard, Yonder was doing like $30 to $40 million in revenue. They've got over a million students every day using the product in 21 countries, which is crazy. That costs about $25 to $30 USD per student. Another interesting thing is I just checked Google Trends and I used this tool called Glimpse that adds some search data on top of it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Some of the top searches for Google Trends for Yonder is Yonder stock. How do I invest in Yonder? Invest in Yonder. Is Yonder publicly traded? Which is a really good signal that people believe in the company. So if you were going to create Yonder 2.0 or Yonder for XYZ niche, how would you actually go about doing so?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Totally, dude. How do you know I wasn't just checking Twitter right now? Yeah, I'm sure you were. How do you know I was just on Twitter this whole conversation?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Totally, totally. So I'm on the Yonder website. And I see something I like seeing, which is if you go to the other website, they have a bunch of different categories. So it says, first of all, their tagline of phone free spaces, like perfect, really, really well said. So elegant. So elegant.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
Three words is the goal. If you can get to three words, God bless you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
I like that. Beautiful, right? Yeah, that's really good. That's really good. So on the Yonder website, phone-free spaces, you got homes, all these categories, homes, school, music, comedy, events and weddings, courts, workplace, productions, hospitality, and other. What that says to me, whenever I see something like that, I'm like, okay, how do I create Yonder for X? Yeah, totally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
I think going to your point, if you can mock up some of these landing pages, mock up the products for X, and then just start talking to those people, that's a great approach. The other thing I usually do, also to your point, is once I see categories, I'm like, okay, these are categories, but what's a... what's a group of people that I would go target that has specific needs for this thing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The step by step guide to starting a business from $0
So, you know, yonder for rich people, uh, yonder for, uh, you know, you know, wellness people or, or whatever, just, you know, going down the list and, uh, and then seeing, is there something unique that you can provide to them?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And, you know, why I like SaaS businesses so much is the margins are incredible. You can expect anywhere from 70, 80, 90% margins. What other businesses could you do that in? And today, that's what we're going to talk about. Only SaaS businesses. And by the way, each of these ideas, I'll give you the playbook. So the first idea is called... I just had way too much coffee and I get the jitters.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
You can expect anywhere from 70, 80, 90% margins. What other businesses could you do that in? And now it's cheaper than ever to go and build these MVPs, build these minimal viable products. So Over the last few years, I've gotten more and more interested in building SaaS products, and I have built a bunch of them. And today, that's what we're going to talk about. Only SaaS businesses.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
Are you ready? I'm ready. Can you tell? Can you tell what the coffee jitters? All right. So the first idea is what I'm calling the legal jargon simplifier. And I had this idea because I... was just signing some documents with a real estate agent that I'm working with. So I'm selling... I'm selling my apartment. And... I honestly didn't understand a lot of what was going on.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And I know a lot of you are like me. So what if there was a one-click solution, like a Chrome extension that could demystify complex legal documents? And I think you start with just terms of service. So how would it work? Okay, I'll give you the playbook. And by the way, each of these ideas, I'll give you the playbook. So you install the Chrome extension. It would be free to start.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And then you activate it on any web page with legal text. So that could be a Google Doc. It could be a website. And then you click the extension button to generate a quote-unquote four dummies version of the legal document. Now, I don't know if you can use the term four dummies because it might be for the books. But you get the idea. Something like that that's super catchy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And then what happens is the AI analyzes the text in real time. So then you get these like plain language summaries of the key points. If you have a 20 page doc, hopefully it just gives you two, three, four points. It highlights and exposes the red flags of unusual clauses in simple terms. That's really what you're looking for.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And then you offer a risk assessment score based on industry standards and user rights. And I know there's probably a lawyer listening to this and being like, oh my God, I don't know if you can do that. And I'm not a lawyer. I don't know. I just wish this thing would exist. And I know that people would pay for it. And how would they pay for it? I think you can charge something like $5 a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
It can be very, very cheap. Or you can do something like $50 a year, $75 a year, and you'd get things like advanced explanations, document comparison stuff. So you'd apply a very similar model to a DocuSign. You get a free few signatures and then they eventually charge for it. So how would I grow this business? What would be my growth strategy?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
So I think you can actually create accounts like Twitter accounts, Instagram accounts, where you show like the simplified versus original versions of famous terms of services. No one knows what they're signing when they're signing terms of services. I think everyone knows that. So I think if you compared them and just showed what they actually said, I think those would go viral.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
The other growth strategy is just it's free, right? You're doing a Chrome extension, so you can do all the app store optimization in the Chrome store. And then you can do a referral program. So I'm thinking like protect a friend, get a month free. And then, of course, you can partner with all the legal education platforms to offer this tool as a part of their curriculum.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
I think that you can also do something cool where you implement a legal clarity certification for businesses. You try to ride this wave that everyone knows that these terms of services are... There's a lot of words and people don't understand it. I think that If you can do that, that's a huge business and someone would buy it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
I think you can definitely sell that business to a Salesforce, to a box.com, to someone like that once you get your revenue up. So that's idea number one, legal. We're just getting warmed up here. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Idea number two. the micro-influencer campaign manager.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
So this is about streamlining the process of running a micro-influencer campaign for small to medium-sized brands. In micro-influencer, I'm talking less than 8,000 followers. Okay, so how does it work? Well, you use AI to identify and vet these micro-influencers based on brand alignment and engagement rates, followers, that sort of thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And then you create basically an agent that automates outreach and negotiation processes with these templates. You can manage content approval workflows and posting schedules. You can track campaign performance across all the different platforms like IG and TikTok and YouTube. And then you provide return on investment analysis and suggestions for campaign optimization.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And when I get the jitters, I have the best startup ideas. I don't know why. So I just was writing down a ton of SaaS startup ideas and I needed to click record and share it with you. Now, you might listen to one of these SaaS ideas and steal it and build the MVP in a weekend and it starts growing and growing. All of a sudden, you're doing a million dollars a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
You can charge something like $149 for 20 influencers. There's this growing demand for micro-influencers and small to medium-sized businesses. It's a lot of work to do. If you have a store or something and you have two employees, it's just difficult to manage this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And yes, there's marketplaces that you can go to, but I think if you can do an automated AI type of micro-influencer campaign manager, there's something here. So... Yeah, just making influencer marketing accessible and manager for smaller brands because I think this is just a bigger and bigger marketing channel. Okay, how would I grow this thing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
So you know I'm really big into tools and lead magnets. First thing I would do is I'd probably create an influencer campaign ROI calculator, make it completely for free. I'd partner with e-commerce platforms to offer it as a marketing tool for their merchants. Probably hard to do with Shopify because they're too big. But the smaller ones. I think I'm really into these certification programs.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
So I think you can do something, a certification program for micro-influencer marketing specialists. I'd implement a campaign of the month showcase to highlight success stories. And then I'd love to host some sort of speed dating event between brands and micro-influencers online, get people to sign up, and then you can nurture those people. That is idea number two.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
All right, for idea number three, I'm calling it the AI writing coach for non-native English speakers. And by the way, there are billions of non-native English speakers. This is a huge market. And they want to learn English. They want, they want to work online. And a lot of them could speak English well, but sometimes writing it, you know, it's not their first language. I get it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
Speak multiple languages. It's not, it's not easy. So the idea is basically creating a tool for, you know, writing improvement for this specific, specific niche. So, okay, how does it work? you start by just analyzing the user's writing style and their common errors. You give real-time suggestions for grammar, style, and vocabulary improvements.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
You offer content-specific language usage shifts based on the industry and document type. You generate personal writing exercises to address the weak areas, track and adapt suggestions over time. So this is basically like grammarly, but really focused on the non-native group. And I think that just the positioning, if you just focus on that, that itself is a huge opportunity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And then again, focusing on professional talking and really focusing on business, I think a lot of people would pay for it. And they'd probably pay $5, $10, $15, $20 a month. And that adds up. You can also do it...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
if you want to do like a yearly, you know, a couple hundred dollars or a hundred dollars, or you can also think about doing lifetime deals, but you got to be careful with that because, uh, you really do have to know what your costs are. Okay. How would, how would I grow this thing? Um, so for a tool perspective, I do like a free professional English proficiency assessment tool. And, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
I'd probably just do a ton of webinars for like, you know, I'd be like the effective business writing guy or gal for non-native speakers. So I would bring people in online. I would show them how writing has, you know, increased their job prospects, have helped them get promoted.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
You end up selling the business to Salesforce. And then you send me a DM or comment on YouTube. Change your life. And I wouldn't be surprised. Or you might just listen to one of these ideas and it gets your creative juices flowing. And that is why I love doing this podcast. Because these ideas, you don't necessarily need to steal if you don't want to.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And I just, yeah, I'd start by just hosting all these workshops, bring them in, get their emails, maybe nurture them through a community workshop. where they can meet other people. And I think this is a multi-million dollar business. The next idea. All right. So a micro-localization platform. So... I've actually told this story on the pod before, but I'm here in Quebec right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And Quebec has this weird thing where it's like one of the biggest markets in the world for Pepsi, not Coke. I went into a store the other day. It's like, can I have a Coke? They're like, will Pepsi do? You hear that all the time here in Quebec. And it has to do with... Coke didn't really understand the local nuances of Quebec when they first came here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And this is many years ago, I think in the 60s. They just bought the same ads for British Columbia that they did for Quebec. And that didn't resonate. Where Pepsi understood the local cultural nuances and created campaigns that spoke to them. So how do we think about that in today's world? How can we productize that, create a SaaS product out of it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
Basically, you do AI-powered analysis of local cultural nuances and trends. You basically adapt automatically content for the different localities. People in Montreal might speak a little bit differently or like to do different things than people in Quebec City. You can integrate with all the major CMSs, like the WordPresses and social media platforms.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
You do real-time performance tracking of localized content. The content production isn't necessarily just words. This could be videos, GIFs, all types of automatic content. And then there's a suggestion engine for local partnerships and influencers. These global brands want to know what's cool in this neighborhood, in this city. Different neighborhoods even are different.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
I think you can charge something like a couple hundred dollars per locality. So if you want Montreal and Quebec City, that might be $400. For some of the bigger global brands, you might even say, and some of the bigger cities, you might even say certain cities cost more. If you think of a city like New York City, they're so different. Even Williamsburg to Bushwick is very different or
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
Tribeca to the Upper East Side is different. So maybe you're charging $199 for each of them. So I think this is just cool because it allows the global brands to feel way local, helps them increase engagement, conversion rates, and that's going to be the big moat going forward. I think local, I'm really, really bullish on that. So how would I grow this thing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
I would basically do every month or every couple months these free cultural sensitivity reports for top global brands. I'd create a local rank score for brands' local adaptation efforts. Obviously, I'd be partnering with the different marketing agencies. I'd be hosting workshops on the impact of micro-localization on sales. And I feel like no one really owns that on places like Twitter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
So who's talking about micro-localization? And then you just implement just a local referral program for local marketing consultants. And that's what I got for you today. I don't want to overload you. I want to keep it short and sweet. These are some ideas and how I'd grow them. I hope it got you thinking. Shoot me over a comment on YouTube and let me know what you're thinking.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
But it might just spark something in your own life. It might just... You might hear this one idea for this niche and want to apply it to another niche that you know well. So... we're just going to go through these ideas. I'm going to give them all to you. Listen to the whole thing. Think about them. And why I like SaaS businesses so much is the margins are incredible.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder
And if you liked it, if you want more of these powwows, if you want me more to overdose on coffee, I'll do it and I'll do it for you. So thank you for listening to the Startup Ideas Podcast. And I will see you in the comment section. See ya.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Today I want to talk about something that I think you're one of the best in the world at, which is getting attention and going viral. So many people don't know Chris Josephs and that's okay because They have seen the Nancy Pelosi tracker or the Michael Burry tracker, or they've seen what you've been, you know, the recent thing you did with the UFC and getting a lot of attention there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And if you don't have, if you didn't do Step Zero and you don't have the meme page, for example, and you still sponsor the UFC and you did it in this really smart way, What people can also do, and I'm curious your opinion on this, but what people can also do is get that content and just reach out to different meme pages and be like, hey, I'll give you $500 for you to repost this or whatever.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
You know, you could rent that space if you don't want to actually do the work.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And how do you, how do you scrape that list? Is that a manual thing that you go and just have three years of it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And the best part about getting press, especially TV press, is that Once you get, for example, a two-minute CNBC clip, it's not about the 500,000 people that are watching CNBC at the time. It's actually about repurposing that clip, putting it on social, and when not a lot of people talk about, putting some paid behind that to even make it go further.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
A hundred percent. Okay, cool. And, uh, so what's next?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
I think the other smart thing that you did, which a lot of people don't do, is they create a meme page. They create a set of meme pages and then they create a product that has very low LTV. But you're in the complete opposite. You're... Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, companies like that will spend hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands of dollars to acquire a customer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And you're doing it pretty cheaply and smartly. So I think that's really smart. I want to actually shift gears. We didn't talk about this, but I actually built a meme page in 2020, I think, 2021. And it was in the plants space back during COVID when everyone was like getting plans for their office and stuff like that. And we built it just for fun.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And I want to get your brain to see if you built this, what would you do next? So I'm going to share my screen. And we're going to do this live using your framework, your scorecard, basically, that you've created. Let me share my screen. Your viral scorecard, yes. So this is kind of crazy. So this... Just to show you how easy it is sometimes to build a meme page.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
This was built in a couple months. Maybe one or two months. And we also built a Twitter page, which is now defunct, but it had 500,000 followers. And the idea was we didn't create any content. And for people who are listening on audio, you can go to YouTube and see the page. It's I Need Plants. I'll try to describe it as best as I can.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
But it was basically people would send us pictures of their good-looking plants. Um, and people like plants. They really, you know, they like being plant moms, plant dads. And I used your kind of idea around, uh, the usernames. I need plants. Um, the difference between, yeah, the difference between, um, what you built and what I built here was, um, I think you can make more money building, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
building a stock trading app than you can in the plant space. That being said, people are making millions of dollars a year doing, you know, AI plant identifier apps. So my question to you is you own, you know, I give you this page as a gift using your methodology. What type of content are you posting? How are you thinking about a product to create?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Which type of events would you sponsor and where do you take it from here?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Someone's just crying, but you have room for a new plan. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
So good. And that's why the stuff that works is scroll stopping and that is scroll stopping. You're like, wait, is this guy reviewing a stick?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
I agree. I think that's a good point. If you if you if you were thinking of sponsoring an event, I don't know, just any sort of sponsorship, you know, and for this plant one, how would you how would you think about it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Like, why is this, you know, trading app sponsoring this UFC fight? So I'm here in Miami and it was recently the gun show in Miami. It's like one of the biggest gun shows in America. And it's like, imagine I Need Plants sponsors the Miami gun show. And it's like, don't kill people or kill plants instead of people. I don't know, you know, something like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And then you create content around that. That could be really cool. That's one idea. Yeah. That's one. And the second idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Yeah. Well, you, you, you gave me that idea when, when you were like killing plants and I was like, okay, killing plants, guns, kill people. Plants don't kill people. There's something here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
That's such a good idea. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Yeah. This is the Startup Ideas podcast, so we could... Yeah, perfect.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Yeah. I think I like this idea for so many reasons. One is it's a behavior that's happening already. So you're kind of just unbundling it and you're just putting on its own, um, its own platform. I think the idea for this to work, it's going to need a name. That's just like super, super, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
catchy while you were i mean this name isn't isn't right for this idea but while you were talking i was just like oh my god does someone own get ready with me.com because that that is such a good domain wow yeah um someone owns it unfortunately but like someone go acquire that domain like that is the perfect domain maybe actually i was gonna say it's not perfect because it's like but you know what maybe it is perfect get um so or even just like grwf
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Oh, man, that's so good. Hold on. Let's see if that's taken. I might just want to take that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
A lot of people listening to this might not know her. So just for folks who don't know, she's got, like, a couple million followers at this point. And she... She's like just a girl that, you know, people want to hang out with. She's funny and she's witty. And she's got this bikini brand that she like if she does 100 posts, only one out of 100 she actually like promotes and she crushes it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
So what I want people to get out of this episode is by the end of this, they'll be able to internalize their own Chris Josephs and whatever they're able to do, they'll be able to come up with viral ideas and to get millions of people to engage with their stuff. Do you think we can do that today?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
100%. If you like this idea, post in the comments. we'll be in there. So I would love to see this become a reality. People are actually taking ideas that we're putting out on here and they're like building it. Like almost every day I'm getting a DM being like, I took this idea. So, uh, someone might build this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Yeah. So, I'll share my screen for a sec. So have you seen this? AI Hagler?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
So I talked about this on a pod. I was like, wouldn't it be cool if AI can just haggle for you? And this guy did it, and the use case he has is basically like, there's a world where you can just use a phone agent that gets you a better hotel price. So it says, our AI agent calls hotels and asks for a discount for your last minute stays. If you never ask, you never know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And he posted it on Twitter. He tagged me in it. He's like, I took your idea, and it got like 4,000 or 5,000... Okay, I'm going to... I got 4,000 or 5,000 likes on Twitter. I'm going to just play this. Our AI agent calls a hotel in Colombia, speaks Spanish, gets a discount on the hotel rate from 410,000 pesos to 350.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And he's charging five bucks for every phone call, I think. So people are taking these ideas. And the best part about that guy is that he didn't know how to code at all. He learned to self-code. Wow, so he's full-on AI. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, that's... Partly, I'm...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
They probably will. They probably will. Keep us posted. Yeah, do it. Like straight up, do it. Don't don't like do it tomorrow. Do it now. So, Chris, this has been obviously so fun. It's a pleasure. You're like a fountain of knowledge. Thank you so much for coming on. Where could people get to know more about you and an autopilot?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Beautiful. All right, my man. It's been real. Catch you later, dude. Cool. Appreciate it. Thank you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you. Okay, so during this pod, I actually want to go through step by step and just break all this stuff down.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
But step zero was... Well, okay, before I talk about step zero... you basically said that the UFC reached out and was like, Hey, we want to sponsor, you know, are you interested in sponsoring this event? Step zero was you created meme pages that had millions of followers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
So you created credibility, uh, so that you had access to something like the UFC, you know, for someone who wants to create a meme page similar to a Pelosi tracker, but in their space, um, Do you have a framework for how they can go ahead and do something like that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
So the investigative journalism bit, can you give an example of, you know, one trust building exercise you did using investigative journalism that really, really put maybe Pelosi tracker or Burry tracker on the map? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
Cool. All right. Step zero. Check. Check.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
You have the accounts. You have the accounts. Maybe you've gotten it to 50,000 followers. You've built some affinity, which I think is something that most people don't think about when they think about building a social account. They're thinking about attention, not affinity. But you're saying build attention and affinity. What's the next step in the process?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Meet the man who growth hacked his app to 1M downloads
And what have you learned from the whole UFC thing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
This is one of our more crazy Startup Ideas podcast episodes. It's with Avi Schiffman, the founder of friend.com. He was all over the news for raising a few million dollars and spending most of it on buying a domain. He's got some spicy takes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Cool. Yeah. I asked just because a lot of people listening here A lot of people, I presume you live in San Francisco or the Bay Area. A lot of people listening here, that world is so alien to them. They have venture capital and stuff like that. A lot of people listening are are just building products, bootstrapping it themselves. And so, you know, just question. Yeah. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
We got Avi Schiffman on the pod, founder of friend.com, 22 years old, Harvard dropout. He makes a lot of noise on Twitter and places like that. So thanks for coming on, man.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
How does someone gain confidence? You know, is that? Is that something that, you know, you can learn or?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
I saw this really good tweet by this guy, Aaron Alto. He tweeted, visualization is the first step and yeah you know i was thinking i think that's true in a lot of ways like you know for startup ideas you know it once you know step zero is visualization or maybe step yeah maybe actually upon a problem reflection maybe steps you know step step one is find your startup idea step two is visualization
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
That could be, that's actually a good tip. So, you know, for, for people listening, it's like, If you're feeling low confidence, maybe ask yourself, what would Sam Altman do in this case, if that's something I look up to, right? Smoke some weed, I don't know, chill out a little bit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. There's some people who work 120 hours a week, who don't leave their house, and just work, work, work, work. And I'm not of that belief. I think that you come up with good ideas and clarity of thought when you... work a bit more when you're more balanced.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
One thing I've noticed is that if I'm brewing on an idea, when I step out of the house and I just let it brew in the back burner, I'm still kind of working, but I'm not really. I'm on a walk or I'm riding my bike or doing something. Those moments I find are just as key as the moments I'm in front of my computer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Cool. So I think a lot of, you know, a bunch of people listening don't even know what the RAG memory system is. So I'd love you to walk through. I'd actually really love you to walk through
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
what that is just like at a high level because a lot of people aren't super technical yeah and then how to think about like is this a good idea or not because there are competitors out there like how do you know how do you think about like oh my god this is something someone should do and it would work what do you mean competitors out there
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
You mentioned two competitors, meaning... Well, I don't know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Yeah, I think, uh, okay. So I'll be honest. I, I don't feel personally like I would be able to execute this particular idea and, and when, um, That's because I'm just not super technical, but I'm technical enough to hear what you're saying and be like, that's a real problem. Someone is going to do really well to fix it. And the time is now. Oh, for sure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Totally. It gets me thinking that if you want to build a startup and you're looking for startup ideas that are going to work, maybe a good way is to just ask a particular type of founder, i.e. AI hardware founders or e-commerce founders and be like, what are the five biggest problems that you would pay money for to solve? What do you think about that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Every real idea is going to be technical. What do you mean by that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
You don't think that business creation has a spectrum of how technical things are? Morning Brew, for example, I think they make $100 million a year or something like that. But it's a newsletter business. They're just built on top of
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Just, no, I love, I love, I love hearing, cause you know, it's different than how I think, you know? Um, so, um, and I, you know, that's part of the pod. Like I want to bring on diversity of people, right? So if I just want to make sure I was understanding you correctly, basically what you're saying is, um, All businesses are technical.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Therefore, in order to be like you, let me let me just like like all businesses are technical because business is technical. Is it not? I think that some businesses are more technical than other businesses. If I were to go to create Varda, which is building warehouses in space or whatever, I think that's way harder than building a newsletter, for example.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
I think that's a beautiful place to end. Any last words for people and where could people get to follow your thoughts?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
I think this is, we'll go down as probably, we've never had an episode like this. Let's put it that way. We've never had an episode like this. So the comment section will be buzzing. And I think some people will be excited by what you say and then some people will be like, I don't want that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Thank you, Avi. Appreciate it. See ya. See ya.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
What do you think of founders who aren't trying to reinvent the wheel? who, you know, they're trying to create a SaaS business that is 5, 10 million bucks a year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
He also gives away a free startup idea in the AI space. It's highly technical. So many of you might not understand it. But for those of you who do, he gives a playbook on how to create this technical AI app that he thinks could make millions. You might not agree with everything Avi says, but it makes for a very interesting conversation and it probably will get your creative juices flowing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
What would you say to people who would say that everything is an existing category, like what you're building is in an existing category?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
And let's say the consumer social category. Is TikTok... a new, in a new category or is it, you know, like how, how would you see TikTok versus Instagram?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Could you create, you know, a new category without raising venture capital or is this something that you need to raise money to go and do?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $20m sales funnel from scratch
How to design a workshop, let's choose this one. All right. OK.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a $20m sales funnel from scratch
Here we go. Let's see. All right, so I'm going to bring it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
I'll give one idea that comes top of mind to this. So pools, so you can, you know, go find where the highest per capital amount of pools are private pools, which costs like 50 to a hundred grand. If you want to, you know, real pool and a try to sell them on a pool. And then you just sell that lead to whoever ends up making it. Um, B you can also sell them on, um, uh, upkeep of their pool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
So, you know, for like 200 bucks a month, we'll send someone who kind of like test the water and makes it all good. So I think that's, you know, an easy opportunity. And then you can also go to places where it's cold, where people have hot tubs. So think about like mountain towns, like. And that's the thing. The prompt here for people is don't go to the obvious HVAC stuff. That's obvious.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
What are the non-obvious spaces to go into?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
And you did. And it worked. So thank you. Let's start with service businesses because they're easy to start. And I want you just to bang through all these service business ideas because some of them are really good.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Whatever you want. You can start with whatever you want. But what's important to me is that for every idea that you talk about, just being, giving people the tactics around like, here's the idea. And this is how I'd actually go about starting. Yeah, exactly. Cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Yeah, I think what pisses people off about working with influencer agencies is most of them are not really conversion rate focused or ROAS focused. They're kind of just like, give me some money and I'll get you some influencers. And that's the trade.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
So if you can position this as revenue focused and just basically that whole story and on the website you tell the founder story of that and you tell the story of like, I was once one of those people. I spent a million dollars a month and I was generating $1,000 of sales. Mr. Beast even reviewed my product and it sucked. Some story like that, of course, has to be true.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
But some story with a founder letter, similar to how Jason Freed has like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
really good founder letters like if you check once.com or any of his stuff he just he has a really good way of just talking about the bigger picture and then once you learn about once you scroll down and you read the founder letter you're like wow yes i have spent a bunch of money on influences and has gone nowhere so i think this idea plus founder letter has legs
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Yeah, let's get in there. And just on the Jackie Chu side of things, I know a lot of people are listening to this and they're like, I'm not starting a YouTube channel. And I was actually one of those people who hated YouTube up until recently. But if you go to Jackie Chu's YouTube, Homie is not producing his stuff very...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Step two is you... just sign up to a few affiliate offers, you get anywhere between 20 and 40%. People don't realize how much some of these SaaS products are willing to give. And sometimes it's even lifetime deals. For example, you know, we host a lot of our communities on school. And school, which is actually Hermosi's, one of Hermosi and Sama Oven's business,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
we get 40% of lifetime revenue of the $99 a month that people pay for it. So that's step two. And the outcome of step two is it subsidizes your customer acquisition cost. So it puts you into a... zero to negative CAC situation where you can go ahead and take some of that money and put it into ads to get more of your...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Yeah, and it doesn't cost really anything to get started. And the videos actually make you pretty accountable to actually learn and be good. Because you're not going to be doing tutorials on, you know, dashboards, Google Analytics dashboards, if you don't actually know what you're talking about. So it forces people to get from not good to good at the skill set.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
It's time for software.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
750 apps. Oh my God, dude. And half of them don't even have any reviews. So there's basically like 80, 70 apps that people use. It's a goldmine.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
So... 29 million users of QuickBooks. And you know how many users Shopify has? How many? 4.6 million users. Which is a whole other framework for thinking about when you want to create software in one of these app ecosystems, look at how many apps are in the ecosystem versus how many users there are. And just go to where.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
So yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Yeah. Let's, let's keep going.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Yeah, I think the move is to create a set of accounts per city. So you do like cool spots, Denver. I also think that's step one. Step two then is,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
probably a mix of using other people who've gone viral in that city and being like, I'll give you a hundred bucks if you review this other place and getting them to cross promote on their, their personal patient, you know, and the, the, the, your new page. And you'd be surprised like a lot of these people don't have that many followers and like a hundred, 200 bucks is like, Oh wow, that's amazing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
You're going to send me this cocktail bar and you're going to promote, promote me on that page is amazing. And then you just build up a bunch of these accounts that are essentially like Yelp for these different cities. And then once you have that, then you probably, you know, you probably, everything goes back to email. Then you probably figure out a way, how can I get these people?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Yeah. Probably not email because it's Gen Z. Probably text. Have you heard of Laylo yet? No. Tell me about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Give me one last idea. I know I know we're pushing on time. I need it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
So anyways, with all that- Music is like real estate in that sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
You know, my favorite, part of you is. It's when you're 80% through a really good startup idea and you just know inherently that this is a good startup idea that you just get so... I just know it's going to work. You know it's going to work but you're like... It's so frustrating.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
If you were... If you're going to acquire one of these AI newsletters, how do you value some of these businesses? Let's say they have 100,000 subs. What do you pay per sub?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Here's my take. And it's also a Warren Buffett take, which is if you're going to do an acquisition, it's all about a mispriced asset and a great brand. So I think the mistake that a lot of these newsletters are making is they're monetizing via ads. So to them, a subscriber is worth 75 cents or a dollar.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Whereas someone like us, so we actually have an agency called LCA that literally builds the biggest AI products out there. So we'll work with a Dropbox and be like, hey, let's go build an AI first version of Dropbox or the Googles of the world, that sort of thing. So a client to us is worth anywhere between one and two million bucks, something like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Now, if you look at a 100,000 person newsletter, if it's high quality, are there the chief product officers and the VP products of some of these large tech companies? Then it becomes a literal no-brainer. You can actually pay up to $5 or $10, who knows? So that's how you have to think about it. So the way to think about it, I think, is start with, a business that produces cash and is profitable.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
And that's also the HubSpot model too, right? HubSpot created the CRM, high margins, and then they started acquiring media after they figured out that, okay, we've got this great margin business, let's go spend $20 million on the hustle.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
It's a good place to end. I mean, I can never end this, but I can, we can talk for hours, but we're not going to, we'll have to do a part three at some point. I love it, man. Having back whenever it's a good break in my day. I love it. Also, halfway through a double gin and tonic, so life is good. I'd love to see you fully done that gin and tonic and see what you spew out, actually.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Probably amazing stuff. I like the way your brain works. It's good. Thanks for having me, Greg. I always appreciate it. Cody Schneider XX on Twitter. and SwellAI.com. I'm going to link both in the show notes so people can easily get there. Anything else you'd like to say?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
I mean, I'm interested, bro. I'm interested.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
So what I like about this one is it's local. And I think a lot of people, they think software, they think services. I want to go everywhere. And I think you brought up cars, which is really interesting. I heard a story of a company that is a marketing agency for car dealerships in Quebec. And dude, these, these websites that they're building, like look like they're from 1997.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
Terrible. And the business is doing $20 million a year, just marketing agency for like, they've got like, you know, a hundred clients. And, uh, they retain their clients, right? Totally. Yeah, they totally retain their clients. And this is just Quebec. So it's just, which is a market of seven, eight, nine million people, right? So I think CrossFit for insert geography, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
It doesn't always have to be the United States too. There's other markets out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
A couple of quick tips for people. So one is if you are targeting non-English speaking countries, like don't do cold emails in English. It sounds obvious, but you know, if you're sending emails to Germany, like it should be in German, shouldn't be in English. If you're sending emails to France, it should be in French. The second thing is use Loom. Don't just send characters in an email.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
And I'm sure some people are going to be like, well, I don't speak German. So how am I supposed to go on Loom? Well, that's where you can use Eleven Labs and some of these other tools. Just use AI to basically... create it. And I'm sure you've got some ideas there. But I'm just seeing looms within emails convert just so much more than just straight up text.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
So I guess it went well. So we recorded most viewed pod, most downloaded pod since the beginning. And I've had everyone from Alexis Ohanian on here, Jason Kalkanis, David Friedberg, Morgan Housel, Sahil Bloom, you name it. But I don't know, there's something about you. You're an idea machine that people couldn't get enough of you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
I can't believe he gave away these genius 7 profitable startup ideas
This is like 2024's version of college painting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Nick, the man who needs no introduction, but I'm going to give you an introduction anyways. You have probably more businesses than you have fingers at this point. You are running somewhere.com, which is just taking over as a recruiting agency right now. You've got probably a hundred million bucks in self-storage facilities. You've got time to be a good father.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Very cool. All right, let's do one or two more. Bangers. Bangers. Maybe this one? Three names you never share? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
And someone's probably listening to this and thinking, why is Nick posting this? How is this going to actually make his businesses better? What's the ROI of a tweet like this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Yeah, it does really prime the algorithm. So if you do hit a banger like this, gets a thousand likes, your next tweet, maybe it's a lead magnet, maybe it's something else, but it does work more.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Okay. I want to do this last one from, from you. And then after this, I want you to pick one creator and we're going to like kind of look at one or two of their, of their posts.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Cool. This football one, what were you thinking when you tweeted this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Right. Totally. I will also say like the quote retweet, this is like a, it does work a lot in the algorithm these days. Um, You find something and then you can just add your POV on top of it. A lot of times it goes viral. You know who's good at that? Levels.io. I don't know if you follow him. Peter Levels. But he's a massive quote retweeter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Probably about 20% to 30%, actually maybe more, is him just quote retweeting. And he gets massive engagement.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Totally, yeah. He went on the Lex Friedman podcast and basically... talked about PHP and like this is a language that not many people sort of write in. And he writes in it and it's just, it's a dividing thing to say that just like, oh yeah, just build something in PHP. So I think he believes the stuff, but he also does it to ruffle some feathers for sure. Quick ad break.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Okay, this one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
I'm going to share my screen and I want to go through tweets. We've never done this together. You're talking about some of the real bangers?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
A hundred percent. Yeah, this is, this is just so good. A lot of his stuff is like very, it's like not a lot of words too, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Yeah, why not? And also other people's tweets too. What makes them great? Let's just go through it. I'm going to share my screen. Can you see my screen? Let's go to you for a second. I'm going to go through maybe a few tweets. And you tell me which one you want me to stop at. I mean, this one has 720,000 impressions. What were you thinking when you tweeted this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Yeah, homies got range for sure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
I'm going to put together just some takeaways. I'll probably put in the comment section on YouTube around just like how to, how to tweet like Nick, how to tweet like Nikita. Um, cool. Um, well, Nick, thanks for taking us through your mind there. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
And how were you thinking about this reply second tweet?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Don't buy into... Here, I'll actually make it bigger. Don't buy into this. Actually, can you see better now?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
You got time to troll the internet when hundreds of millions of people see it. Of course you're coming here and you're sharing some ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
And what percentage, like what percentage true is this tweet?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
I think the strategy, by the way, of double downing on your second line always hits hard.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Totally. And by the way, for, for, for this pod, like it's okay. What we're talking about right now is how to create content that goes viral. So we're not talking about nuances and stuff like that. It's really just about how you're structuring it and what the insights are.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Yeah. Nuance does not go viral.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
I'll scroll too. Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
But the main thing is most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash flowing business is waiting for you. Oh, this is a good one, dude.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
And I wanted to do something a bit different. I want to get inside your brain around how you actually craft content that gets people ticking. And I don't know if you can just open up a Google Doc and just start typing out stuff and we can jam on it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Yeah. And the reality is you actually believe this, you know? And so it's like, you're tweeting things that you believe, which I think is whether I agree with you or not. Like, I actually disagree with you, but I know that you'd believe this because I remember texting some, you know, you, I was like, I played video games today. And you're like, well, basically why?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Um, but it's cool that we can still be friends and just have differing opinions, you know? Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
How important is putting numbers in tweets?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Let's talk about Marshall, this one that you retweeted here. Why do you think... Why do you think this one blew up?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
However it works, I want people to listen to this and at the end of it, understand how you do it, how you're able to be in Athens, Georgia and get the entire planet to
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
And it was insane. Insane. That's crazy. And you did something else that was really smart here, which is you could have just put higher salespeople for $1,800 a month, but you did this. Can you explain why?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Yeah, and the platforms are optimized more for video now. So I think it also just, you know, you're feeding the beast, the algorithm beast as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to write viral tweets with the man who beat the X algorithm
Well, I agree. just because the ad dollars are also in video. But you seem to be leaning into video right here. This is working. I don't see many videos that have 700 likes. What did you do here? Did you script this out? How important is the background? Walk me through your thinking on this one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
In this episode, John Rush breaks down how you should start an online directory, how to ideate for an online directory, how to build an online directory using AI, and how to grow an online directory using AI and SEO. And he just walks through the entire process. People are making 5K, 10K, 15K, 20K a month with these online directories. They're super easy to create.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
I figured we might as well do it publicly. Yeah, that's smart.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
And... Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30 day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
All right, well, let's start with step one. How do we find a directory idea that is worthwhile to go after?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
Well, it's the whole path. So what you've just, first of all, thank you for going through that. But what you've just explained is how to come up with an idea for a directory, how to create content for the directory, how to build the website for the directory, how to grow the directory and how to iterate with the directory.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
One of my questions is, great, now I'm getting 50,000 unique visitors a month on this directory. How are people monetizing directories? And what have you learned around the best ways to monetize directories, if there is a best way?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
Amazing. Amazing. So while you're pulling that up, today's episode... It's going to be like a live cooking session. We're going to find an idea and we're going to go basically build this idea. So if you're listening to this on audio, it might be helpful to head to YouTube.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
What are the multiples for directories approximately? Like what are people paying for a directory?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
And where are people finding, like if someone wants to go and buy a directory, is there a marketplace that people can go to or is this like reaching out to founders who are selling directories?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
Last question, and I know you don't brag or really share MRR that much, but as much as you're willing to share, what I like about directories is you can do it yourself or even a micro or tiny team. What sort of scale could some of these businesses get to? How big could some of these directories get to if someone wants to start one of these?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
Yep. Well, I think that's a beautiful place to end. John, where could people find out more about you and get to know you better on the internet?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, man, this has been a gift. You gave people a gift. I think directories are criminally underrated. And I appreciate you coming back on the show. If people liked it, you got to like it on YouTube, I guess, right? And you got to, you know, comment and build John up. You know, he came, he shared some secrets. Let's get this. Let's, you know, spread the love and...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
And subscribe, and I'll see you all on the next pod.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
Later, John. Thanks for coming on. You're the man. Appreciate you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
He thinks it's one of the lowest risk ways to start a startup. I'll let you decide. Enjoy the episode. We got John Rush, king of directories, on the pod. You've heard him here before, but today is a special episode because what are we learning today, John?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
That's pretty funny. Shh, don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions and I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
But the main thing is most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The idea bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash flowing business is waiting for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
Which, by the way, is insane. I had no idea you can do this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
And why you should care about this is we're kind of entering this golden era of directories. We're starting to see them be more and more popular. People want curation and directories provide that. So if you're looking for your next startup idea, directories is a great place to start. And I'm excited to get in with this. Just dive deep in directories. I haven't done this with you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The blueprint for building cash flowing online directories
So I will show that. Which makes so much sense if you think about it, right? It's... Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Cole's back on the pod. Cole, what are we learning about today?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
That's right. That's exactly it. I will say in my mind, I'm thinking like, how do I create a piece of content that is going to get shared a ton on, And so I do have a framework just for... Here's the type of pieces that I think would work and band. Reed Hastings, a name that people know. Netflix, a name that people know. And banning the word Blockbuster invokes curiosity and emotions.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
That to me has... Check, check, check. all the ingredients of what could make for a tweet that gets 10,000 likes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yeah, I do. I mean, a lot of people didn't think it was awesome because I got a lot of negative feedback, but I think it got more than 50,000 likes. Okay, great.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Oh, here it is. Okay. Not 50,000 likes, 44,000. But Elon Musk replied, so that's cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
1999? Oh, Reed Hastings. That was, yeah, let's say early. Yeah. 2002, let's say.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
And to be clear... We're not saying make up stories. We're saying, like, you have to fact check your stuff, but you can copy or be inspired by formats, correct?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
I have a tactical question. Is there a reason? Should people do custom GPTs? Or what do you think?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Do you use custom GPUs?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yeah. I feel like I've been, it's interesting because I'm just, I'm doing some self-reflection on myself. You know, I'm a cowboy when it comes to writing. But I have been doing a lot of this without knowing I'm doing it. Yep.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yeah. Well, I think we were talking right before we started this, you know, I'm a new father. Time means something different when you're a new parent. Like you basically want to, you want to optimize your time when it comes to creating and producing in a work setting so that you could be completely present with your child and support your family.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
So I think that having this is, not only does the content end up becoming probably a lot more interesting to read, it also shortens the, it's a shortcut to getting what you end up, this is going to save me
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
361 billion. Okay. 361 billion. And we'll say streaming service.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yeah. So also like alliteration alliteration also works. Like when you, when you like, probably if I was writing this, I would say why read Hastings, ban the word blockbuster and three. Well, no.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
scratch that you can hear how too much alliteration then sounds exactly right exactly i could hear your brain hearing it and deciding it was a bad idea like i was gonna say like legendary lessons or something like that you know it's like no okay let's just also concise and and clear works really well for the internet
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
What are you thinking?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
We can try, and if we fail, we can always... go to our AI overlords.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
And by the end of this episode, what are people going to get?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
So businesses built around guilt are, yeah, empower the customer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Well, we can talk about convenience. A big reason I think Netflix won was convenience. So yeah. And every, every founder should ban at least one word in order to succeed, which is like, if I was writing this piece, I'd probably lead with that. Cause it's so spicy. And the way I look at writing, I'm curious what you think about this, but I literally view it as a funnel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Okay, batch three number one is a problem.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Ignore the me too trap. You know, so you got to, like what AI thinks is me too and what, you know. we think is Me Too. I know what they're saying, like Me Too, but it could also be read as the Me Too movement. And it's like, ignore the Me Too movement trap. It's like, no. Absolutely not.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Does ChatGPT have voice? I forget. Yeah. For some people, writing is tough, but yeah, use voice mode. Just go and dictate it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
I mean, paying for education, it's also just education. You know what I mean? There's also free education. This is free. All my pods are free. Someone could theoretically download all the frameworks and idea generation stuff
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
that we use and all of a sudden you're an idea pro you know what i mean like using ai so i think your point is valid which is um well what is your point your point is basically that your goal is to if you want digital leverage you need to be an expert how do you become an expert and Yeah, exactly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
You level up and you can level up by educating yourself, downloading these frameworks, and then using AI to take it to the nth degree is what you're basically saying, which I totally agree with.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yeah. I think it was Mr. Beast and his like leaked playbook doc. He had a section say like hire consultants. Did you see that? Yeah. I read it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yeah. I think that, you know, that was kind of like Mr. Beast's, uh, what he thought too, which is basically level. He's a big level up guy, level up, you know, what he was missing was the AI piece, I think. Um, But he's done well for himself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yes, actually. So let me pull up my tweet ideas note and see if there's something that's half baked. Okay, well, this is literally a half-baked idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
We'll give it to him. Cool, man.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
You under-promised and over-delivered, just as I expected. Thank you for being so generous with your time, your brain, your frameworks. Where could people learn more about you and some of the stuff you're up to?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
We'll include some of the stuff where people can find you in the show notes. Maybe what I'll do is I'll even cook up some notes from this episode that people can go and access. That will be in the show notes also.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
That's great. Awesome. All right, my man. I'll, yeah, dude, I love, I love our chats. I love our chats and, um, I got some writing to do.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
It's true. It's true. I need a book. I need, you know, for those listening, I definitely want to write a book. Um, and I've talked to Cole about it. Um, so, One day, folks. One day.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Thank you. All right, my man. I'll catch you later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
So Reed Hastings had a strange rule. The founder of Netflix had a strange rule in Netflix's early days. No one was allowed to say blockbuster in meetings. Because the reason why is... He basically didn't see them as a competitor. He was like, Netflix wasn't actually competing with Blockbuster. They were competing with Gilt.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
And the reason why is, if you remember the late fees that you used to get from Blockbuster, people felt bad about themselves. They couldn't handle basic adult responsibilities. So it was less about the $3 you had to pay of late fees and more about get your life together, man. Yeah. And then Netflix's whole idea was basically like watch whatever you want whenever you want it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
I think there's a piece somewhere in there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now, they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yeah, so... One of my niches is startup ideas. I like to post things that have a connection to startup ideas. There's a million people who can post about Reed Hastings and there's weird rules, but only some people can post about the ideas piece of it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
I think that a sub-point could be sometimes the biggest opportunities aren't in fixing problems, they're in making people feel better about having them. That's kind of a prompt for people to come up with startup ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
And why does that even matter?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
Yeah, absolutely. It's funny because sidebar, when I write words, I'm not as strategic about writing. I just brew coffee and then I go. But I feel like, just talking out loud, putting goals is probably a really smart thing to do when you're writing any piece.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This AI Writing Hack Made Him Millions (Full Breakdown)
I like banning. That's powerful.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Here's where I think service-based businesses are going to go. When you build a service-based business, think of a design agency or an SEO shop or something like that. Number one, you start with humans doing the work. And then number two, you transition from humans doing 100% of the work to AI-assisted human work. And then step three, you transition to agents do all the work.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
The person workshops lead gen for the online community and online education. Our business would then lead gen potential clients for all the NIL agencies or organizations like athletes.org. Okay, so I'm not going to give you specific feedback on do athletes or aspiring athletes need this. I think they probably do, but I'm not one myself, so you would know better than me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
But I'll give you feedback and give everyone feedback on a really big opportunity, which is credentialization. We're living in a world where the value of a Harvard degree and a Stanford degree is going down. Of course, it's valuable. I'm not going to say it's not. But in our world, our world of Twitter, podcasts, YouTube, what people really care about is what have you done?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Has your content gone viral in your niche? And that's basically it. And are you an interesting, cool person that I want to work with? That's what people care about. That being said, getting in the front door is difficult today. It's probably even more difficult today than it was 10 years ago.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And I think the good part of having a Stanford degree or a Harvard degree is it gets you in the front door. I think that there's tons of opportunity to build online programs and IRL programs that credentializes. And what do I mean by credentializes? I mean you get a certificate and people will pay for that certificate. So I saw this really good tweet by Peter Levels on Twitter. And he goes,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Python is the fastest growing and highest paid for remote jobs right now. The median salary is $80,000 a year for remote, but with massive outliers into $300,000 a year and higher if you go non-remote, usually in office in San Francisco. So then he's put this chart of basically the fastest growing and highest paying jobs in 2024.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Python, Marketing, Node, Backend, TypeScript, Sales, Ruby, React, Nontech, JavaScript, Customer Support. I would basically use ChapGPT to build this list. Or you can even grab this list. We can put it in the show notes. But I would basically create a list. And then I would be like, how do I credentialize for Python? How do I credentialize for not marketing? Because marketing is too big.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
But what about growth marketing? So how you'd actually go and build out this idea is You take out a piece of paper, you'd write in the middle, hub and spoke. The hub would be marketing. And what are the spokes? Growth marketing, PPC, audience development, video content. What are all the ways that people market in 2024? And then I'd look at credentializing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And the other way you can create this business is you can actually go to existing course creators and be like, hey, I'm going to manage... the credentialization of your program. I'm going to manage the graduation of your program. I'm just going to make this experience incredible. I think that's another business that would definitely cash flow $10,000 to $100,000 a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
People don't want to spend thousands of dollars on weddings. They want to do something small. They want to do something intimate. And that leads me to my trend of the week, which is micro weddings. So what is a micro wedding? I think we need to just define it. So it basically means a wedding with less than 50 people. It's just way more intimate.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
To give you feedback, Peter, I don't know enough about athletes, but I think what you inspired me to think about is credentialization is something that's a huge, huge, huge idea. So I like it a lot. And then Jose Carrillo says, I recently started building trip.com. It's an analytic platform for UX teams. I'd love some feedback. Okay. So let's bring up trip.com and give him some feedback.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Okay, so I pulled it up. It says analytics for UX teams that tracks user task duration and helps you fix user sticking points for smoother task completion. Discover the true efficiency of your app with real-time insights into task completion times, identify and streamline complex workflow to enhance user satisfaction and productivity. Okay, and then there's an image here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And then how do they charge? So they charge $9.99 a month. And you get five different tasks configured to record. Or $19.99, they call it a business plan, where you get 10 different tasks. So this is one of those ideas that you've built something really smart, but the way you're talking about it and the way it's positioned could be optimized.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So it's not just about, quote unquote, smoother task completion. Because what does that mean? It means if you get people to complete their tasks... We actually did some research. If you get someone to compete their task, their primary task of going onto a mobile app or going onto a website, they're actually 67% more likely to buy a product or service from you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So if you can tell me that you're going to help me sell more stuff, or you're going to help me get more people to subscribe, or you're going to help me get more followers, or you're going to help me drive word of mouth, all these things, that's what this is about. It's not about task completion. So the biggest thing that you need here is to reposition around what is unpacked task completion?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And the other thing is, when you're writing copy, write like you talk. You would never say in a conversation, discover the true efficiency of your app with real-time insights and task completion times. So you just need to rewrite your website as if you're talking to an eighth grader. And that's a prompt that you can actually put within ChatGPT. You can say,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
You can put in all your copy and then put into ChatGPT and say, I really want this to be written in plain English. Can you make this really, really clear and catchy for an eighth grader? And then you ask it to rewrite it and you're going to get some good stuff. The other thing is, where's the video? I'm on your website and it's just an image. I think that
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And it's especially big in places like New York, LA, Miami. where the cost per wedding guest could be more than $1,000 per guest. So it's absolutely out of control. This is obviously due to inflation. And over the last few years, it's just gotten out of hand. So okay, so this is the trend. I think a lot of you are probably nodding your head and being like, of course, this makes a lot of sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So many people are using images and just text on web pages. I'm really, really bullish right now on having above the fold a video, and that's going to help increase conversion rates, no question. Show me what you're doing. People are used to Instagram stories. They're used to YouTube shorts. They're watching video everywhere. They should be watching video on your website.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And the beauty is video is one of the best, I think, if not the best way to storytell. Because you've got audio, you've got visual, you've got sound. So you feel more connected to a product via video if it's just an image. And last thing is, I don't know about your business model, 999 to 1999. That feels quite arbitrary.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And it feels like if you're actually helping that much with task completion, it's worth a lot more than $19.99. So that's my feedback. And I hope that was helpful. All right. So that's the pod. If you enjoyed it, please, please go to YouTube, subscribe and comment on the YouTube video. And I read every comment. I respond to most of the comments, especially if they're nice.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And I'll see you on the next one. Hope this got your creative juices flowing. Later, everyone.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
How can I create a business on top of this trend? So idea number one is just lead gen. So there's a bunch of small venues that haven't... They're not really set up for micro weddings. And the biggest challenge of that is these small venues don't have the visibility. They have smaller marketing budgets. And then they probably just don't know that this trend is happening.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So you could go and just bridge the gap. So, you know, I just Googled here, micro wedding, Los Angeles. And I saw that there is actually a sponsored link called intimate mountain weddings.com. So great domain, good SEO. Um, and as the search volume starts to increase, if people become aware that micro wedding is a thing, uh, traffic's going to go, you know, go up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So how can you operate this idea as a service? So, you know, step one is you just got to form the partnerships agreement. So you go to these wedding venues, uh, and you basically say, Hey, I'm going to send you a bunch of leads for, for, for your micro wedding. And then would you be willing to give me 10%, 5%, 20% of a booking that's made through your platform?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So it's like a win-win situation for the small venue. And a lot of these venues, they're hanging on by a thread. They want more revenue. Then you're going to... Step two is just to implement SEO and advertising. So you're going to generate traffic mostly by... mostly by search. So the bet here is that more and more people are going to search it, you're going to show up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Once you get to step three, the margins are going to 3, 4, or 5x. Instead of making 20% EBITDA, you might be able to make 60% EBITDA, 80% EBITDA. And the reason why is because you're paying tokens and you're getting agents to do the work. And this might be in five years and this might be in seven years or three years.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And then you could obviously do a little bit of ad arbitrage. What is ad arbitrage? That just basically means when you're spending $2 a click, but the average click gives you $3. You create this vending machine where you put $2 in, $3 comes out. So, uh, that's, that's where you're going to mainly focus.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Of course you can do content and building an audience around it and, and just showcase these venues and showcase other weddings. Uh, that's definitely a given. So I would say implement SEO advertising and, and build an audience. Uh, and then step three is, uh, specialize and promote. So, you know, I would say become the micro wedding market gal or guy. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
once you position yourself as that person, and I think that's ripe for the taking, you're going to earn more trust. And the hard part about something like this is it is a new market. And whenever you have a new market, you have to educate people why this should exist. Everyone knows, oh, I just got engaged. I need to go and create a wedding. But they don't
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
know about the concept of a micro wedding, what that is, why it's better, why it's going to save you money, and why, if you forget all the money, it's just going to be a more intimate experience for the people that you love. So, you know, I think that there's tons of opportunity to own that, to own that category. And, you know, this is just like one of those low-risk ideas. So,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Idea number two in the micro wedding space is just helping plan. So offering comprehensive, all-inclusive micro wedding packages that streamline the entire planning process. So I found this Reddit post. So here's the post. Micro wedding in Southern California, LA County, 13 guests, $23,000. And they basically just go into this. This is a long one for those interested in the numbers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
They talk about how the original wedding was supposed to take place in June 2020. But obviously, because of COVID, they couldn't do it. They talk about how much they paid in their deposit. They talked about basically the budget breakdown. So ceremony venue, $2,000. Dinner venue, $3,500. Partial planner, $1,500.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
I guess that's a party planner, but only partially, which is kind of an interesting... That's a whole other niche to own. Another idea right there is a fractional partial party planner. Photographer, 3,100. Videographer, 1,000. String trio, $800. Florals, $1,500. Anyways, you get the idea. Bottom line is it's $23,386, which obviously is a lot of money, but isn't $100,000.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
But the point is, if they can get there and you've built up all the systems and processes and client base, then you're going to be in a really, really good place. So that's And we're back. Another solo pod, just me. I'm going to give away some ideas, some trends. I did one of these last week and you all loved it. So I figured I'd do another one. Let's get right into it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
Or isn't, you know, some people spend a million dollars. So they just go into this and you can see, you know, they talk about everything and they break this all down. This is an incredible content piece. I would love to see, you know, you could create a whole audience around breaking down different micro weddings. And then if you look in the comment section on Reddit, people are just so engaged.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
They're so appreciative of it. Hey everyone, if you're anything like me, you've got a ton of design work that you need. Websites, landing pages, emails, social assets, you name it. But you don't just want Beautiful landing pages are beautiful websites. You want the stuff that's going to convert. You want the stuff that's going to actually drive value. That's where DesignScientist.com comes in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
It's an agency that for one monthly price will do all your design work, all your copy work, all your engineering. And do stuff that actually scales your revenue. You don't need a designer. You need a design scientist. Let's go. Designscientist.com. I liked it so much, I invested in the business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
I like to use Reddit and see posts that go viral in particular communities as a way to validate a particular business idea. So I see this. And I'm like, okay, there's something here in the micro wedding space because they put it in the wedding planning subreddit, which has 829,000 members. And it went viral within that community.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So one thing you could do is you can create the subreddit for micro weddings. You can be that moderator. So that's just an idea for you. Okay, let's get back to the idea. So So the idea is basically to create an agency, a wedding planning agency, but only focus on micro weddings. And there's one company that I was able to find that's doing it, and it's called Our Little Wedding.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And I found it via that Reddit post. They're based in San Francisco. You can tell there's basically a coming soon version of their website. So it's not exactly optimized, but you get the idea. There's these all-inclusive...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
micro weddings that they sell and it's you know between five and sixty one hundred dollars five thousand and sixty one hundred dollars so uh here's one the bay area redwoods elopement so it's an all-inclusive uh package five thousand dollars you get a mill valley amphitheater private ceremony one hour photography personal floral florals you get a dinner a luxury reception dinner celebration
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
cake and cake florals and you get add up to six guests so you get this beautiful background super picturesque uh instagram friendly and it's beautiful it's intimate and it's five thousand dollars so this is the type of thing that you can go and create idea number two is you just go and uh organize these packages, build brands around it, and capitalize on the micro wedding trend.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So that's my trend of the week, micro weddings. I love it for a lot of reasons. Like I mentioned, validated on Reddit, offshoot of a particular subreddit. You're starting to see little businesses pop up. There's so many validated business models. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. You can do things like an agency. And then people are willing to spend on their weddings.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So when you're creating a business, you obviously want to prioritize businesses where people are willing to take out their wallet. And this is something where people feel like they're saving money. If they're spending $5,000 on a wedding and they thought that they're going to spend $50,000, they're going to be pretty darn happy. So I love this concept for a lot of reasons. And I also think that
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
you know, as someone who had a micro wedding, I didn't even know it was called a micro wedding, but as someone who had a micro wedding, it was just an incredible experience and special in its own way.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
I feel like, you know, I'm 35 now and a lot of my friends have gotten married and it just sort of feels like by the end of like the last weddings of my friend group, it almost felt like all these weddings were the same and they were beautiful weddings and great places and Beautiful hotels. But they all had the 100, 200, 300 people. They all had the same band. They all had the same sort of food.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And I think this idea around micro weddings that are just also just unique experience. Like imagine getting married in the sequoias north of San Francisco. All these trees that they're hundreds of years old and they're as tall as skyscrapers. Like how cool is that? So love this trend. And I wanted to give it to you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
The other thing that I wanted to talk about is just an insight I had around building businesses that are powered by human beings. And when I'm talking about building businesses, I'm talking about service-based businesses. Here's where I think service-based businesses are going to go. So when you build a service-based business, think of a design agency or an SEO shop or something like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
you start with, number one, you start with humans doing the work. And then number two, it's you transition from humans doing 100% of the work to AI-assisted human work. And then step three, you transition to agents do all the work. And I think this is just an interesting framework and something I'm just thinking about and I wanted to share with you around what are businesses that are going to
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
translate into that framework. Because I think that once you get to step three, the margins are going to 3, 4, or 5x. Instead of making 20% EBITDA, you might be able to make 60% EBITDA, 80% EBITDA. And the reason why is because you're paying tokens and you're getting agents to do the work and people are expensive. There are certain industries where this probably won't happen.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
We run an innovation design agency called LCA. And We work with the Nikes and the Dropboxes and the Shopifys of the world and these large companies with their executive team. And they don't want AI to do all the work. And they also need someone to talk to. And they need someone to brainstorm with. And they need someone to jam with. So there are certain spaces where... where it doesn't make sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
But there are certain spaces where it does make sense. And I think that's sort of my homework for you. It's something to think about is what are service-based businesses that are most likely going to hit that number three, basically get agents on board? And this might be in five years and this might be in seven years or three years. But the point is,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
If they can get there and you've built up all the systems and processes and client base in five years, then you're going to be in a really, really good place. So that's something that I've been thinking about. And the last thing I want to talk about today is I've been doing these live streams where I've been bringing people on stage who have startup ideas, who want my feedback.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
So I want to start off with the trend and I'll give you some ideas for this trend. So recently I got married and my wedding was different than most people's wedding. A lot of people have weddings and they've got a hundred of their closest friends and families there. I had a wedding and there was 14 people there and that was including me and my wife. So Weddings are changing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And it's been really, really fun. And also people who just have a business experience. And they're past the idea stage, like they've got something live. And they want my feedback. So I'm going to share with you a couple of the ideas that were shared to me that I wasn't able to bring people on stage. And I'm going to give live feedback.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
And my hope here is it's going to get your creative juices flowing. It's going to help you get a bunch of startup ideas. And so let's get right into it. So Peter Gray messaged me. It says, here's the idea. It's called More Than Academy. It's an athlete-tailored entrepreneurial education.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow
There will be online community networking masterclass type videos, more formal LinkedIn type online courses for certificates and badges, and an in-person workshop primer series targeting at high school athletes with aspirations of being an athlete aimed at empowering student athletes. Well, it's a lot of athletes with the skills and mindset needed for both athletic and entrepreneurial success.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
What is the promise that you're going to give our listeners today by listening to this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Your brain needs to get muggy more often because you are finally making some sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and I was like, how's business? He runs a SaaS company. SaaS business. I think they do like three or four million ARR.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Yeah. And I'm like, how are things going? And he's like, oh, you know, amazing. Like things are, you know, we just hit three and a half million ARR. We're growing double digits month over month. And I was like, oh, great. And then he ends it with, and we don't even run any paid ads.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
As if it's something to be proud of. And I hear that often. I don't know if you hear this often.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I mean, he isn't. He's a really smart guy. Yeah. But I think for whatever reason, in Ventureland, a lot of the time, it's kind of a status symbol. It's 100% a status symbol. This is the problem. We...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I don't think you should start with ads though. That's my take. Because I think in order to create ads that are really high, highly performing, you have to have your messaging pretty dialed. And I think the best way to get your messaging really dialed is to do organic content, see what works on places like Twitter, Instagram, just do that for free, learn that's your training wheels.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
And then once, once it starts to get, get traction, then you know, okay, this is the messaging on social I need, and this is the messaging I need on my landing page that actually converts. Now I'm ready to experiment with paid ads.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
That's what I want to be. You love weird stuff. I just had Jason Fried on the pod, actually, your boy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
This is what happens when a guy from Europe comes to America for an extended period of time and goes to LA and San Francisco and just gets overwhelmed. The European mind cannot comprehend.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
And we talked about making software weird. So you guys are...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
You know, I've known you for a few years now and you talk, you always talk about ads. I always, it takes like, if I'm hanging out with you, it takes like two minutes before you just bring up ads. You just love bringing it up. But I haven't heard you talk at all about conversion, really. Like how much do you think about landing page conversion, conversion rate optimization?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Can you walk me through how you actually write out the funnel and how you build the funnel and what tools you use?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I mean, it is probably boring, but whoever's going to listen to it is going to is going to probably do quite well. So I think it's... And I want to know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Draw it out. While you're drawing it out, people who are listening to this on audio, you might want to head to YouTube.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Okay, when you say selling a free training, you're not selling anything.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Are you charging for these calls or they're free?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I want the exact stats. I am highly interested.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Not only did you switch to Basecamp, you went viral on Twitter for it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
And when you say Black Friday campaign, that's kind of like a squeeze campaign, as they call it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Yeah, I was going to ask, is the goal just to send as many emails so people unsubscribe? How do you think about...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Which I'm trying to pull up the post. You basically were just like, I switched to Basecamp.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Yeah, I think that's smart. I think that's smart. It also probably helps you with your overall conversion rate.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
We might have to do a part two of this, like how to build funnels.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I love copywriting. If people want that, comment on YouTube. So we know. And that could be something that we do.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
It's just copy. Copy is honestly the hardest part of my job. Like takes the most out of me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
That's really good. I've actually never heard of that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I don't know if I have time for it. I think I got to go. Oh, shit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I'm surprised you said website when you could have said turn it into a funnel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Beautiful. All right. JC, J Ice Cream, J Ice Cream, Jonathan Courtney.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Full disclosure, for the listeners, I was texting you and you were not responding.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I mean, I was literally... Here, here. Thursday, August 29th. Bro, come on the pod. No response. No response, no response. Then finally I write... Finally you respond... And then I just wrote, I just miss you. No response. Imagine texting someone being like, I miss you and not responding.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
It's been real. I'll catch you on the next one. Yeah, dude.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I actually took, I saw your tweet when it had like three likes like early and I was like, this is interesting. I shared it in my Slack and I was like, what do you guys think of this? And people didn't want to get rid of Slack.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Like, what do you want to talk about today? What do you want to talk about on the Startup Ideas podcast? What is the promise that you're going to give our listeners today by listening to this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Shocker. Wow. You know, everyone's been asking for J Ice Cream, J Ice Cream, Jonathan, Courtney, for these hot takes, everyone.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO. And that's why I use boringmarketing.com. And that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
Yeah, I also noticed that the gold Rolex... presidential or whatever it's called they all have the gold rolex i don't know what it is about signing up to a meta account but it's like you need it's like you need to unlock it with the rolex yeah it's like instead of login with facebook it's like login with your gold rolex
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
So are you running the, as the meta ads expert, are you running the ads yourself or you're just coaching them on how to run ads?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I don't know the difference between advisory and consulting. Now what I'm really understanding is someone can go and do this and not even charge a monthly fee, but say, hey, I'll take a percentage of... Revenue?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Sales funnels for Beginners
I like it. I mean, easy to start. I feel like you're right. People are getting... I think you're right. I don't like to say you're right often.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Today's episode of the Startup Ideas podcast is well needed. It's about how do you get customers for your startup without a social following, without spending tons of money on ads, and just some really, really simple tips on how to do it. And we go through three ways on how to do it in this episode. And this is a tutorial. So by the end of it, you'll really understand how to do this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Like no one's stopping you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Don't bring that on air. Don't bring that vibe on air.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
You didn't say that in the original text message to me when you wanted to be an occasional co-host.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Okay, don't hit the desk because it picks it up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I think it's called a community, StartupEmpire.co.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
It costs something.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
It's $149 a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Don't do that. But this whole getting leads and customers, probably one of the biggest questions I get asked. I listen to the Startup Ideas podcast and I'm like, Great. Good for you, Greg, with your 500,000 followers or whatever. Easy for you to say you're going to go and create this startup and then people are going to go and use it. But we're keeping it real here. We're keeping it real.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and ai that could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses i wanted that i didn't want to have to rely on mark zuckerberg i didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses i wanted to rank high in google that's why i like seo and that's why i use boringmarketing.com and that's why i invested in it
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. I want to add one quick thing to that whole strategy, which I do that strategy today. So
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I think not only does it work for Facebook groups and school groups and discords, it also works on just replying and commenting to creators that are in your niche. So for example, on YouTube, like on this podcast, Startup Ideas podcast on YouTube, I recognize the same people who comment every single time. Like for example, there's this guy named Ryan Aldridge.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
No idea who he is, but I know he comments. Yeah, hi Ryan. And I know that he comments on every single video and he says something like pretty thoughtful. And if Ryan hit me up and he was like, you know, on Twitter, let's say, and he was like, hey, I'd love to do something.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I don't know if I'd say yes, but I'm 10 times, 50 times, 100 times more likely to do something with Ryan because I've seen his name so many goddamn times. And the same is true with Omar, who was recently on the pod, who taught a 90-minute session around using AI to build directories. he was like a listener of the pod. He was like commenting on stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
We're keeping it real.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
He, you know, he, he was messaging me, you know, from that, you know, he ended up getting access to the pod, which, um, you know, that episode might get a hundred plus thousand views and listens, which is worth a lot of, you What I suggest people do is turn on notification bells for a list of creators that you care about and just be the first person to write something thoughtful.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Don't write like cool video or great thread on Twitter, right? Like, are you kidding me? Don't do that. But add value through comments and you'll also attract people other commenters, you'll also attract trust with the creator. Thoughts?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Dude, not even just going to the gigs. I was hanging out with him backstage.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I think, uh, a lot of people hit me up and they're like, I, you know, I do cold email or I reach out to people and no one, like I don't hear back and they get like super, they feel bad and I don't blame, blame them for feeling bad. Um, but it's just that the reach out isn't targeted. It's not personalized. It's not, it's about, it's not about the person you're reaching out to.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
And I think like gifting is such an underrated tool to get someone to be on your side. Um, it just stacks the cards in your favor. So I love hearing stories about like a 50, you know, 50 K guitar that's like meaningful, you know, like, um, I think, uh, I also heard a story.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I don't know if he, he wants me to share it, but someone who you all know, uh, who buys, you know, companies, you know, offer, he wanted to, you know, in his dream 100, I guess he had a company, you know, this founder and he wanted to buy this founder. He, you know, I think like a Ferrari, he said like, Hey, like I've got a Ferrari waiting for you in Hawaii. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
In Hawaii, and you paint this picture. If you come and close this deal, I can't wait to meet you in Maui, and we're going to sail into the sunset. Things like that. And now, I know the comment section is going to be like, but I don't have enough money for a Ferrari. And it doesn't need to be that, right? It could be something small. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah. I did a year of Buddha, which is hilarious because I'm just a Jewish guy with a bunch of Buddhas. So one year I bought like, I don't know, 500 Buddhas or something, hundreds of Buddhas. These small little things that were about like $5, maybe $7 each. It was a really good deal, I will say. It was a high quality mini Buddha.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
and to the and i would you know meet all you know this is like i'm in my early 20s i'm in san francisco i'm trying to meet as many people as possible uh i've got my dream 100 list even though i didn't know that that's what it was and every meeting i would basically just be like hey like thanks for your time you know i wish you good luck and i would just hand them a mini buddha and to this day some of those people ended up you know
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
They were also in their early mid-20s. Some of them are like billionaires now or run $100 million venture funds or have sold companies to Stripe and things like that, executives at Meta. And they still, to this day, 10 years later or more than 10 years later, they have that Buddha and they send me photos of They send me photos and they're like, hey, hope all is well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I have. By the way, before you talk about the Dream 100 method, I literally need to take off my sweatshirt because that's how hot I'm getting talking to you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
And it's like, dude, you're like the SBP product of a trillion dollar company. And I'm on your mind for this five dollar Buddha from this Jewish guy. How does this make this make sense?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah, I mean, that's the whole game of business and life in general is you want to make your life easy, right? And you're trying to stack the deck in your favor. Content, audience building, the leverage that you get from that is so big. So I think it's... And then once you're doing multiple things, you're doing Dream 100 plus you're doing content, for example, you've just multiplied it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
It just starts to multiply. So that's why I look at someone like you and I'm like, I don't know why you don't do content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I'm a baby. You have the thinnest skin in the game, dude. I literally see your bones.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
We talk about a concept called the Dream 100, and we give you a spreadsheet for it. It's about how do you reach out to potential partners or people and leverage their audiences to be well-known. The second is, you know, how do you utilize groups and communities to get customers and leads?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Sure. You want to start a, I mean, web design agency is a great one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
So is what you're saying basically going, what is the most amount of value you can give basically? Instead of, for example, creating a course and selling a course, maybe it's just you create the course. but you just give it away for free, right? And you just create as much freaking value, highly produced as possible that people feel almost guilty for consuming it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I buy it. I also think that it's a really good way to sell software. The margins of software are so great, especially like SaaS, 70, 80, 90%. Go and create a bunch of videos. Don't worry that it doesn't even need to look good. And it's funny, people ask me all the time, this show looks like crap. And Rafa, my producer, is going to hate me for saying this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
It looks like crap in the sense that when you compare this to like Diary of a CEO.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah, we're just sitting in our laptops. People hate me that this is in 720p.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
You know, by the way, I will do some 4K videos for the people in the comment section. I see you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah, exactly. Low quality is the new high quality.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Did you hear what I just said?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah. Do you agree with that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah, exactly. And by the way, low quality doesn't mean low effort. We put a lot of effort into the... Well, this episode we didn't put that much effort into prep, but this show I do put a lot of effort into it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
And it's also... Don't think that just low effort means... Sorry, don't think that low quality means low effort. What you want to do is... Low quality, high effort. Yes. That's where you want to be.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Well, I also think you're dropping a gem here, which is Cora is. There's so much good stuff on Quora because you can understand what people are asking for. And just going to make videos based on top Quora questions and answers in and of itself is such a huge insight. So thank you for sharing that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah, honestly, don't overthink it. That's what I would do. And in fact, I feel like I want to put this into the process of whatever new company we launch.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Couldn't agree more, dude. Couldn't agree more. All right, well, you're firing me up. You're firing me up. I know what I'm doing today. We'll include the Dream 100 Google Doc in the description for people to download and do it themselves. Highly encourage it. You know what else I highly encourage? Liking this video, commenting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Stuff, like just say something to us and probably subscribing because... That lets us know that we should continue creating videos and podcasts for free. So please do that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
All right. I'll catch you later, dude.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Wait, can we do this live? Can I just open up a Google Doc and we can write this out?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Maybe like when I think. Okay, so me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah, let's blur that out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
I was thinking of Product Hunt.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
So it could be people or companies, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
And the last is thinking about how do you make high quality videos and coming up with ideas for content that's going to spread within the audiences you care about. This episode's with Jonathan Courtney, one of my favorite people to come on the Startup Ideas podcast show. You're going to love it. See you in there. What are we talking about today?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now, they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
How many millions of dollars have you made in your career from the Hustle 100 slash Canvas Strategy?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
You couldn't have said dollars. You had to say euros.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
And then the last eight years... You're wearing a Yankees hat, trying to be all American, but then you're saying euros. Yes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah, it's crazy. I remember the first time I met you and... First time I met you. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah. Yeah. The first time I met you, you looked at me like I was a crazy person because I started talking about what I do and creating content, attracting audiences, that sort of thing. And you were like, what are you doing? That is so much work to do that. So you looked like I was taking crazy pills.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)
Yeah, I mean, the truth is I love doing, I love the creation of content. I also think it gives you a certain amount of clarity to the community and audience that you don't get if you're just renting. Yes, yes. Yeah. But I think that for a lot of people doing what you say, just like get in the door, get some customers, get some feedback, and then you can always create content afterwards, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah, there's an app I use called The Org. I'm not affiliated or anything, but theorg.com. So you can just see publicly traded companies and trending companies and seeing who works there, track them, stay updated on team changes. So I think using platforms like that is helpful. The other thing I would do is...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
besides the mutual connection thing, is I'd create content and I would just tag the people that I want to see the content in, which works surprisingly well. If you're super thoughtful, let's just say it's the automotive business, info business, it's like, okay, go research some stuff, create a really interesting piece, add an image or a video to it, Because LinkedIn is optimizing that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And then tag two or three people that... Bring them into the content. Hope that they like it. And if they like it, reach out literally right away.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
But you don't think someone's listening to this and they're like, well, easy for you, Jesse. You went to Wharton and then you worked at Goldman. Like, what about the person who doesn't live in the United States, didn't go to the great school, doesn't, you know, his friends are his or her friends are just, you know, construction workers or who knows. Right. What do you say to those people?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
It doesn't make a difference. Using the construction worker example, it's kind of interesting that you're a construction worker building a hedge fund thing and you have this unique insight into that space, into companies in that space. I remember when I first moved to San Francisco coming from Montreal, Canada, I didn't know one person, like literally no one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
But I ended up meeting some people at the Canadian consulate type thing, which is random. And basically when people from France
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
were coming to san francisco and they wanted someone to show them around i like became known as the guy who would take these people around san francisco and i ended up bootstrapping my network from all these like french entrepreneurs who ended up like you know the founders of zenly who sold it to snap for like three or four hundred million dollars all these like startups um and my my advantage was i spoke this language and so they wanted someone who spoke the language and that's it so
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
What other ideas you got?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah, 100%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah, I like the idea of a studio around this. Kind of like how the Match Group has dating apps for every category, or IAC has a bunch of different verticals. What does that look like for supplements for different demographics?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Mississauga, Brampton, Ontario.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
It's still on the list. Well, thank you for sharing it and being open with it. I appreciate that. How do you go about, I know nothing about creating supplements. How does one go about doing that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And you're a paid ads savant. So how would you go about thinking about your paid ads strategy for something like this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And in terms of creative, because nowadays creative is huge, right? The main lever, yeah. The main lever. What do you recommend to folks in terms of creating, how do you create creative that is going to get you that two ROAS?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
That's why before you do ads, do organic content. Cause it totally right. Alongside. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Before we move on from supplements, I have a related thing I want your feedback on, actually. A buddy of mine, his name's Rablay Jama. He sold a company to Shopify. When he does something, I really pay attention. He launched something new the other day, which I thought was really smart. So he is Somalian by ethnicity. He's Canadian, lives in Toronto. But he started this skincare line.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
This is like a digital guy, like a software guy. And it's called, it's called, the company's called Glean, but it's this, the product's called Kaisel, which is an all natural multipurpose ingredient used for thousands of years to help alleviate redness and diminish hyperpigmentation. Cool. But it's targeted towards people who are East African.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And it kind of reminded me a little bit about your thesis here. So what do you think about this business? And have you ever thought about skincare or beauty in that category?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
I like these niche ideas. Your first idea was really unbundling. And the second idea was demographics.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
How does it work with Suno and some of those products? I created the theme song of this show, the Startup Ideas podcast, which 80% of people love it, but 20% of people have nightmares about it. I used Suno to create it. But could I go and put that on Spotify and earn revenue? Who owns the music?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah. This is a huge insight that you've blessed us with, which is it's easier to create music now than ever. You can monetize off these platforms and children's music all is kind of Sounds the same.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah, totally. I love it. Jesse, thanks for coming on. Where could people get to know you more?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Beautiful. All right, my man. Catch you later. Peace. That was great.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
So I haven't seen a lot of people doing this, but I actually think that if you used AI to scrape a lot of data and enrich your data, that's also value add. And I feel like AI assisted just data in itself is like, if you're a hedge fund and you're not spending money on that, you're like, I don't want to be left behind.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30 day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. So beyond marketing, what are like three, four, five other verticals that could be interesting?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Totally. I actually was thinking about this the other, yesterday I had a meeting with my editor for my, for my YouTube channel and podcast. And I was like, we should hire just like consult with the number one person on YouTube titles and thumbnails. And like, we'll pay whatever, whatever it is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Totally. Yeah. They're the cheesecake factory. There's everything on the menu. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
So both these ideas I buy. These are ideas, I'm scribbling notes, I'm like, I want to start one of these. But how do you actually go about growing some of these ideas. In your hedge fund idea, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense, but I don't know anyone in hedge funds.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
In, let's just say, the real estate vertical or the automotive vertical, how do you go about taking this from idea to actually execution?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah, or partner with be the back end and find a front end with someone like you. Totally. If I was going to start something like this, I would pick a really great name, create a great brand, build out the MVP, and then do two things.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
I would set up cold DMs and just start cold DMing hedge fund managers, people who work in hedge funds, just to look at the website, even if only 1% or less than 1% ends up opening you know, your, your messages. And the second thing is I'd build audience around, you know, around it. I'd build memes around it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
This is an absolute pleasure to have you, Jesse Pugie. This guy has hundreds of profitable startup ideas lodged in his brain. You're my go-to guy when I want to jam ideas, so thanks for taking some time today.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
The goal for any entrepreneur starting out is to make 100 to 200K a year. After that, everything is upside and gravy, but that gives you the launch pad with which to launch the good businesses.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Really, I'm shocked and appalled to hear that because I did it in like three or four minutes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Okay, so Apple Watch just released this thing where it will diagnose you with sleep apnea. For people that don't know, sleep apnea is a disorder where while you're sleeping, you basically kind of are snoring and your throat gets a little closed and you basically have this, you stop breathing briefly
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And so it's like sometimes you're, you know, if your partner's in bed with you, they might hear you like gasping or stopping breathing or whatever, but a lot of people just don't know they have it. In fact, 80 to 90% of people who have sleep apnea are undiagnosed. Um, now a lot of people wear Apple watches.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And it'll just automatically one day pop up a little alert and say, dude, you have sleep apnea. And people are going to be like, what the hell is sleep apnea and what do I do? And so I think there's a big opportunity for this. I think that there's going to be a lot of beneficiaries, specifically sleep apnea clinics.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So there's these very rigorous processes you have to go through in order to get what's called a CPAP machine. A CPAP machine is this thing that you wear over your mouth or over your nose and it puts pushes air down your throat basically to keep your airway clear.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And in order to get one, uh, you have to go through this process of like getting formally diagnosed and talking to your doctor and getting a prescription and stuff. And so these guys have a stranglehold on, um, on the hardware. So you have a distributorship for like res med or one of these guys, uh, they charge like $2,000 for the machine.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I think one opportunity is simply just going out and buying a whole bunch of sleep apnea clinics and just betting on the macro. You just say, look, I think more and more people get diagnosed and we're going to sell a lot more hardware. Another way to do this would be to invest in the companies to do something similar. We talked about a site where you review these different hardwares and stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Awesome. Um, so how, how do you want to go about doing this? We can go start to bottom top to bottom. Okay. So, um, I've been deep diving on this because I have a big yard and I spend a lot of money on landscaping and I don't really know what they do. And so I started digging in and I realized that I was spending like thousands of dollars a month on lawn care and
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
The other thing that's interesting is a lot of people don't want to wear these CPAP machines. I mean, for good reason. You look like Bane from Batman. You have this huge, ridiculous thing on your face. And imagine you're going home with a girl you just met and you have to put on your CPAP machine. No one wants to do that. And so...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I think there's going to be more and more people popping up with alternative treatments. So there's these like oral devices that you can get, these appliances. And I think that if somebody did a really good job of D2C on that, I'm sure there's already providers out there already. Things like that will do very well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
The other idea I had is potentially to spin up an app that uses Apple's data from your Apple Watch to monitor your sleep apnea in more depth or something or coach you through it. And then the other idea I had was maybe doing a financing business that relates to buying the hardware. I'm sure that these places all offer financing, but maybe there's some kind of like...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
You know, you advertise, you know, to people that, you know, have sleep apnea as the financer of choice or whatever for these devices. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Yeah, I think that the same could be said for blood glucose. Another bet would be to say, you know, in the next five years, Apple will probably have a blood glucose sensor and that people will start monitoring things like that in their health more and more and more. And these are going to be big super cycle trends. So I think, yeah, literally like...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
One tiny tweak to the Apple Watch is enough for millions or hundreds of millions of people to suddenly start thinking about a new health trend that they weren't previously aware of. I mean, I've been wearing a continuous glucose monitor from Dexcom for... probably seven years.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So I'm aware of blood sugar and it's quite shocking when you start monitoring your blood sugar, all these foods you think are healthy that actually aren't. And I think that's a huge potential trend, harder to profit on than the sleep apnea one. But yeah, there's lots of stuff like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Why do you use Clode instead of... Instead of ChatGPT.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
because I've got a big backyard and a big front yard. You've been to my house. It's quite large, but not necessarily complicated or anything. And so I think just because it's big, I'm like a sucker. The landscaping guy comes to your house, and if you have a big house and you have a gate, he's like, you know what? I'm going to give this guy the rich guy charge. And so I realized that
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Well, I think it's crazy. Like I just went through ADHD diagnosis and it's not rocket science, right? It's all stuff that could have been done with AI. Like they basically, they put you through like a memory test and some cognitive testing. They sit with you for an hour and they, you know, basically just go through a checklist and ask you a bunch of questions.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
They go through like a process of like, you know, you tick boxes based on like symptoms and all that kind of stuff. And I think, There's something really crappy about the fact that in order to get diagnosed with a disorder with which really impacts a lot of people, it could be anxiety, depression, ADHD, you name it. You have to spend thousands of dollars or have insurance or whatever.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I think my diagnosis was like $2,000. And I recently saw a friend of mine is creating a startup to do this, to basically diagnose. You go through like a, you just say like something is wrong with me. Like, I don't know what it is, but like something's wrong with me and just do a mental health assessment. And it uses AI to basically say like, Hey, here's an entire picture of your mental health.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And here's all the ways that you could potentially tackle it. And I think that's really freaking cool because, And I think ADHD in general actually is a huge opportunity area. I think more and more people are recognizing it and it is widely undiagnosed. They estimate between 10 and 20 percent of people have it. So I think that's another interesting one, too.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
My next one, this one is very, uh, very half baked, but I think that computer vision was something that was kind of like, you know, always five to 10 years away. Like I would see some cool startup come out in Silicon Valley and they would say, Oh, you know, you can install these sensors in your building or in your supermarket or whatever, and it'll do all this crazy stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
But it was always this thing where it was like, you got to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not accessible to normal people. And a lot of people don't know this, but we own like four or five restaurants. We own a deli and a bunch of other stuff. And in that deli, there's a few things I would really love to understand.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So one, like basically what I want to do is like put a webcam, like a simple webcam, or even just take an old iPhone and just like put it up in a corner with a power cable or something like that. And I would love to see like a heat map of like, okay, where are people going? Where are they buying? Where are they lingering? What are they skipping?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And then I also love the idea of anonymized facial recognition. So the idea of saying this many people coming through the door are repeat customers. The repeat customers all come at 8 a.m. The new customers come on this day at this time. And I think that it would be really, really interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And then the other thing that would be cool is to see where do people get confused or mixed up where, you know, they walk back and forth in certain places. And I just, to me, I feel like the technology is finally here. to do this, and I think it can be done very, very cheaply. And I'm sure someone has done this in an enterprise situation. I guarantee this exists.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I can basically buy a robot lawnmower. So for people that aren't familiar, it's basically like a Roomba, except it mows your lawn. And so you just put this thing outside and you geofence your lawn and you kind of tell it what to do. And every day or a couple days, it'll go and mow. And so...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
What I want is for the small business owner to be able to access this, to install an app on your iPhone and just mount your iPhone somewhere. Did you see a demo of that guy? And he had those Ray-Ban sunglasses with the hidden camera and he was walking around New York. And when he walked up to people, it would use facial recognition and tell them who they were and what they did.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And do you see that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Oh, dude, it's the craziest thing. So he's in a subway station and he's wearing these glasses and he would walk up to people and he'd go, oh my God, are you Greg Eisenberg? You're from the Startup Ideas podcast. And the people would be like, oh, thank you. Yes, I am. And they'd be friendly because they think they know this guy, but they don't.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
It's just whispered in his ear who this person is and what they do and all this stuff. And so he's literally going up to people and random people. And at the subway terminal, there's all these interesting people. someone's like a great philanthropist. And then another guy is working on like some important political thing and he starts conversations with all of them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And so it's this kind of vaguely terrifying tech demo. But at the same time, I was like, how cool is this that you could basically meet all these fascinating people? Like, do you ever go to like a nice hotel and you look around and you're like, all these people can afford to spend like two, $3,000 a night for a room.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I bet there's tons of interesting business people here, but I'll never know who they are.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Greg's walking in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
That's so cool. I've actually read recently about something like this. They were replacing the security guards in sketchy high schools with this kind of technology and stuff. This stuff is so Panopticon where... I struggle with it because on one hand, I think it's so cool. And on the other hand, it's like absolute power corrupts absolutely. And whose hands is this stuff in?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I guess my question would be, how would you feel if you walked into my deli and you found out I'm using facial tracking technology, even if it's anonymized? I just think this is one of these things that our generation might be uncomfortable with, but our kids probably won't think twice about. But it is kind of creepy when you think about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
um because you only mow your lawn like once a week or so um you can actually have one and it can do multiple yards and all that kind of stuff and so i just thought that was really interesting because the return on investment for this versus something like solar is crazy if you get solar panels you're looking at like a 10 to 20 year payback depending on where in the world you live
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I mean, how cool would it be if you walk into my deli and the guy behind the counter gets a little notification. It's like, oh, Greg loves salami, whatever. And he's like, Greg, so great to see you. Do you want salami again? Think about how good you would feel. But it would be maybe a bit creepy if it was done poorly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Totally. Okay, another one. I'm huge on this. So when Chris and I were running the business day to day, like when we were running our agency, we were absolute maniacs about negotiation. So anything that we bought from...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
office furniture to vendor contracts to software to even the coffee beans that we bought in bulk for the staff we negotiated everything we would go get multiple quotes we'd pit them against each other we would negotiate on payment terms all sorts of stuff and we saved an insane amount of money doing that and i realized Before that, I would just kind of be like, well, the price is the price.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And then Chris was a big haggler and got me to read a bunch of books. I realized, no, the price is not the price. Most people, if you ask them, will give you a big, huge discount. And so what I found over time, though, was as our company got bigger, I had to delegate negotiation. And no one wants to do negotiation. An employee does not care to do negotiation. First of all, it's really awkward.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
It's really, really uncomfortable. Two, it slows everything down. You just want to choose the desk you want to buy and just buy it. And to get the deal takes like three weeks sometimes. So it's time. And then incentive. Why do they care? It's like, why is it worth it for them to spend all this time and money to save... a couple thousand dollars to you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
That's a couple thousand dollars of profit to them. What does that mean? It's like maybe another couple of dollars on their bonus or something like that. And so I have been, it's kind of been driving me crazy and I've tried to train people over and over again. I've been like, Hey, read like this negotiation book or use like, you know, use this GPT bot or whatever, but nobody ever does it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And so, um, We actually started a company called TechSource about six months ago, and we started another one even three or four years ago, which we sold to Ramp actually, which is why we like recreated this business basically. But what it does is it negotiates software on your behalf.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So Amazon S3, any enterprise software, HubSpot, Rippling, you know, you name it, anything that you use, they will basically evaluate what what you're using, how many seats you have, and then they'll go and negotiate and do the procurement on your half. And the savings are insane. Like we've saved people like 60, 70% across some of their largest vendors.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So I'm obsessed with this idea, but for everything. So if I want to buy a house, I want to literally be like, hey, that's the house I want. You call the guy and you save me as much for every year. I'm going to give you 20% of everything you save under a certain amount. If the asking price is a million bucks and you get it for 800K, I'll give you 25% of the savings.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And a robot mower can pay itself off in like six to 12 months, pretty much, which is pretty crazy. And if you think about it, a Roomba kind of sucks because a house is a highly variable environment. So I've had Roombas for 20 years. Every couple of years, I get excited. I go and buy one. And over and over again, I have the same experience. And the experience is...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And I think that is a very interesting business idea. It really works best, obviously, with big purchases, houses, cars, that kind of stuff. But doing an acquisition of a car or a house, it's not a lot of work. you could probably do the actual negotiation in a few hours.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And so I think this is a great business for somebody who, A, loves to negotiate, and then B, would want to train up a sales force to do this. And that could be as simple as going to the Philippines or Latin America and just getting these people to read a couple books and hyper-incentivizing them and aligning them and giving them an LLM.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So as they're going through it, they just type the email response in and they rewrite the email accordingly or something. But yeah, I love this idea and I want to be a customer of whoever does it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Yeah, I think especially people, they don't think enough about these big purchases. They'll say like, well, the asking price on that house was X and it had previously sold for Y. And I think that just there's no price discovery. At the end of the day, anyone who's sold a house, like I've sold houses where the listing price is like a hope and a dream.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And then there's been other times where it's completely firm and I'm not willing to go under. But if someone asked the right questions of me, they would pretty quickly learn how much flexibility I have on pricing and stuff. Um, so yeah, I think that's a, that's a really cool one. Um, the other one that I have, I've got, let's see, I've got two more.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So the next one, um, I looked into this recently cause I'm getting older and as you get older, your sperm quality gets worse and they actually show that, um, older fathers have uglier children. So the older you get, the uglier and less symmetrical your kids faces will be. Not for sure. There's lots of good looking people, uh, who have good looking kids even when they're old. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
But so, you know, your risk of complications and autism and all sorts of other stuff go up. And so I think this is something that a lot of people should be doing and very few people I know are. And I think the reason that people don't do sperm freezing is, A, you know, no one really talks about it. Two, it's not something that's marketed to you. You know, I've never seen an ad for sperm freezing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And then three, it's an awkward process. I don't want to go to some weird clinic and say,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
go and have to like jerk off in a weird room with like I like I don't know it just seems very awkward and I think that if someone made it easy where I could impulse purchase it so let's say that I go I see an ad for it or some Instagram influencer talks about it I click a link and they literally just ship you a package with dry ice
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
and you do it at home and then ship it back, I think that could be really successful. This is a hard business to execute on because you need licensing and you need a facility and all sorts of other stuff. But I think whoever does it could do really, really well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Oh, it looks like there are a couple companies doing this, though. It's interesting. Legacy is one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
My kids drop toys, or there's cables, or it gets stuck underneath something, and it just doesn't work that well. Whereas a yard, there's really nothing in your yard. And so you can basically let these things go wild 24-7. So I think robot vacuums as a opportunity category is really interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
no ad which is like that's crazy you'd love to see it that is how is there no ad you'd love to see that that alone i'm like that's crazy that there's no one advertising on literally i know same with me in my area literally i googled sperm freezing and there's no ad that's like a huge opportunity whenever you see that that's like a lot it's like a lottery ticket
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I want to edit that out and I'm going to build this in Canada right now. That's crazy. I wonder, I'm going to ask a chat GBT cause I'm not French Canadian. What, um, what, uh, what would be required to start a sperm testing facility or sorry for sperm banking.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
There's a lot of really great name possibilities for that. Let's see. OK, so sperm banks are regulated in Canada. They're regulated. They have to be screened. Strict procedures. We look up startup costs.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Yeah, totally. Well, it's like there's that company. I think it's called Legacy. It looks like there's one. Legacy at Home Sprint. maybe we just go buy that company before this goes live. Yeah. Like this looks great, but yeah, it does not. Okay. Oh, interesting analysis. So it looks like they have, okay. So they have a home sperm testing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
They have home sperm improvement and they have home sperm freezing give legacy.com. Let's see if they've raised money. So they raised money in July actually. So pretty recently.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I'm going to follow this guy on X and message him.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Well, I think what I like is to say, okay, that guy's doing it in the States. Why don't I just copy this exact thing in Canada? And ultimately for me, it comes down to two things. One, how hard is the idea to execute and how costly? Would I need to raise money for it? Or is this thing I could just bootstrap myself? And how long to get validation?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
But separately from that, it's ultimately who's the CEO going to be? Because that's the big problem I always have is like, I can have the world's best idea, but I'm not going to be able to run it. I've got tiny, I've got all these other things going on. So I need someone who can just take the baton and run with it. And then I can just like help promote it, strategize, all that kind of stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So that's the key thing. Okay. It's looking like estimated startup costs of, oh, not too bad. Like, Well, okay. So it's like probably 20 or $30,000 a month to have all this stuff. It's like a bit of a bit of a pain in the ass to start, but it's definitely interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And I think that if I was to do anything, I would probably build a robot vacuum lawnmower review website. So I would do the best deep dive wire cutter style reviews of the robot lawnmowers, focus on SEO, and then do affiliate or something like that. Other opportunities, I think that you can certainly buy a dealership or something like that. That could be interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I wonder if you could go in lease space from an existing sperm bank and just say like, Hey, like give us like a shelf to start and then we'll.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Yeah. Hmm. Interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
This is a good idea. I actually think this is really interesting. If anyone's listening to this and wants to start this business, they should email me and Greg because we will fund you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Yeah. So basically, have you ever done like EO or YPO for them?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So I had a friend invite me to EO when I was 20 and I was just starting my company and I walk into the room and it's all these 40 to 50 year old dudes who have like, collar businesses or they're like investment managers or like, you know, guys that wear suits like business people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And I was immediately allergic to that because I was like, you know, a 20 year old in a hoodie who's in tech and none of these people are in tech. And my immediate thought was like, well, what can I learn from these guys? Like, this is like so pointless. And I kind of say as much to my friend and he says, no, no, no, dude, trust me. You should join this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Just make sure you do this thing called forum. And I had no idea what that was. But it turned out that EO Forum or YPO Forum is a format where once a month, you and five or six other entrepreneurs go into a conference room and you share everything that's going on in your life. So personal, family, and business. And so on day one of my first forum, I walk in the room.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
It's a guy who runs a mapping company. someone who runs a popsicle company, another guy ran a puzzle company, a woodworking shop, and I forget, there's a couple others. And I'm just like, man, like, this is like, I'm not gonna learn anything. This doesn't make any sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Fast forward 10 years later, and there's some of my best friends, actually 15 years later, this was like 15, almost 20 years ago, actually. And one of them is the executor of my will. So these are actually my most trusted confidants. And what happened was over the course of time, you know, we all started out kind of nervous and we wouldn't share. We just talked about our businesses.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
We'd be cautious. But over time, like shit happens. Like people get divorced. People deal with co-founder issues. People can't make payroll. They deal with like a psycho, uh, employee, all this stuff happens and you become this like bonded band of brothers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And I found that has a, it's been like so helpful for me just for like making amazing friends, but then be also like in business, everything tastes like chicken and like talking about your problems is really rewarding as a group. Um, and so I had this experience of like this,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Deeply forged friendships occur when you have this ritual where you do this monthly thing in a rhythm and you share and you're deep and personal and there's shared trust because one of the key things in forum is nothing leaves the room. It's totally confidential. And so I've been thinking a lot about that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And I think it's kind of a gift to be in business and get to do that because we have this shared language. If you and I met and we didn't have our businesses, it would be harder for us to get along. I'm sure we'd find all sorts of stuff to talk about, but when you're in business, you just have this shared language and you can bond.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And so I actually, I had a friend who was struggling with alcoholism and I went to an AA meeting like maybe two years ago. And I was like, oh, my God, this is like forum in an AA meeting. You stand up. There's a whole ritual. You stand up. Everything's confidential. You share these crazy stories of what's going on in your life or you tell stories or whatever.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
The idea that I actually had was to start a lawn mowing company or buy a lawn mowing company that has a ton of customers. And instead of having laborers go do the work, you just pre-program everyone's yard and you literally just show up on Monday, for example, you drop the little drone and it goes and cuts their yard and then you pick it up at the end of the day.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And there's this feeling of like connectedness and like friendship and bonding. And it's like it's like church or something like that. And so. I think that there's an opportunity to create more of these sorts of groups. And I think sometimes they need to be around interests and sometimes they just need to be about friendship or group therapy because ultimately you're kind of doing group therapy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And so, you know, Sam Parr did like Hampton for entrepreneurs, which is very similar to this. I think it would be interesting to try and find other subgroups where you can convince five or six people to get together in a format and share. And so the kind of grown up way people do this is like dinner parties and book groups. I think something deeper than that would be interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So it's like right now I've got this, I've got my business forums, I've got
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
four different business forums that i do i do one a week but then i've also been meeting with this group of guys to talk about doing like a secular church and what i mean by that is not like starting a cult but just like having a weekly event that we do with a group of people and their families and trying to build that sense of community and so I don't know what is here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I know there's something here, but I think it's a very unformed idea. But I think in this world where everything is going more and more online and churches exist less and less, I think people are looking for the sense of community. And there's a really great opportunity to do that, not only to make money, but also just to make great friends and do something positive.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Totally. I think it's probably the most rewarding thing that I've done is building these forum groups and seeing how interconnected I've created. I've created all these webs of friends who they're all people I knew for the most part individually, but now they're all friends. And it's crazy. I have groups where when everyone met, they were all really nervous.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And now we all go on annual trips every year. And like, we're just super, super connected, like really circle of trust and to have 20 or 30 people that are deep trust is like a really unique thing in this day and age. I feel like there's definitely like an epidemic of loneliness where
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
most people can't name you know two or three good friends that they have let alone 20. so yeah it's it's really powerful i don't know that it's a huge money maker i think like sam and what he's doing with hampton is because it's like high net worth ceos um but i think you could probably find other niches where it would be profitable but mostly this is a how do you make your life awesome
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And you just do that for a whole bunch of different people. And so if you think about it, a landscaping business It's a hard, crappy business because, you know, the margins are OK. You kind of have a 15 to 30 percent margin, but it's a lot of blue collar work and highly seasonal. And if you think about it with this, you could have like 10 robot mowers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Like, I think about the concept, I said this to Nick Gray, I was like, you know, most people think they want to be a billionaire. What they actually want is to be a friend billionaire. Why do you want to be a billionaire? Because you've watched Honorage. You know, you're like, oh, if I have a billion dollars or I'm famous,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
then you know i'll be like vinnie chase driving out with my entourage of bros and it'll be good times and parties and girls and all this stuff and in reality that's not what happens people get rich and they get like sad and isolated and people treat them differently and stuff and so they really want to be a friend billionaire and i think like nick is doing interesting work in that area of how do you ensure that your life is vibrant you're constantly meeting new people you have deep friendships
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Uh, you're a magnet for interesting people. Like I think that is actually far more interesting than making money.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Not only that, but the business, it's not about, if you think about it, you are building this network. People pay $200,000 or $300,000 a year to go to Harvard or something like that. And the reason they do that is not because the education at Harvard is so much better.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
It is maybe a little bit better, but mostly it's that you're going to school with all these super influential wealthy people that in the future will benefit you because they're gonna hire you for a job or give you opportunities or something. I think increasing your opportunity surface area by having a really interesting broad group of friends where you have high trust
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
is amazing because that Tony guy, maybe he makes no money on that business or this isn't even a business, just like he does for fun. But certainly if he ever starts a business in the future, maybe one of his investors or earliest employer co-founder comes from that group. I just think bad things have never happened to me when I put myself out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Well, I mean, you get trolls on Twitter and stuff, but like generally bad things don't happen when you put yourself out there and you build a great group of friends and high trust and that kind of stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
The best way to get to know me probably is to read my book. It's kind of a memoir about building my business. Yeah. if you want to understand me and how I tick and how I got to where I am, that is the best way.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Uh, you can check it out at never enough.com and also do a newsletter and a podcast where I really just kind of like talk to people I'm interested in and share products and stuff, random stuff I'm interested in. Um, and then if you have a business you want to sell, uh, you should go to tiny.com and you should email me and I'd love to buy your business if it's really good. That's my primary thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And just every day you go to 10 different houses and drop them off and pick them up at the end of the day. And you make all the money, basically pure profit other than the cost of maintenance on the mower. So kind of a random fun one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
That's what I do for a living.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I want to edit that out and I'm going to build this in Canada right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Yes. Yes. Sperm free, highly profitable sperm freezing or sleep apnea business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Thanks, dude. Bye-bye.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Totally. I think you could probably do it as a neighborhood. I think if you have money, what I would do is I'd go and buy a small landscaping company that has like 20 or 30 customers. And I would just start very gently experimenting. So it's like, you know, you take one house and you see, does the owner notice? Does the owner do the math? Does the owner go and buy their own robot mower?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Because these mowers are five to $7,000. And so not that many people are going to go and buy it. Um, now they might try and get a discount. I think it depends on the person, but there's a certain class of person that just goes, if the mowing is good, I don't give a shit. I just want to pay an amount and I want it to just get handled. Um, so yeah, I think it's kind of interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
i think it's a launchpad business i i think um the the digital version of it where you do lawnmower reviews or whatever i think is relatively scalable it's probably like a business you can make like 300k to a million dollars a year but the physical stuff is much more for the scrappy person who doesn't know where to start and is willing to spend 5k or something on a startup business that can make them
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
100 to 200K a year. I always think the goal for any entrepreneur starting out is to make 100 to 200K a year. After that, everything is upside and gravy, but that gives you the launchpad with which to launch the good businesses. So you need the mediocre business first.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Um, usually, and I think, you know, if someone can start an affiliate website for this, that's better than having a physical mowing company. But the physical mowing company is so easy to get going with, in my opinion. So I don't know. I think it's like those kinds of businesses appeal to me because they're simple and they're not going anywhere.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
And there's no like SEO rug pull that can really happen. But, um, but I hear you. It's not highly scalable.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Well, I remember I was talking to one guy who's got a huge newsletter and he said, with one mention of Athletic Greens, I can make $50,000. And I was like, oh my God, that's kind of crazy. And I think affiliate has a bad reputation because...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
You know, affiliate marketing is kind of like, hey, I'll go out and I'll make some cheesy ad and you'll click it because you want penis pills or something like that. And then I'll get a commission. That's like affiliate marketing OG version. When I think about affiliate marketing, I just think of it as capturing the money the advertiser would otherwise make.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So let's say that I have a newsletter with 100,000 subscribers and I'm charging $5,000 for an ad. We know the advertiser is making $20,000 off that ad or $10,000 off that ad if they're smarter. And I think it's just capturing more of that than what you would get paid up front. And you're taking a little more risk. So that's the way I think about affiliate.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I don't think that affiliate, if you have a newsletter, it all comes down to how much of a moat do you have around your audience? So if you're on Twitter, you're vulnerable to the algorithm, but it's free to post. But if you have a newsletter, it's direct to the consumer and you basically can keep pounding that as long as you want.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So I think if you're dependent on it and it's SEO vulnerable or algorithm vulnerable, then yeah, it's a bad business. But if you have this audience you've built for free, like you or me, it's kind of like, I see no downside as long as you're not doing something that's horrible. I recommend stuff on my newsletter and if it's an Amazon link, I'm like, yeah, why not?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I want to get paid for that, sure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Man, I hope there's someone like driving their car and they pull over and get excited about an idea or something. I love like I like listening to the My First Million episodes where people are brainstorming and like Steph Smith or someone will go on and she just drops some cool idea that hits me. So hopefully one of these ideas hits somebody.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
It's crazy. I don't even know that Athletic Greens is a great product or anything like that, but I think that it's too big to fail in that there's too many people making too much money from it that they all want it to keep going.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
you know like sahil or or huberman or any of these people that do this that talk about ag1 they want it to persist right because they're going to make so much money from it and i don't think it's like bad for you by any means but i think odds are it's like their margin on it is probably like 90 and so they have a lot of money to play with
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
for affiliate and they can differentiate by getting these huge influential people to talk about it as a result it's actually a really interesting strategy if you think about it because the greens products have been around forever like that's not a new idea it's just someone came out and was like let's apply this business model to that
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Did you see what Sam Parr did with accounting firms? Sam's List.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
I don't know how it's worked out for him, but I thought that was really smart. I do wonder about the longevity of that. I don't use Google anymore. For everything, I go on Perplexity or ChatGPT now. And so if you build an affiliate directory, they're just going to scrape that, and then it'll inform the results. and you'll never get your links in or credit or anything like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
So I don't really know if it's a good long-term strategy. I mean, how do you think about something like that? Is that like, I guess you just link the directory on your socials or something like that. And if you have a proprietary link, then it's fine.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't be too concerned about it, especially because it is that launchpad kind of business, right? It's like, you really need this to work for a couple of years. It's going to cost you zero and you can make hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and that's fine. I'm curious, when you start these directories, who is doing your follow-through execution?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
6 startup ideas from the tech Warren Buffett (make $120k/mo)
Because my problem is always like, I have the idea and I have the social funnel. Like I have a similar audience to you and stuff, but I think you're doing a far better job of figuring out how to actually monetize it and track the funnel and stuff. Who's doing that for you? Are you doing that yourself or do you have a team?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
I believe it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Yeah. I mean, like we were talking about, you know, for example, LCA, which is like our design agency that only works with like a dozen clients every year. And our target is like CEO of a Fortune 250 company. Right. So it's kind of like the way you get in front of, you know, the CEO of call it Shopify, let's say, maybe not cold email. Totally agree.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
It's possible, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
You can hear these stories all the time. But as a founder, you... There's only so many bets that you can place, right? A thousand percent. A thousand percent.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Well, I see like, you know, your, you know, your main artery just exploding. I'm like, is this guy going to get, you know, into cardiac arrest right now? Not yet. Not with these downers. No, I know. I mean, to be honest, it fires me up too, right? Like the idea of, It almost feels too good to be true.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
But you can do, you can just do stuff. And it's, and I feel like everyone basically in, let's talk about B2B should be creating a media business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Red Bull is actually a media company. You know who else is also a media company? Y Combinator. A thousand percent. Nobody talks about it. They're a media company.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
YC is a media company that sells venture capital. A thousand percent. A thousand percent. That's why they're doubling down so much on YouTube. Have you seen this? A hundred percent. They're going all in. Yeah. It's obvious.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
I think they're doing a great job. They're doing an unbelievable job.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
What software do you use to do that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
By the way, I have a great video on it based on the insight that you gave me. Yeah. So now you have your own take.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
It's done. It's crazy how few companies do what you're talking about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
We were, right before we recorded this, we were talking about some wins from the podcast in terms of like, like a revenue perspective, because we don't sell ads on the podcast. And we had a lead that came in, listens to the podcast, Fortune 500 company. They wanted to work with LCA and we sent them a $2.2 million proposal. They said yes. No questions. No questions. Why is it so cheap? Literally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
And we did, you know, incredible work for them. And the team is amazing. And they, you know, they were happy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Right. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Yeah. And I think it's also like when you, when you, you know, I'm not saying we own this category, but I'm saying that when people who listen to this show are like, I need to build my ideas, who do I think about? They're like, oh yeah, Greg from the Startup Ideas podcast. You own that mental real estate.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Okay, so most people, they give like two spaces in their mind. What, Chapman, is that one? Not even. Dude, have you seen these lips? These are, couldn't be more moist. Crusty. I'm not saying kiss me or anything, but you know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
So this is the B2B playbook. It's the B2B. Now we got to talk about the B2C playbook. Yeah, it's B2C. But before we do that, I got to pee. I got to pee too. I'm a drinker. You're like, I got to pee too. I've wet myself. All right, go for it. So... Consumer. Consumer. Yeah, so consumer, different animal. First of all, don't go into consumer. First of all, don't do it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
I say this and we like know people killing it right now in consumer. Um, did you tweet something about that? Like you're like, yeah, dude, I had this tweet forever ago. It's a, it's a running, a running tweet.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
It's what you're saying is people don't like the problem with funnel is people leave the funnel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
You go and then you do cold email like we talked about. Actually I said what, but then I realized, damn, I think we have... Like on our YouTube. Totally. An email. It's a contact email, right? To reach out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Okay. And before you do that, could you let us know what liquid you have in your coffee mug? Yeah, this is beer. This is Modelo. I am sipping Modelo. They're out of limes though, man. I don't know about the hospitality. Is that a type of like Colombian roast? I think it's from Oaxaca. Cool. All right. Digital gravity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
So anyway, yeah. Dude, these are, this is, this is gold. You're an angel. Live to serve. Live to serve.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Thank you. Thank you. This is, this is going to change some lives. So thank you. I hope so. For, uh, Laying it out for people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
So Cody Schneider exec. Yeah, that's it. All right. Well, we'll throw that in the show notes. Cool. Appreciate it. I'll see you in a bit. Oh yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
It's kind of how I see building a website or an app. It's not like you hit publish and you're done. It's a living and breathing entity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership. where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
want to start a startup, but are looking for ideas, or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to startupempire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
Anyway. So can we, I'm sure people are listening to this and they're like, okay, I buy that. But like, tactically. How do you do it? How do you do it? Yeah, totally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
I want to start with B2B, but you know what also has a B in it is beer. And I don't know if you have an empty mug in there. No, I have stuff in here still, shockingly. That is shockingly. Okay. Well, if you do need more beer, we have one ice cold right there for you. Amazing. I appreciate you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
How do you do that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
I mean, also if it's yourself as the founder doing the ads, you can say like, I'm the founder of XYZ, right? So there's a story there. People buy from people, not brands. 100%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
It beats, hey, I'm an AI avatar. Let me tell you about my business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
He built a startup using AI that prints money (full tutorial)
What is a smart lead?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
This is why I brought you on. When we do this show, we have a lot of ideas around $1 million a year, $10 million, $100 million a year. Moonshots, talking about the moon, isn't in our normal repertoire.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Um, and it's just reminds me of like, it's important to have people like you in, in, in, it's important to have people listen to people like you because, um, if you listen to the, like the, here's an idea to build like a quick AI app to make you a million dollars, you get sucked into that world. And that might be thinking too small. It might be.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
All right. So where do we start?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
that's why I wanted to bring you on. Like I brought you on because some people are going to be listening to this and be like, this guy is crazy. And some people are going to be like, I need more people like John in my life, either, you know, just like listening to you or getting to know you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Because I think, um, it helps people kind of figure out what they want and how they want to spend their time. Um, and it's good to have diverse sort of, um, people to, you know, yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Diverse from a thinking perspective.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend BoringMarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Dude, so good. This is probably my favorite one. I also think this particular idea, once you show traction via the internet, you do Instagram ads, you start selling it, you can go to a Verizon and they're looking for products like this. They want to sell.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Totally. These retail shops are looking for products like this. To me, this is a no-brainer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Yeah, and I think just one quick takeaway from that is people are thirsty for fun products. And I think it's keyword fun. I love Apple too, but Apple has become minimalistic and just clean and modern. And for your day-to-day stuff, I think that's what you want. But when you're in gift-giving mode, you want fun. And when you...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
When you receive a gift, it's more fun to get a fun gift with a fun opinion than something that's just clean and modern.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Yeah, so whatever it is you're building, if it's this idea or not, inject fun because it's what people want.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
We have a few minutes for one last one. I want you to talk about the tweet that you just did.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
So I got a lot of thoughts on this one. One is not only do I think that could this be used in the military, Navy SEALs type things, but it could also be used for security, right? Like I was driving on my way here to and it's a Jewish holiday, I think, today, or tomorrow, actually. And people were, I noticed that I was just passing by a bunch of synagogues, and they all had armed guards with guns.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
I'm here in Florida. And so I would imagine that there's probably thousands of these people places of worships, mosques, synagogues, churches, that unfortunately have to hire security. Now, hiring a guy with a rifle or a girl with a rifle, that's probably expensive. I'd much rather hire a security robot with an AR-15.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
I think this is, again, one of those ideas that it's not an if, when, and it's also one of those things where it's like, do I want to start this company? No. But someone will.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
The future is now. John, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for getting my creative juices flowing. Where could people get to know you a little bit better?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Beautiful. All right, my man. I'll catch you later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
This isn't your normal Startup Ideas podcast episode. This isn't going to be about how you can create a startup that makes a million dollars next year. It's all about big ideas. I think it's going to expand your mind. I think you're going to enjoy it. You will enjoy it. Enjoy the episode. John Coogan on the pod. Mr. Big Ideas, that's what I'm going to call you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
But the main thing is most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash flowing business is waiting for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
So I like the idea. But where my mind goes to is, what does an insurance company for AI look like? I actually never thought about the insurance business until I was watching Warren Buffett at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. He said something that stuck with me, which is, insurance is a great business. Someone's like, why?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
He goes, you get paid today for something that might not happen tomorrow. I thought that was a really good way of putting it. I wonder, using the Fort Knox analogy of gold, if I'm trying to MVP this, maybe an MVP is you just get in the insurance business and then eventually evolve into what you're talking about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
100 percent. Yeah. You know, when I hear an idea like you have here, it's like this to me is I'm almost certain that this will exist and there'll be a big company. But I'm just I always just think about like, OK, what is what are the wedges? What are the hundred wedges? And starting to write that down on a list.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Humanoid Military Robots and other crazy billion dollar ideas
And then how do you prioritize the wedge such that me or whoever's listening is best suited to do that wedge? And also it's easy-ish to build that wedge.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Right. Well, I think it's you have to channel your inner Russ. You either need to be Russ or you need to channel your inner Russ. So what's Russ doing right now?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Honestly, probably. He has an incredible house and nature. He's got a few things going on, but I think that for the right idea...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
And thanks for being here, man. Yeah, it's great to be here, Greg. Thanks for having me on. And I said, you can only come on if you have an idea. And your response was, I've got something I can't get out of my head. And so what's going through your head?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
I was going to say, that's what I was going to say.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
You have to be world-class at this. You have to feel it. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, you have to be, this needs to be a problem that you inherently understand and you can picture it and you have the skill set to, and have ideally done something similar before so that you're not spending a year trying to figure this out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Yeah. What I'm, what I'm picking up on, well, actually before I say what I'm picking up on, What you're describing to me is what I call the margarita pizza problem, which is a margarita pizza. Of course, it's so simple. It's just dough and tomato sauce and cheese.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
But the difference between the best margarita slice you've had and Domino's pizza, not hating on Domino's because Domino's has its place in society as well. But it's not like you're eating a slice in Naples. Um, so that's what you're saying with, with your product. Like it needs to be Naples, not Domino's.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
And by the way, in the comment section, I know what we're going to get people saying, Oh, why, why are you talking smack about Domino's pizza? Like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
How much do you think about marketing when you think about an idea? How much are you thinking about how am I going to get the first 100,000 people to download this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
That actually just got me thinking of a whole other idea, which is, okay. What if there were limited, limited edition apps that, So just like how there's vintage cars and there's only like a thousand of this one model of Porsche, let's say, this shower app could be like one of a thousand and it just could be an expensive app.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
But those people aren't on Android, realistically. Like the person, you know, I think it would have to be iOS, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
In 2010? 14 or 15, we had a really popular app, but it got acquired and got shut down. It was this video discovery app. It was called Five Buy. And it was shut down and our team, this is around the time when Flappy Bird was really popular. So we skinned Flappy Bird so that when you open up the Five Buy app post it closing down,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
it turned into Flappy Bird, but with our logos and our branding and yeah. So you didn't have to download a new version of the app. It just, wow. And people like Ryan Hoover and all these people were going into the app and Ryan wrote like a whole blog post about it. Yeah. And it was so funny. Like it went viral, like millions of people, you know, millions of impressions.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
People were trying to get their hold on apps. There's something here. And I think like the genius of everything you're saying, like to summarize is, The real world has a lot of ideas for how to develop a product that's going to work. Because you mentioned time. You mentioned surprise, treasure hunts.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
A lot of the stuff you're saying, ephemerality, a lot of the stuff you're saying is, hey, this is happening in the real world, and I wonder if this could happen in software.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
What have you seen recently of a piece of software that has had a little bit of fun that you're like, whoa, these people, they're on, you know, this is interesting. Like, have you had a lot of Is software boring now, or are you seeing stuff that's exciting you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
I think it says something that we can't come up with 100 apps quickly. Both you and I create software, involved in software, have been in it for a while, but we can't off the top of our head be like, here's the 20 different things. I think it feels like I'll say this. It feels like this idea of cozy software that you're talking about feels like 1 in 100, not 50 in 100.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Most software feels a bit boring right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Yeah. Let's, let's make the internet weird again.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Or let's make the internet weird period. Not even an again. you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Absolutely. Yeah. Jason, I know what I'm doing this weekend. Making things weird? Making things weird. I'm making things weird. This has inspired me to look through... So yeah, just to put out some weirder stuff and see what happens. I love this idea around ephemerality and time-based apps. I think the idea... I actually really love your scratch-off idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
And the blowing... That blowing idea on top of it. Come on. That was awesome.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
I'm going to call these guys out because I'm actually going for dinner at the co-founder's house in a few hours. There is a fun software studio in Paris that are called Ammo. A-M-O. A-M-O. Okay. They will put on YouTube what their apps are, but they have some motion apps. I don't know if you remember this app called Zenly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
It was like a location-based tracker, kind of like a find your friends, but you can send stickers and there was messaging on top of it. They sold to Snapchat for like $250, $300 million. And now they've gone in, same team basically, have gone and created a social studio where they're iterating on three or four social apps
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
And a lot of them, one is like a photo app that as you move it, the photo is different and you can see different parts of it. That's cool. And they're pushing the edge on a bunch of different things there. And they've also recreated their Zenly app. And it's starting to get traction. So I think, yeah, I guess it's coming out of Paris. It's coming out of probably, you know, these things exist.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
How much do you think about marketing when you think about an idea? How much are you thinking about how am I gonna get the first 100,000 people to download this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
There is some weird stuff. It's just at the edges.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Totally. Jason, where could people learn more about 37signals instead And you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Thanks, Jason. This is great, Greg. Thanks so much. This is really fun. Later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Shh, don't tell anyone, but I've got 30-plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Well, Jason, you came on the wrong pod to share an idea because these people will eat up this idea. All of a sudden, there's going to be like 25 seed-funded startup founders who are just going to go after this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
So do you remember HQ Trivia? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Yes. So Russ, who's the founder of HQ Trivia, is a good friend of mine. is a genius. And he was the co-founder of Vine before, which essentially was TikTok. He was like the host of trivia as well, right? He was never the host. He was the product co-founder and CEO. The host was a guy named Scott Rogowski, I think. Okay, okay.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
But I know what you're talking about. I know the thing, yeah. What was brilliant about HQ Trivia? So the fact that, to your point, it happened at the same time every day. People felt like they were a part of something bigger than themselves. The commitment was pretty low. It didn't take very long. You can do it with your friends.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
And there was a variable reward, to your point, around maybe I can actually win whatever it is they're giving away. I think what you're saying in a lot of ways is you're taking a lot of the mechanics that, well, it actually came from scratch-offs, but that comes also from HQ Trivia and you're applying it to...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
a game where the advertiser... The problem with HQ Trivia was, if you remember, it was like, first they're giving away $10,000, then $100,000, then $1 million. They're raising venture capital to subsidize it. You're saying, no, no, no, don't raise venture capital, subsidize it. You're saying, get advertisers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Feels like 1 in 100, not 50 in 100. Most software feels a bit boring right now. I'd like to see more weird in software again. Yeah, let's make the internet weird again. Yeah. I am so excited to have Jason Fried, someone I've looked up to for a very long time on the pod. Jason could be anywhere, but he has chosen to spend his time with us. Thousands of people who love startup ideas and builders.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
One of the things that you're saying, which I think is really the future of the internet is, Adding opening hours and closed hours to apps. Yeah. That's basically what you're saying. So it's funny because when, you know, in the real world, you know, you can't go to your grocery store at 2.30 in the morning. It's closed. Or you can't go to your favorite breakfast restaurant at 9 p.m. It's closed.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
But on the internet, everything is so readily available. And it's funny because I was talking to my wife last night. We recently got like linear television. I don't know what that is. Like television. We got like cable, cable TV. Got it. Yeah. Things are on right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Yes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
Things are on. And I was talking to my wife and I was like, wow, this is amazing. And she's like, why is this amazing? As I'm like, I just put on Comedy Central, I think it was. And I was like, because I don't need to do anything. We're not going on to Netflix and then trying to figure out, oh, within Netflix, what do I need to watch? Making all the decisions.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The ultimate guide to product building with the man who changed software
So I think what you're saying is really interesting, which is you kind of have to be there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
But when Cody Schneider comes on, it's like sip in time, baby.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
The only thing I would do differently here would be I probably wouldn't buy 20% of these businesses with cash. I would just... earn that equity kind of seller financed and be like, yeah, I'm not going to charge you for all these services. I'm, you know, but I'm going to, I'm going to do these things for you. And like, maybe you put some cash down, but you know, I think that's the way to do it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So anyway, Cody Schneider, you're back. You're ready to sip. You got a lot of blue collar ideas and... Some blue collar.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Is it not Alex Hermosi-esque a little bit? Because, I mean, right? He did. The only thing I think that's missing a little bit from this story is what he did with, what was it called? Gym? Gym launch. Gym launch. So he was like, yeah, I had this gym and I, you know, grew it from X to Y. Like, I think the personal brand story is really, like, huge with this. You have to be able to say,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I like it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So before we move to the next idea, I don't know if you saw this, but Cody Sanchez bought a piece of, uh, Resi brands.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah. Yeah. So Resi brands is like I think it's the fastest growing painting franchise company in the United States. Insane. They also own Pinks, which is just killer. Pinks is what you were talking about a little bit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So they're like visual... It looks like these guys. Dude, I have friends that wear this street wear.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
It's like 80s. It kind of looks like an 80s, like, porno. 80s is back. Porno guys are washing your.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I mean, it's totally related. So basically the idea is they took window cleaning, but they wear these like, I don't know, it's like 80s porn mustache guys cleaning it. And it's so TikTok friendly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah. I would buy a calendar. 100%. Cody Sanchez ended up buying a big piece of the business. What do you think about that? I mean, it's brilliant.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I mean, this isn't just any subreddit. This is probably one of the fastest growing subreddits. I think it has 2.3 million members. So this is just like a macro trend around people are just tired of buying things that break. Totally. So I love the macro trend. You know, what does it look like? I don't know. I think that there's probably... Like, it would be really cool if there was...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
you know, if I bought, you know, almost like a Costco membership, but totally buy it for life. It's like $100 a year. I get access to these amazing discounts. All these products. And if one of these products breaks, we will, you know, not only buy, you know, lifetime guarantee, but we'll give 20 of them to, you know, if it's a sweater, we'll give 20 sweaters to, you know...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
people who, you know, need sweaters, you know, and if it's a blender, we'll send 20, you know, 20 blenders to a soup kitchen, that sort of thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
can I pitch you a pitch you an idea real quick that I had right before this call? So, uh, been into, it's going to sound like dumb, but I've been into reading recently. Hell yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Hell yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
There you go. So I've been enjoying books and, uh, I've, I've been like, whenever I hear someone recommend a book that, you know, maybe on a podcast or YouTube video, I always write it down instantly. Actually, I just instantly buy it. And after a certain point, I finished all those books. So I would say, let's say I'm a big Cody Schneider fan, which I am, by the way.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I would go to ChatGPT and I'd say, here's Cody Schneider. This is who he is. Here's his link to his Twitter. What are the five must-read books that Cody Schneider would recommend to me?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I'm looking to get better at XYZ topic, SEO, organic marketing, whatever. So I think that there's an opportunity to basically create... I guess it's like a newsletter and it's like books that X, Y, Z influencer would recommend. And it's I don't know if it's weekly or monthly, but let's just say it's probably a book club.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah, but I think with book clubs, would a book club... I don't think it's a book club, sorry.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah, and I also think that if it's influencer-based or creator-based, you just target people that, you know, if it's for me, let's say, yeah, people who follow me on X, just get those people. I'm sure you can get those emails for like pretty cheap. And then and then just send them like I think they're, you know, businesses have levels.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So like level one of this is just the free email with like Greg Eisenberg would recommend these two books this month. And here's some key insights. from those books. And then the next level is join the book club, to your point. And it's like, you don't even have to, for $99 a month, we'll just send it to you right away.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And then the next level is maybe a membership that synchronous events and digital stuff. That's the business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Even if you haven't explicitly recommended the book, you can infer based on all the stuff that you've talked about, all the people that you've talked about, all that stuff. You like it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
And then you're also making affiliate on Amazon. Exactly. What's the percentage?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Sorry, I'm still on the big insight that you gave that people who read have a higher income level.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I love it. I want to show you a quick tweet I saw today. Shilma note, my parents have had the same washer and dryer for almost my entire life. They bought them used in 1989, 35 years without issue. I've had to replace our washer twice in the nine years that I've had it. They really don't make them like they used to. And it's these like boxy, I guess, General Electric. it looks like, or Maytag.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Okay, before you go on to your next idea, I want to give a dumb idea based on this. So I saw a TikTok of like some like 19, maybe 1980 something Honda Civic that had like never been drived. And it sold for like a ton of money because it had like 10 miles on it or something. And honestly, I was looking at it and I was like, this is the most beautiful car I've ever seen.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So I think one of the dumb appliance company ideas is you create a new car company, no screens. Analog as hell.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah, and I think it's... People want to go from point A to point B, but it's also people want these devices to be sacred. So if everything has a screen on it, you're just constantly being overwhelmed and distracted. So the idea that you can hop into a 1987, whatever, Honda Civic, but it's pristine and there's no knobs. You don't need Google Maps. You're going for a Sunday drive.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
You know what I mean? There isn't... there isn't a hundred, you know, serious XM radio stations, right? Like there's, you only put in like one channel and it's jazz, you know, that's it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Um, you're asking the wrong guy because I'm probably like you, like I was watching.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I can't believe you just gave that one for free.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Real quick, real quick on that. Real quick on that. So he's a he's a big YouTuber. I think he might have a million subscribers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
subscribers at this point and I believe he started Kevin I think it's Kevin right yeah yeah Kevin I think he started selling seeds different you know right so rare seeds yeah what would you do you know what's your advice to Kevin the only reason I say this is because someone else might be like oh I'll go and do that
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah. So when you say AI, I get AI to write this. Okay, which AI and how do you prompt it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So this idea would actually rip it, especially in countries that are less, like more socialist than the United States. So I did a quick perplexity search. I'm here in Canada for the summer. And like just for students, the Canadian government gives $3.2 billion a year to
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
for grants and then you have film and art and you know what I'm talking about so it's just and no one not no one but most people don't want to actually go through the work and filling out grants so this idea makes makes a lot of sense to me
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
That's an idea in itself, by the way. You look at what creators and celebrities are shilling naturally. And you can start with software and then just approach them and be like, hey, I see you're shilling CapCut. I'm going to go create a CapCut competitor for you. Exactly.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
We have time for one last idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah, I like it. Not enough people are talking about the tax benefits from it. There's a guy by the name of Ankur Nagpal. He started carry.com. He didn't talk specifically about wind, but he did talk about solar. And I don't know if you know this, but there's crazy tax benefits if you invest in a commercial solar project.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah. Upfront federal tax credit. There's depreciation that offsets federal and state. And you get the income stream from the project. So for example... He tweeted this. He was like, if you invest a million dollars in a solar project, you get 40% tax credit up front. So it's literally $400,000 against your tax bill. That's number one. Then you get to depreciate the asset with time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
So that's essentially, he calls it a phantom loss that you deduct against your taxes. So these projects can be fully depreciated minus half the tax credit over five years. And then you get the income streams. So he says, if you get 5% for 20 years, that's 50K a year. So he says, let's put it all together.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
For a million dollar investment, you get $400,000 tax credit upfront, $800,000 in federal depreciation, $800,000 in state depreciation, and then 50,000 a year for 20 years. So I didn't believe it, honestly. So I texted one of the an entrepreneur who, who develops tons of these projects. He's in this space.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
He's in the space. So I was like, there's, I just said, I just texted it. I sent him the link to that. Where do I send the bag? I was like, cause I was, I was, I was sus, you know? So I was like, what have I been doing? Not investing in solar my whole life. And then he said,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Lots of challenges making it work for W-2 employees, but if you're not, it's amazing for business owners and high net worth folks. Lots of brain damage learning the tax code and finding slash diligencing deals, but yes, it's great and a great investment.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Why is that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
It's beautiful. You, that would, the whole thing was, you know, I have a tear coming slowly down my face. You're an angel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Somewhere back there. If you've, if you've made it this far in the episode, the only, the only way we know to create more episodes is if you subscribe on YouTube, like on YouTube, comment on YouTube, we read the comments and, uh, you know, go check Cody out. He's, uh, A phenomenal Twitter account. Just Google me. Google him. Stuff will come up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Actually, that's true. But we'll include some links in the YouTube description anyways. Thanks again, Cody.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
My pleasure. I'll see you later, man.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and ai that could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses i wanted that i didn't want to have to rely on mark zuckerberg i didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses i wanted to rank high in google that's why i like seo and that's why i use boringmarketing.com and that's why i invested in it
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
I was wondering what you're going to say about that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
8 startup ideas backed by data/trends to get you paid (steal these $1M+/year ideas)
Yeah. And once you do that and you've done it, you can point to success. You can do it for other companies too, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
How do you know if you have product market fit? If you're asking yourself, do I have product market fit? You probably don't have product market fit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So if I'm understanding this correctly, it's almost like a Venn diagram. So on one, one circle is formats and compelling formats and the other circle is what am I uniquely equipped for? Is that right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I just want to know what's going on in your brain around where things are going because I think a lot of people are going to come up with ideas based on where you're going.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Isn't that the opportunity? If YouTube is basically putting their money where their mouth is and making a bet that we want to be Netflix 2.0, we want to be the evolution of Netflix, and we're designing the product with those constraints, shouldn't we be hiring the best
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
you know, videographers in the world, the people who've worked on the best television shows and say like, hey, this is the niche we're in. Come and like work with us.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I think that's right. I also think, you know, I was watching this, do you know this guy Daniel Dalen? He's a new creator. up and coming guy that went from like zero to a hundred K subs in a few months. And he, he went viral within the entrepreneurial community because his title was POV. You're a, you know, a 26 year old entrepreneur living in China.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Um, and he does these POV videos and it's really like the POV of an entrepreneur. Um, and yeah, Now you have hundreds or thousands of creators copying him, being like, POV this, POV that. But that just actually lends, it's not the same, right? Daniel Dalen is getting, is the OG, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Can you talk more about that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO. And that's why I use boringmarketing.com. And that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. What do you say to people who say that there's nothing new on the sun? So there's no format that hasn't been tried already. What's your reaction to that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
some of this is just as an audience you know when something feels fresh and something feels new and someone put their own unique spin on it versus when you're like it's kind of the same thing totally yeah it kind of reminds me of like in startup land product market fit the term product market fit you know i get that question a lot around how do you know if you have product market fit if you're asking yourself do i have product market fit you know
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
you probably don't have product market fit. But if you're trying to keep the servers up because you have so many customers coming through the door, you probably have product market fit. The same is true with copying, stealing, that sort of thing. You know deep down if you took someone's format and- 100%. Yeah. Right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Dude, it's, it's sobering. Like YouTube has sobered me, sober me, right? Like I, I come from Twitter and, and just general podcasts and now putting, you know, I could record the most, what I think is the most value add podcast on the planet. I put it, uh, I, I launch it. I'm, you know, I, I, I press publish. I'm so excited. This is going to hit a million views. And click-through rate is 3%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Average view duration is low. It's just not getting fed to the YouTube algorithm because of the title and thumbnail in a lot of ways.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So I want to talk a few ideas with you. And I want to double down on that a little bit. I remember having coffee with you and Colin in New York City. You were kind of early with this idea around being a creator is a treadmill in a lot of ways. You were early to creating the newsletter and the business around the newsletter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
You were early to basically saying, I've got all this attention over here and I'm going to create content that I think is really cool and interesting for my audience here. Leverage is a bad word. It sounds like you're taking advantage, but you're just going to use some of those eyeballs to monetize it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And I want to know how you're thinking about how creators can monetize and some new ideas around monetizing attention.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So events, I'm so happy you said events because this is something I've been thinking a lot about. I think that... There was this surge around online communities, paid memberships, and that's still going to continue to be and grow as a category. But I think that right now we're kind of early on this, I like this creator and I believe in what this creator says.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And the creator has to be somewhat niche. in my opinion. Um, and then, and then it's like, I'm going to go create an event where I'm going to bring this whole identity of people together and it's going to be amazing. And events are a hassle to create, but they are multimillion dollar opportunities.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
It's really interesting because we started off this conversation talking about AR, VR, and what would a minimal viable product to build now for that future be? And maybe it's events. Maybe it's IRL events.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
100%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
By the way, I have this theory that all guys, comment if you disagree with me, or agree with me, all guys want to be like John Mayer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Like he's the guy's guy, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I also think that, isn't it true that when you go to a concert, even if the concert is worse, like the sound quality isn't as good, Or they don't play your favorite song. When you get back in the car and you play Spotify, don't you enjoy that artist 10 times more all of a sudden? For sure, of course.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, that's why I'm doubling down on events. So 2025, you'll be I haven't announced it publicly, but I'll be doing way more events. And it's for this reason. I think the AR and VR component, we didn't really talk too much about the VR component, but let's say you're living in Mumbai, but the event is in Miami. Wouldn't it be great if you can have some of that same experience?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Oh, here we go.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
You don't think that in 2035, your Orion's 2035 edition will have like, okay, mixed reality. Okay. Uh, full, full VR. Definitely.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree. I, I'm with you. I think mixed reality will take off first. I do think that at some point, full immersion will be... I mean, think about if... We're going to get to a point where you won't even need glasses. It'll be like contact lenses, basically.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I think you know the answer. I think you probably know the answer, but you're probably... afraid to say it. I know I am. I can just speak for myself. You're seeing what's happening with Neuralink chips being implanted in your brain. That seems to be the direction that technology is going.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
One thing that I think about when you paint that future vision is what stage are we in currently? When is this going to hit mainstream adoption? I know that Mark Zuckerberg said a few days ago that He thinks that by 2030, this platform is basically going to start replacing, like it'll surpass mobile phones. smart glasses will surpass mobile phones, according to Mark Zuckerberg.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Contact lenses, things implanted in your brain, AI being smarter than human beings, robots that look and feel like humans.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, let's do it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Did you see that... I'm going to answer that question, but did you see that Mr. Beast is raising $150 million at, I think, $1.5 billion valuation? And he's doing it to double down on his CPG products. And I know one of the VCs who's looking at investing. And he called me up and he said, what do you think? He wanted my opinion on it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And I said, I don't understand what's going through Jimmy's brain. Creating a CPG company is painful. The operations, the shipping, the consistency, it's no walk in the park. Jimmy has actually been experimenting with software. ViewStats is actually doing, from what I can see, quite well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And I wouldn't be surprised if he creates a creator software tool company worth $1.5 billion on $50 to $100 million of revenue. My feedback, I was like, tell Jimmy this. I was like, just do more software. Do more digital products.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And so if I'm you... Would it be fun to do that CPG project? Absolutely. Would it be cool also? I can see the ads right now. You take it out, you put it in, people lock in. But I do think that if I were you, I would partner with someone to do everything. You guys are just advisors and co-founders. But if I were you, and this is a question for you, I'll bring it back to you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Why aren't you doing more software?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Do you think he's high on his own supply there? Or do you think he is directionally correct? What are your thoughts there?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Some of the best software products have education built within. I just logged into, right before this, it was just re-rented to kit.com, ConvertKit. And when you log into the dashboard, it's like, you know, video of Jay Klaus, how I went from zero to 50,000 email subscribers. Like there's, there's videos and education built in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So I think that once I could see a world where your educational products evolve into software products, software products.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
100%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Dude, I've taken up too much of your time. You've been so gracious with your time. Thank you for coming on. Samir, where could people... get to know you more and just learn more about what you're working on?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I think this audience, I mean, this is an idea audience, so I'm sure a lot of people are going to be interested in that. And I can just speak for myself and just say that YouTube, it's such a good way to get your ideas out there as an entrepreneur and build an audience and attract like-minded people. So highly recommended on my end.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I mean, I'm not like a professional interviewer like you. I'm building businesses and I just do this to spend time with cool people and to serve the community. But I'm learning.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I love that. All right. Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate that. I'll see you around.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah. I think, I think about this a lot because I want to be okay. When something hits mainstream adoption, I want to have been preparing for years, right? Because as soon as it hits mainstream adoption, there's so much competition from an idea building perspective that it was way easier to launch an app in 2009 that got a lot of traction when the App Store first came out than in 2019, basically.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
My take on, and I saw some of the demos, some of the Orion demos, and I was blown away. Frankly, I was absolutely blown away. Um, that being said, I think, I think it's going to be further than Zuck actually, you know, predicts. I think that my take is it's going to be maybe 2035, 2040. And what that means is I would start experimenting within the next few years.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, I'd start building apps. One thing that comes top of mind is when the internet first came out, some of the biggest companies were ad networks. Basically, what did people do? There was websites. They negotiated banner real estate deals. And then they basically were a marketplace. Nike, you want access to yahoo.com? We'll sell it to you. What does that look like when you put on glasses?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
What is the ad network? First of all, amazing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I've worn the older versions.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
The arc of technological progress, and I don't know if it's societal progress, I'm just talking about technological progress, is that the internet has become more and more personalized over time. And Right now, ad creative isn't personalized for the most part. But ad targeting is pretty darn surgical at this point with Meta and Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So it only makes sense that with AI, that AI is going to make the ability to create one-of-one ads that are going to show up on your glasses, on mobile, on web, in real time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I am, but for people, explain it for people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, excited to jam, excited to have you here. What I wanted to talk to you about today is a little bit what I think is on your mind. I know you recently were at Google HQ. Little Birdie told me you were talking to Mark Zuckerberg during the Facebook Orion or Meta Orion demo. To me, when I think of entertainment and new media, you're my first call.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Okay, so this is what I want to get into. Knowing what you know now, speaking to the Zucks of the world, how are you positioning yourself so that you and Colin and the Colin and Samir show to build a content and entertainment empire that is well positioned as technology evolves in this direction?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
you have to offer something more than just an audience in my opinion. Like, um, so like my offering to people is like capital design, SEO, paid ads, um, audience. Um, but yeah, you do one or two. My point is if you do one or two of those a year that really work out, like you're good, you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
To me, it's high leverage work to do that. You're essentially advising someone else. And if you're you, or you're me, or frankly, you're listening to this podcast, you have an unfair advantage because you know where the world is going. So if you know where the world is going, it's like, how can you... I mean, we talked about this last time, a year and a half ago, when you came on the pod.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
I appreciate it. So what do you got for us today?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
I was like, dude, how are you not building... Doubling down on this and doubling down on that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
So that's kind of like the Holdco model. And it doesn't necessarily need to incubate everything yourself. You can just partner with someone. All right, I want to move on to the next idea. Fiverr Upwork 2.0.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Someone in the comment section is going to be like, but why wouldn't you just use Google translate?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
And that's the other thing is, especially bigger companies, they want automations. So they want the ability to be like, okay, I put this in an air table. And anytime I put it into an air table, this air table, this task is made. And I know that within 24 hours, there's going to be the output. And to me, it's worth paying whatever it is per month or per task.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
I want to start with the AI insert keyword generator.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Because now all of a sudden, I don't have the... worry that if I put it in Google Translate, that it's going to be messed up. I can like trust this source.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
That's kind of a good name for this. Dumpyourstuff.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah. And then the logo could be like a toilet or something. You know, dump...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
What about dumpyourstuff.ai, though?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
That's really interesting. Cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Someone's going to register it. The last time I said a name, it was registered one minute after I uploaded the pod.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
If you wanted to build this app, how would you go about getting customers to it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
That's right. Yeah, no one talks about that, but... That's exactly how they initially scaled.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah. I also think this is one of those ideas that you start scaling it. You get a bunch of press.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Why is it down? Revenues are down?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah, I just checked on perplexity.ai. Why is Upwork stock down? There's been a decrease of revenue. So less people. Definitely AI concerns. There are fears the rise of generative AI could eliminate many freelance jobs. It's not going to eliminate freelance jobs. It's going to eliminate lower repetitive freelance jobs. And because of this, lower guidance.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
So they're giving lower guidance because they're... I mean, the real big idea, honestly, is you do a hostile takeover of Upwork. You figure out a way to buy Upwork. That's the big idea of this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yes. Yeah, dude, like my heart is hurting because this is such a good idea. The company is worth $1.5 billion, but they've got about $500 million of cash. So the company is only worth a billion dollars on like how much revenue? Let's check real quick.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
So they're basically being traded at almost 1x revenue, like 1.2, 1.3x revenue. So...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
So this is, yeah, there's a bunch of ways to come at this problem. Either you go and, I think the best way, if I was doing this, I would just go and build what you're saying. And then you're going to build a cash flowing business, but you can also decide to sell it to them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Right. So yeah, let's talk about that idea. So. You've done that for Headshot Pro, and millions of headshots are created per month. How would you go about thinking about another type of service, like Headshot Pro for X?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
And I was telling him a little bit of what I do. And he was like, oh, you're interested in AI. I'm like, yeah. He goes, I started using this thing called Autoscribe. What's Autoscribe? He said the same thing. He was like, yeah, you know how bad doctor's notes are? Worst handwriting on the planet. I was like, yeah. He goes, now I just have this app. I'm in a beta test with them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
I'll send you the link here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah, it's a Montreal, Toronto company, I think.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah, it's called Autoscribe. But if you go to their website, I can't even spell it, Mutuo Health. But if you Google Autoscribe, it should come up. Anyways, he goes, what it does is it's real-time transcription. And he was like, I can't tell you how... Okay, actually here, I'm on the website. This is what happens. The patient consents to autoscribe. Then it records it in the room.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Then it populates in real time the information during the encounter. Because keep in mind, the doctor is looking at a screen that almost looks like a CRM and it needs to be populated in real time. Then there's an analysis that happens. Autoscribe creates a clinical note based on the encounter. Once reviewed and editing is complete, the note can be pushed to the EMR or copy and pasted.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
So it's like a pretty simple idea. He told me that he was like, I'm able to see 10 to 20% more patients per day.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Exactly. Helped so many people. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think you kind of just have to, yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah. And I think what you need to do is you have to understand workflows of people, practitioners. So you have to call your dentist, call your auto mechanic, call your barber. And you have to be like, hey, what are the things that you do that's really repetitive that you hate doing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Totally. And another idea is, okay, there's a doctor, but what are other people that doctors work with? What about the nurse? Is there something specific to nurses? Like nursescribe.ai. Is that available?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Give us one before you go, give us one last idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
There's a lot there. It just goes into the unbundling of the marketing agency and productizing it and creating these autonomous SaaS apps, basically. That's a process that's just begun to start. I think there's a big opportunity. I think the smartest thing you did was calling it Headline 99. That's brilliant.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Danny. All right. You know, you've given a lot of value. We appreciate it. If people want to support you and follow along, where can they do that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
And if you like this episode, you want more Danny, like, comment, subscribe, share this episode so we know that you like Danny. I know I like Danny. So it's always a pleasure seeing you, brother.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Oh yeah. Well, you'll be wearing a crown and hopefully I'll be wearing a crown too. So let's go.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Always fun. Later, dude.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah, and you could, I mean, you could spin up an agency. I know you're not a huge agency fan in terms of businesses, but you can spin up an agency where it's like, we'll actually go and build this for you and we'll build some of these products. So there's like a lower ticket price
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
idea here where it's just access to the tool and then there's a higher ticket of like a done for you service so you would because you have a you have an seo agency right like is this something you could offer like would you like why wouldn't you do it yourself for your own content for your own so we actually have been building a suite of we've been building a lot of this stuff and so you're talking about boring marketing.com so we've been quietly just like building a lot of these uh tools and
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
So this is the direction we're going in. So yes, I'm a believer. I'm invested in it. And the beauty about this is once you capture an entrepreneur who wants to build one of these ideas, they need more than just SEO. They need a bunch of different services and tools. They need a bunch of tools and they need a bunch of services. So it's a super high-valued potential customer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
That's the way to think about it, right? You want to think about how do I build a business with a high-value customer? And this is one great way to do it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah, I agree with you. This is one of those things where it's a window of opportunity. And I almost was shocked that you shared it because this is a pretty low risk, high impact idea that a really, really small team could do. There's a couple of things I look at when I'm like, should I go into this space? And one of them is, That's true. I was telling Danny that, you know, this is 8 a.m.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. You know, This is one of those things where it's a window of opportunity. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. I won't say the exact term, but even today, actually this morning, there was a particular idea I wanted to go build that I was on a few tools, including Ahrefs. Yeah, it's hard. I type it, I don't say it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Saying it, especially at 8am, with one sip of coffee, oh my god, it's hard. So don't judge me, people listening. But... dude, the window is gone. Like it's gotten, I've just seen it over the last like four weeks just get increasingly more and more competitive. And now I'm kind of like, I don't know if I want to do this idea anymore.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
The gold rush is going to be over and Danny is going to be dressed in an all gold suit with a gold presidential Rolex and a gold crown.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
No, I think you're doing all the right things. So I wouldn't be surprised. Let's move over to our idea number two, the comfy UI marketplace.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
They're mostly non-technical, but it is a subset of people who get it. Indie hackers building stuff, so that crew will understand what you're saying.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
I saw this when this was in your list, and I almost was shocked that you shared it. Because this is a pretty low risk, high impact idea that a really, really small team could do. There's two things. There's a couple of things I look at when I'm like, should I go into this space? And one of them is, is there an influx of YouTube tutorials? So I've also noticed the same thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
There's been a huge increase in the tutorial space in this space. And it's kind of like that guy, what's his name? Islo in the Notion template space. So there's a YouTuber who has like, I don't know, half a million YouTube subs. And the guy's like printing millions of dollars a year selling YouTube templates. Like you just apply that model to this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
And the second thing I noticed with Comfy UI in general is they're... their subreddit has skyrocketed in terms of membership. So it's now a top 3 or 4% subreddit, which is just a sign that there's something here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
for me and like I don't take meetings this early just because I like to wake up, get into the deep creative flow. But for Danny, you make exceptions.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah. Yeah, it needs to exist. And I will say, though, your audience is pretty perfect for something like this. Would you ever consider partnering with someone?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yes, it will. Yeah. I mean, why not, right? I think that's just an interesting thing for creators. This is kind of like a side tangent, but if you're a creator or you're someone with an audience who has access to an audience, of course, you want to work on your own ideas and you want to focus on your own ideas. But how do you partner?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
and just take pieces of businesses where there's someone that you trust that's going to go and build this thing. I don't know what equity percentage that is. If you take 30%, 40%, 50%, what that is, but there's probably a deal that you can make there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
Yeah, I mean... like the Nick Huber's, the Sean Puri's, the Sahil Bloom's, those people, Austin Reef with Oceans, co-founder of Morning Brew, it's happening. I haven't done it a lot myself because the truth is I haven't been able to find people I really trust and I'm scared to work with someone who is going to blow it for me. Right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ AI startup ideas from an indie hacker legend
So, um, I, I, I do like, I do, I'm making a conscious effort to like meet interesting entrepreneurs. So hopefully I can partner with them and, and, and, uh, and bring them into the late checkout ecosystem.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Fair. That's why you give it away.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
I think what's so smart about this idea is when artists think about their assets, their pieces of art, they think about working with galleries. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, galleries take half of the revenue? Sometimes more. Sometimes more. So a huge percentage. Now, this is kind of flipping it on its head and it's saying, forget about the galleries for a second.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
We're actually going to go to this completely new channel that you've never thought of. It's going to be like a completely new almost agent that manages it, you. And the cool part is there's probably more liquidity in condo markets and new home developments and interior design jobs than people walking into an art gallery in your local town and being like, that piece looks cool, I want to buy it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
I wonder... what other assets are like this like what are other assets that are just marketed to the wrong channel it's that's a really good question i'm not smart enough to have that answer off the top of my head what do you think i was yeah i'll give one off the top of my head so secondhand clothing so there's this big
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
of the last five years, let's say, shift towards thrifting and buying secondhand clothing. And right now, you either sell it on Poshmark where you're not getting that much money or you give it away to Goodwill so it's free. I think that there's an opportunity to take secondhand clothing and do deals with retail shops selling clothing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Well, here, let me tell you. So you go to this store, right? And the store is a boutique selling men's fashion, let's say. And you're like, I'm going to go put this secondhand. Currently, you don't sell any secondhand stuff. I'm going to go put this secondhand stuff that I've curated from, let's say, Goodwill or other places. And we're going to split the revenue 50%, 50%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Um, but I'm also going to charge you a installation fee and a de-installation fee. Um, so why is this cool? Because like most of these shops don't have like a secondhand section and they don't want to, it's like a whole new channel for them. Right. So it's a similar concept, um, where, and what I love about all these businesses is including your mural one, like the startup costs aren't,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Yeah, I like this a lot. Super easy. Super easy. I also think there's another trend. On Friday, I'm meeting someone for coffee at a clothing shop that they're doing a pop-up coffee shop within the clothing shop.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
So I think you can create an agency that is basically a marketplace of connecting different retailers with different service providers and different advertisers and just middleman the whole thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
There's actually been a few people that have emailed me and been like, you've changed my life. This has been life changing. I heard an idea that you said one year ago. I took it and I just sold my company for X amount of dollars or I just hit one million in revenue. And especially now that the pod's grown so much, it's getting crazier and crazier.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
I mean, to me, it's just like, selfishly, I'm one of those people, and I think you are too, like I'm an idea junkie. And to me, this is therapy. Like getting out ideas, jamming on ideas, just to me, like this is my time to just, it's my guilty pleasure. And what I'm learning is that a lot of people are sick like me and
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
And sick like you probably and need time to just flesh out ideas because we see the world and it's just not perfect, right? We see the, oh, what if this happened? And what did that happen? We're like, what if people? So I don't even do it fully self-servingly. I do it also just for myself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
So check this out. I'm going to share my screen. So I met someone who her Instagram handles Marina Minis. You see my screen?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
She creates these like miniature versions of things. And it started to go really viral because people love mini things. And this would be a great example of like an art kit to do small mini things with like instructions on how to do it. Like she has 263,000 followers on Instagram. She's got more on TikTok, I think. But just crazy engagement, right? 84,000 likes. And this is like relatively new.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
So what I like about this idea is you can actually spend dollars, add dollars to target people who follow certain accounts. So you know that these people like Marina minis and you can go ahead. You don't need their permission, right? You just buy the ads against it. Um, And yes, what I don't like about this idea is the production side, but let's just assume you can do that for a second.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
You start building out this marketplace of five, six, seven, eight, 10 creators. And by the way, someone should go and register this domain. The domain viralartkits.com is available. Somehow it's available. So unless my producer Rafa goes and registers it during listening to this, it should be available. And you grab that and then you just start having a bunch of these creators.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
You organize it by creators and then it becomes a thing. And here's the way to take this from a small business that's kind of annoying to an interesting big business that has recurring revenue is you just do a monthly drop where for $50 a month, You get one of these kits and it's cool because you get to learn about a new creator. A lot of these people are creative in general.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
That's the reason why they follow these accounts. And you're happy because you're getting that recurring revenue. Can you find 5,000 people to pay you $50 a month or $80 a month for these things? Probably.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
So what I love about you is you hijack the narrative and you do it through art. And that's the lens of our conversation today. You've got a few cool ideas. I just want to jam with you. Where should we start?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Yeah, and I'm looking at Google Trends for things like 3D puzzles and board games. And if you look at it on a... Let's look at it from a 2004 to present. These are some big peaks. People are... They want IRL things that they can touch and do. And you're right. When going out for a drink and a cocktail costs you $18 or something, you might not want to do that, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Because a night out might cost $100, $200. You might just want to stay in and create content with your boys or your girls. So I do think that it is a trend. And I like this. This is a sneaky good idea, dude.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
So I want to comment on one quick thing. I think on Airbnb, what I've noticed is there's a bunch of people that don't even own Airbnbs. They're going to people who have apartments. They call it lease arbitrage. People have apartments. My friend Blake Rocha talks about this a lot online.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
He basically will go to this building and say, listen, I'm not going to buy your building, but if I find you a tenant at this rate, is that cool? Or if I manage your Airbnb at this rate, You know, can I get a cut? So I think this is kind of that same thing, but in a different vertical that no one's thinking about. Literally no one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Totally. I like it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
How much capital realistically does it take to get going though?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
We swear he's not that dumb. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Three fire ideas. Four fire ideas, actually. Three and a bonus, which we appreciate. I like all of them because anyone can do it. It doesn't take a lot of capital. They're all with virality built in. The problem, I think, with a lot of businesses is it's hard to find customers. If it's built in, that makes your life a lot easier. That's why I appreciate you, man.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Where could folks learn about Art City and you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
And like, what does art city look like in 20 years? Like, where do you want to take this thing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Yeah. Which is honestly a good prompt for anyone listening for any business. It's like, pick a business and then be like, okay, I'm Matty Mo. What is the viral version of this business? It's just a good prompt.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Right. And so what is it? It's a video. Is that, you know, reverse engineer the video? The video of what? I mean, it's just. I feel like all social platforms are now 60% video. Instagram, TikTok, even Twitter now is a video platform. LinkedIn just added video. YouTube. Video is the atomic unit now of social. So reverse engineering someone being like, hey, I'm at Art City, check this out.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Totally. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think your goal as the business owner is, if you've got 100,000 unique visitors visiting or watching or seeing your brand, how do you get the highest percentage of that 100,000, call it 20,000, 30,000, to actually create a meme or create content so that that brings in another 100,000? And then you build the flywheel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
I think all entrepreneurs are looking for shortcuts and it's just in our nature. That's the best shortcut that we have. If you can solve customer acquisition and solve word of mouth, I think you've got a pretty good cheat code. The cool thing is, yes, you don't want to build a huge portfolio of things Maybe I buy that, maybe I don't.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
But I will say that you've built something that could, like when people ask me, oh, I want to build a holding company, how do I do it? I always say start with one thing. So you're building one thing that has this viral coefficient built in. And the beauty about that one thing is it could be scaled to different regions if you want it, you know, if you want it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Well, I think what you're doing and what I'm doing is and what I think everyone should do if you're interested in being an entrepreneur is you're putting yourself at the middle of something that really interests you. And that gives you optionality to you're like, you're the center of gravity when it comes to, you know, art and this local art.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
So you have these sculptures, you're meeting artists, um, And then once you're at the center of it, even if it's local center, it doesn't need to be global, then you have this optionality around, okay, I can go do this thing, I can go do that thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
It's also more fun, dude. It's way more fun to have that optionality to do different things as you evolve as a human being.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Well, I think what's good about venture, and yes, we've both done it, is A, you get rejected
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
hundreds or if not thousands of times so the process of getting rejected is just good for any entrepreneur because it allows you to you're pitching all these vcs and a bunch of them are just you know the timing isn't right you know the the metrics need to be higher oh we have a conflict right so you're getting you're getting all these insights and it does force you to like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
put all your thoughts in this deck that ultimately at the end is this potent way of explaining whatever it is you do. And that's really, really awesome. I feel like... So that's number... That's A and B. I feel like someone should just create the YC, but at the end, there's no venture investment.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
It's like a program designed to just help entrepreneurs and accelerate them and meet other entrepreneurs. So I think... The VC ecosystem does put you in the room with a lot of other VC entrepreneurs and that makes you high quality.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
We can go for a meal. Also, I'll be in Montreal for Mural Fest in a few weeks, which is a I just Googled it. 1.15 million people go to this event. It's a nonprofit. They basically take over 100 murals and they do all kinds of cool murals. People go and visit it. You should check it out. A little R&D.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Cool. Matty Mo, it's been real. Catch you later. Thanks, bud. Thank you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Yeah, and I'm happy you said that. Because a lot of people are listening to this and are like, art's cool, but I'm here because I want to create a cash-filling business. And what they don't realize is that you can do both.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Which is honestly a good prompt for anyone listening for any business. It's like pick a business and then be like, okay, I'm Matty Mo. What is the viral version of this business?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
All right, let's dig in, bro.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Hey everyone, if you're anything like me, you've got a ton of design work that you need. Websites, landing pages, emails, social assets, you name it. But you don't just want beautiful landing pages or beautiful websites. You want the stuff that's going to convert. You want the stuff that's going to actually drive value. That's where DesignScientist.com comes in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
It's an agency that for one monthly price will do all your design work, all your copy work, all your engineering and do stuff that actually scales your revenue. You don't need a designer. You need a design scientist. Let's go design scientist.com. I liked it so much. I invested in the business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Okay, and... You say start a sales team and find painters, but how do you actually go and do those things?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
This is going to be a special episode. Matty Mo, the most famous artist. You don't do that many interviews these days, and I feel lucky to have snagged you for your brain to give us some startup ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
And from like a revenue and profit perspective, how big does this get and how profitable is it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
And I wonder if, and you kind of mentioned it tier two and tier three cities. Like I wonder if this is even more interesting in smaller cities because just no one's doing it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Yeah. And you might not get 10 or 15 grand there cause the traffic's smaller, but the margins probably are bigger there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
You just got to figure out how you can get cool artists to small towns. But you know, I think you can do that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
Totally. And it's cool for them because then they can point to like, hey, I did this mural and it puts them on the map, literally.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
It's really cool. Cause if you're doing, you know, a million bucks a city and you're making, you know, five, 600 grand per city, Like could, you know, could you go to four cities? Like it's not crazy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
That is true. But for people who don't know you, can you tell them the two or three craziest things that you've done?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
There you go. All right. Take it, go for it. Do it. Idea one, Matty Mo. Um, I like that one. You know what I like about that one? I like that. It's just,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
"The Most Famous Artist" gives away 4 of his best $1M+/year idea
not complicated so easy it's like it's so it has like four or five moving parts but it's assuming you you get the artist you understand how to sell you're personable uh you iterate with like landlords and and uh property developers like you figure out what your niche is and then you pick the right city once you have it set up you got a good thing going
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
What is the promise that you are going to give our listeners by listening to this full episode?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
I tweeted right before this about real estate. And I feel like this is kind of like digital real estate. I tweeted that, you know, half, nearly half of real estate investors, 42% have lost $200,000 or more on a single investment with 45% admitting a bad investment. That has almost ruined them financially. What are you doing? Just make beats. No mortgages.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Yeah, but I look at that and I'm kind of like, why would I invest in real estate? And I know people in the comment section are going to be like, dude, you're missing out. What do you do in real estate is the best.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Two more digital ideas. What do you got?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Yeah, it's also a convenience thing because finding the right influencer creator for your brand is really difficult. And they are literally human beings, meaning they change, their interests change. So...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
So if you want to create one of these characters, how do you create one?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and ai that could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses i wanted that i didn't want to have to rely on mark zuckerberg i didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses i wanted to rank high in google that's why i like seo and that's why i use boringmarketing.com and that's why i invested in it
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Yeah, and they're 100% going to do YouTube videos. I mean, the first version of Lil Miquela... was just these pretty flat images. And then it became super realistic.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
And then they started doing little short-form videos, GIFs type things. So of course, yeah, it makes total sense that as the technology catches up, you'll be able to make... Well, I mean, you can today. You make essentially a Facebook video. By the way, quick, hilarious thing. I went on Clode and I asked... to give me the steps of how I'd create an avatar like Lil Miquela.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
And Claude says, I apologize, but I cannot recommend ways to generate AI avatars or deepfakes that impersonate real people without their consent, as it's illegal, basically.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
We're doing this live. Boom. So how do you do it? Mid-journey, Dally 2, Stable Diffusion, Focus, which is a free alternative. You craft your prompt. You do something like a photo realistic 3D render of a young woman, digital influencer style, similar to Lil Miquela with specific features, clothing style, background setting. You generate and refine that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Use the face lock feature to maintain consistency across multiple generations. You use AI powering editing tools like Maki.ai and even Canva has one. And you can even use face swapping technology to maintain consistency across different poses. There you go.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
What do you say to people who will say, no, no, no, I will never fall in love with a digital brand. What do you say to those people? A digital avatar.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
I have two thoughts on that question. One is, when you watch the movie Avatar, do you not connect with the characters? If you watch Family Guy, do you not connect with Peter Griffith? Of course you do. Of course you do. So that's one. And number two... you're not going to know the difference. You're going to be scrolling Instagram. You're going to be on YouTube shorts.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
You're going to be on TikTok. You're going to see a creator who has content that you're interested in. And then only on video four are you going to ask the question, wait, is this a real person? Dude, they sold OnlyFans for these people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
I need another idea. I just, I need it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
from there then take that and like you know publish all these articles uh uh that are related to to like building email templates out but your thoughts i mean no-brainer idea proven pain point on you know it's pretty obvious on how to scale it doesn't take a lot of people and i always get this i you know i get this feedback from people there you know people are always like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Why don't you do share ideas that don't cost a million dollars to build? This doesn't cost much to build. How much do you think this would cost to build?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
I know I said last idea, but I need one more idea. Just because you know why? Because there's people listening to this that are in the deep end that are here that they deserve the bonus idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Size-wise, how big could this get?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
The other thing to note is the newsletter is an asset. So if you have 100,000 subs, especially B2B, at the worst case, it's worth, call it a dollar. At the best case, it's worth $10. If it's worth $10- That's a million dollar asset that you're sitting on. There's your real estate. If it's worth a dollar, then it's $100,000.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
That's perfect. That's a perfect way to end the pod. Cody, where can people learn more about Swell and follow you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
And thank you for coming on, man. Thank you for coming on.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
I will say, I will say this. You were the most viewed podcast on my YouTube channel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
I took it back. And my Reddit one now has like 130,000 views.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
No, let's bring Cody back. Let's make this video. So if you liked Cody and you like the ideas, the best thing to do is tell us in the comment section. Cody comes in there here and there. And just like the YouTube video so you get more of this in your feed.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
It's one of the best on the internet. You always say that because I just put your tweets in it all the time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
I appreciate that, man. I appreciate that. And I've been following you for a while now and you're one of the real ones on the internet. There's only like a handful of people that are out there sharing the sauce. They share the sauce. I live to serve. You live to serve, and I love that about you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
All right, man. I'll see you soon.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Okay, few reactions to that. One is another way you can monetize is affiliate. So not many people know this, but SaaS products will give you anywhere between like 10 and 50% of monthly revenue, like recurring. Totally. So like, hello.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
And someone listening to this is going to be like, oh, but affiliate is so like spammy or whatever. Adobe is literally like a 200 plus billion dollar company. And they recently just changed their, like we think of them as this
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash flowing business is waiting for you. Exactly. Their original, I think, deal was they'd give you 85% of the cut. They just increased it to, I think, 100%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
They're literally increasing it. So obviously their numbers are working. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
We're just going to get right into it. You look like, why do you dress up like The Rock?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
That's not even a show, you know, come for the ideas, stay for the partnership opportunity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
So, On the video, the recording of videos, you're like, okay, you can record 20-minute videos, teach them how to do it. By the end of the video, they're going to be like, I don't want to do this myself. Here's what I'm seeing is working. Go and create a two-hour video. Totally. Make it super long.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Why do you dress the way you dress?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Exactly. Cool. What else you got? Idea number two. Next one. Do you know what type eats are? I don't.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
You look like if Elizabeth Holmes got in a fight with The Rock, that's you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Is the biggest marketplace for this typebeats.com?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
typebeats.com definitely check it out because whenever i see like an ugly website like this i'm like oh my god there's something here so that's one printing money printing and then there's uh beats beat stars the top beat market stars yeah that sounds right so they you know the ceo abe bachin says the best type beat producers are making 60 000 a month leases for type beats typically cost between 15 and 150 but they can add up quickly
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
Bloodlust. Elizabeth no homies. No homies. Okay, Cody, we don't have that much time. And you know how the YouTube and podcast game works.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0
YouTube usually ranks instrumentals higher in search results, which can lead to more views and potentially more sales and leases for the track.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
proceed with this idea we came up with a even bigger idea okay yeah it wasn't it wasn't the idea itself that you you looked at it and you're like oh my god you know this is really hard it was just there's another opportunity and you went for that no yeah i think this is a pretty clear-cut straightforward thing i mean you have to be excited about conferences you have to be
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Cool. All right, Brad, what's, uh, what's idea number two?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Yeah. So you're, you're absolutely right. I also think that, you know, 50% of Gen Z Americans are, not religious at all. So they're looking for, they're attaching themselves to some of these movements and these movements have become their identity. So absolutely. I think, you know, a non-obvious one would be the sobriety movement.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
But you're not here to talk about any of that. You're here to talk startup ideas, and I'm excited that you agreed to come on.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
You know, I want to connect with other sober daters in my city and who subscribe to the same philosophy and identity that I have.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
By the way, just to confirm, I'm not sober and I have a wife, you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
That was an example.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Oh, no, I'm sober right now, but I might have a glass of wine tonight, you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
By the way, there's probably a way to do that just with religious groups so that it's tax deductible too.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
It becomes a no brainer, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Yeah, I said you can't hoard anymore. You've got to stop hoarding. It's just not fair.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
You know what this reminds me of? Have you seen Palette? No. New York startup. I actually invested in it a few years ago. Or Late Checkout invested in it a few years ago. But the basic idea of Palette... Uh, it's palette.com.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Yeah. It's job board for creators basically. So like they'll work with like a Lenny Richitsky, uh, who's like the product management guy and they'll be like, Hey, we're going to power your job board, uh, for Lenny jobs. Yeah. And, uh, they, they provide the, you know, the, the technology and, and they have a fee structure that I assume that they get like a percentage, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
yeah so this is basically that right the the thinking is like they so they're going after creators and people with big influence in different niches you're you're saying that kind of the same thing um and recruiting in some ways is very similar to dating it's the same for sure yeah it's the same yeah totally yeah and i think what's interesting about this is like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
such a good concept around, they've got all these rebels, quote unquote, who are merchants, and then their job is to arm them with tools and software to make their lives easier and better. What I like about this business is it's arming the rebels, which are these non-formal matchmakers, these casual matchmakers that are doing this out of the goodness of their heart anyways.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
All you're doing with this is you're just arming them to make their lives easier. And if they want to have upside and maybe the upside, you know, some people are going to be like, no, I'm just doing this out of goodness in my heart and bless their hearts. We need more of those people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
But some people are going to be, you know, so for those people, you know, maybe you have it so you can, it donates to a charity of your choice or something like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Totally. And I think someone's going to take one of these ideas and they might be bigger than you and me in a couple of years because they're taking one of these ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Yeah, I like this one a lot. On this podcast, I've been doing something new and I say, do I sip an idea, i.e. do I like this idea or do I spit this idea? I don't like it. Go back to drawing board and I definitely spit this idea. You're doing something, you're productizing that people are already doing and you're just making it easier for them. So I like it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
And I also think there's that trend around a bit of message fatigue on a lot of these dating apps. Like people are kind of looking for something like this. So you have the tailwinds as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Totally. And I could see the quote on your website now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Let's rock. What do you got?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
You're in the flow. I can see it. I can see you're in the flow.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
All right. Well, what's on your mind? What's idea number one?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Well, I could picture the viral TikToks with 2 million views. Yeah. Right? People screen sharing that. Yeah. So yes, 100%. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Definitely the craziest idea on your list.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
and you know here's what i here's what i like about the idea and i think this applies to other ideas too so to me this feels very much like turning something that is not a treasure hunt into a treasure hunt yes and i think that thesis could be applied to a bunch of different spaces so for people listening who are like okay brett's crazy with this dating app idea but
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
you know, this concept applied to something else. Maybe it's e-commerce, maybe I don't know what it is, but something in another space. I think that's really, really interesting. So that's what I really like about this idea. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
How would you actually go about building something like this? Is this hard to build? Is it easy to build MVP-wise?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
age height and then it calculates how many people of those how many people exist and it went super viral it got millions of like impressions millions of views that was your friend that was the person i i saw that around i want someone who's six five and higher works in finance and make more than a hundred thousand dollars a year that's that was your friend it got like yeah tens of millions of impressions
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Cool. Yeah. I like, I also, the other thing I like about this idea is people will, you know, you want to start an idea that people will pay for and people are used to paying for dating match made it match matchmaking. And, uh, so if it, if it does go viral, like who knows what you have on your hands, it could be really bad.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Okay. Yeah, I could, I could, yeah, I could shift gears and do a huge, uh, you know, right. I, yeah, let's, let's see what you got.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
I love it because it's one of those things where a wedge is something that it starts off as this cute, profitable little thing, but it has the legs to become something big if you want it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
And then how do you charge for it? And how would you actually, how would you actually build something like this? Like, how do you go from idea to execution?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
And is this a venture-backed idea or do you think this could be bootstrapped?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
And they're using LLMs and AI, you know, for some of that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Yeah. And the data is out there. No one wants to put it in. It's just, you just need a little enrichment in your life. I think this works really well for certain groups and certain very specific niches. What do you think are two, three, four, five specific groups that would use something like this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
I don't know why I thought of that. That's the task. If you're listening to this, figuring out what are these groups, who needs enrichment, who's going to be willing to pay for it. But you're right. This is an obvious idea. And I love this idea. I sit this idea greatly just because you are right with incumbents aren't. They're not going to be everywhere. And that's the opportunity.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
That's why you don't raise money for something like this. You build it profitably. And, you know, you could get to a situation where you're doing one to three million ARR or something like that and you go to a Clearbit or someone like that and you sell the business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
What do you think, you know, what sort of multiples, you know, you've worked in the Google M&A world, like what sort of multiples are some of these businesses getting?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Yeah, I think this is probably one of those ideas that you might just want to cash flow it. And if you get an unreasonably good offer from one of these platforms, let them come to you. Don't run a process yourself because you're right. The multiples, especially with dependence on some of these LLMs, might not be amazing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Brett, you crushed it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Okay, let's do a bonus framework with Brett.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
I'm salivating right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
This is a gift. You've given people a literal gift.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
It really works. I'm going to write that down and I appreciate you sharing that with everyone. Brett, this has been an absolute pleasure. Where could people learn more about you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
And if you've made it this far in the pod, if you're on YouTube, least you can do is subscribe, give us a like, comment if you like this episode. And if you're listening on audio, just follow and review and share this with everyone you know, because there's a lot of gold in here. Thanks a lot, Brett. It's been real. Catch you later. Thanks, Greg.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Okay, let's do a bonus framework with Brett.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Every conference organizer is trying to get people to meet up because they know that people will come back if that matchmake happens. And by the way, I know some people are listening to this and they're like, okay, how much money is there really in this space? And there's a business called Cvent. Do you know Cvent? No.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
I had never heard of them and... But they're basically a $4.5 billion company. I think they're publicly traded, actually. And what they do is they have a white label app for events and conferences. Yeah, exactly. You talked about a wedge, which is a really good... I think people don't think about wedges enough. But I think this is a wedge to ultimately compete
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
with cvent four and a half billion dollar opportunity and cvent by the way like you know you'll go to their website we can show it on youtube like this is like an old school kind of yeah you know it's not like the designers of snapchat went and designed cvent let's put it that way yeah must must be at least like 10 15 years old but yeah but yeah i think like you know one of the other kind of like universal rules of startups is that like once you aggregate users in a place
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Totally. That's the magic experience of the Shop app. Have you ever downloaded that app?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
So it's Shopify's app and I recently downloaded it And if you ask me, Greg, how many Shopify purchases have you made? I would say like, I don't know, two. But you don't really know that you're making Shopify purchases because it's the backend. It's powering these e-commerce experiences.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
So I downloaded the app and then I saw like, I don't know, 50 different, you know, companies I bought stuff from. And it was such a magical experience. I'd love to be able to open this app and be like, oh my God, I didn't know that Brett is going to be at, you know, South by Southwest. And, you know, so I think that's, I do think that having that magical sort of experience is cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
If you were building something like this and I mean, you built the product, so I'm sure you've thought, thought about this. How would you actually get to, like, how would you get awareness and in something like this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
All right, Brett Goldstein. I think you're criminally underfollowed. That's why I brought you on today. Whenever we hang out, I love just picking your brain. You were part of the Google M&A team. You bought companies at Google. You did a startup. You raised $12 million plus for that. You did the VC thing. And now you're working in stealth and working on a really cool product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
This to me is a wedge salad in half. I love it because it's one of those things where a wedge is something that it starts off as this cute, profitable little thing, but it has the legs to become something big if you want it. So that's why I like this idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
The most profitable SaaS ideas I’ve heard in a long time
Before we go on to the next idea, I have to ask, why didn't you...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
What's up, everyone? Good to have you back. Today, I really want to talk about something that's been on my brain for a long, long time. It's this idea of anti-trends. You know, we talk a lot about trends and building startups for those trends, but I don't think enough is talked about about anti-trends.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And this just is, it's, it's, it's interesting to see. Interesting to see where are people clicking in from. Like randomly Indonesia, for example, is like the top search volume. So it's like, that's really interesting. What about Indonesian culture lends itself well to slow living? And then how hard is it to rank in Indonesia? And do I want to rank in Indonesia?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And you see every agency website saying AI and every SaaS website saying AI. What if you didn't? What if you said AI-free? And these are the little things. When you identify an anti-trend like that and you're first, it's a really good moat. So the question is, how do you come up with anti-trends? Well, number one, you go out there in the real world and it comes to you. You just see it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
Or do I just want to rank in the United States? So these are the type of questions that you get to ask yourself. It's amazing when you're playing with some of these tools. Another tool that I use. So once you have the list of the creators, you can use a tool like view stats, which is Mr. Beast's tool. They also have a Chrome extension and you can actually plug in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
So let's just say be more with less. Let's see. Okay. Does this person, are they trending up? Like, are they trending down? Are people listening? You know, let's, let's go, let's go see. So pretty small, 11,300, like a lot smaller than I thought. Like not doing much. So I look at this and I'm kind of like, there's not much competition here at all. Let's go check. How about this guy, Joshua Becker?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And by the way, I'm doing this just so you can like jump in my brain how I think about things. Like I feel like a lot of you have asked like, How do I live cook, basically? So I'm going to do more live cooking podcasts and YouTube videos. So this guy is crushing it. He's definitely adding subscribers. He's making thousands of dollars a month. Things I look for is how many videos he's doing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
I also love to look at long views versus short views. I basically don't even... acknowledge short views anymore. It's all about long views in terms of affinity. So if there's a lot of long views, it means that there's a lot of trust here. I have to look at what videos he's doing too, right? This might not be all slow living. Look, it's like some stuff about just tidying stuff and decluttering.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
But there's also stuff like 10 reasons to escape excessive consumerism. So there's definitely a part of it that's slow living and a part of it that's just like minimalism. So there you have it. I gave you my secrets. I told you exactly how I find anti-trends, which are kind of like the trends you should really be paying attention to. And I hope you liked it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And if you did, like, comment, and subscribe just so more of this stuff is in your feed. It's the least you can do. You want your feed to be dialed. If you want more of me in your feed, you got to go and do that. And it also just lets me know that I should be creating more videos like this. I did a video on how I find startup ideas with AI.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And if you haven't checked that out already, go and check that out. And if you want me to do a video and pod episode on how I validate startup ideas, let me know and I'll do it for you. I'm here for you. This is what these are about. Lifting the veil, giving you startup ideas. And it's more fun when more people are building.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
let's let's go get him all right hope hope this got your creative juices flowing I know it did mine thanks for listening and I'll see you next time later
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
Now, in the example of the AI-free thing, I actually saw, I'm going to share my screen. Sorry, folks who are audio only. I actually saw and I tweeted this I saw that there was this study that said AI is a turnoff for consumers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
So a new study suggests artificial intelligence and product descriptions lowers purchase intent with implications not only for brands integrating AI, but of the wider category challenges of the technology faces, it has become widespread. Point is, if you don't use AI on your website, especially in, I think, B2C, I think good things might happen for you. So how do we identify?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
Let's talk about some of the tools that I use when I want to identify a trend or an anti-trend. And some of these, by the way, are so underrated. So listen or watch to the end so you understand all of them. One is Pinterest. Here I'm on Pinterest. This is actually Pinterest Canada.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
One of the things I definitely, just because I signed up when I was in Canada, one of the things that you see here is a bunch of trends. So these are some trends in Canada, fall outfits, weekly change of 30%, monthly change of 400%. Back to school, obviously, dress to impress, home gardening, color book nails. Okay, interesting. Main character mode has a 10,000 plus monthly change.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And today I'm going to talk about how you can come up with startup ideas based on those anti-trends, how to identify anti-trends, some of the tools I use, and just kind of bring you in inside my workflow, because why not? So let's talk about why I care about anti-trends in the beginning. So in software, in startups, it's a very competitive place and everyone goes for those trends.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
Sun-soaked spaces, 10,000 plus. When you start seeing these 10,000 plus, these are things that are getting real big. So one way to come up with ideas for anti-trends is just to look at what is trending on platforms like Pinterest. And... do the opposite of it. And I see that BRAT is trending a little bit here. But even BRAT, they talk about BRAT summer and now it's demure fall.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
That's the anti-trend to BRAT, right? There's always an anti-trend. So let's just say, I've been thinking about this trend for around slow living. Now, what is slow living? Slow living, I just noticed that there's a lot of talk around hustle culture, working all the time, dead lifting, cold plunge, wake up at five in the morning, don't stop work until 10 p.m., that sort of thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
It's kind of the opposite of my vibe, actually. So I think that slow living is going to be a more and more important trend. So I'll use a tool like Pinterest Trends to go and see like, okay, where am I going? Is it going down? Is it going up? The one bad thing about Pinterest Trends is that it does only go to one year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
But what I like about it is it tells me related trends, so minimalist living rooms. So now it gives me ideas, right? So I start with my anti-trend and now it gives me ideas around what are the products that I could actually be building here. So maybe there's an opportunity to create like the slow living interior design agency. Cozy, and you see, you know, cozy bedroom.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
You see, these are terms that are coming up. And then it allows me to go check through popular pins. So I can open up a pin here that's popular. So let's just say this one. Living slow, learn to do nothing, put down your phone, accept rest, drink water, go on a walk, social media cleanse, learn to say no, smile, be still, connect to their community. All this stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And what it allows me to do then is now I'm learning about what is resonating with this audience. I'm learning about what are the philosophies and principles of this particular community and in this particular anti-trend. And it gives me ideas. And then I just... take out my notebook and I start writing down what am I observing?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
You create a little page, take out a pen, you take a little page and you say observations and what am I observing about this anti-trend? I'm observing that putting down your phone is a big part of it or resting is a big part of it. And then I ask myself, what are products and services that I can go and create so that I can monetize and build a community in that space.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
But the main thing is most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you. So that's Pinterest. There's also, of course, Google Trends. that you can use, which is similar. So let's go put slow living.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And you can see over the last five years, this is worldwide, it's progressively going up. This is beautiful to see. I look at this and I'm like, there is certainly some opportunity to be building in this space. This is a trend I like to see. It's not like crazy growth. And I actually almost like that better because to me, this is a sustainable growth.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
Then you can see what people also search, which I find really interesting. But I always check the questions. To me, the questions is the most important place to start. What is slow living? How to practice slow living? What is the art of slow living? This basically puts you in the mind of people in this anti-trend. So Google Trends, you know, it's completely free to use.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
I don't know why more people don't use it. I forgot to say. So I actually added this Chrome extension. I have no affiliation with them at all. But it's this Chrome extension called Glimpse. Discover trends before they're trending. And it just maps on. It basically just supercharges Google Trends. So it also adds things like related trends, which is super good to know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
So I can go and see all the related trends and Glimpse gives me that. I think it's free to use and I haven't paid for it or anything like that. And that's really, really helpful, obviously, to know related trends because then you go back to your You go back to your notebook and you start writing, what are the related trends and why? You start asking yourself, why are these related trends?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
Why do we think food sustainability is in there? Sustainable business, euphoria party. What do these things mean? And it puts you down that rabbit hole. The other interesting thing about Glimpse plus Google Trends is it gives you, where are people, where's the most activity on social media? Is it on Twitter? Is it on Instagram? You can see here it's very much on Instagram.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
So when I decide I want to create a social account to build an audience here, because you know me, I always like to start with the audience. Yes, it's nice to be on Instagram because that's where the people are, but maybe I go on Twitter. Maybe I go on Twitter because the competition isn't there and there's an opportunity to do that. I have a friend who is a coach.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
health coach and she was on Instagram and she's like where else should I be and I was like you know go to LinkedIn go to LinkedIn because you know health coach for busy entrepreneurs her niche no one's you know no one's talking about health stuff on or not a lot of people are talking about health stuff on on LinkedIn and she's built like a huge a huge audience on there so it's and and you know when there's not a lot of competition there's uh
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
it's worth peeking in. And then you can see the topic map. So you can see like self-care, green living, journaling. I just find this to be a helpful way to just see what is going on in a bird's eye view. And then these are the Google Trends related topics and related queries. So you can see like just what are some breakout topics, slow living with a princess,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
You can just start scrolling through them, having fun. Spend 30 minutes here. Spend 30 minutes and start observing and writing down. Another way to obviously discover trending topics, so you'll find things that are trending and look for anti-trends, is if you do download Glimpse, you can go to the Discover Trends tab. You can go to discover trends tab.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
You can click into things, home improvement, let's say. And it takes a few seconds, but it'll pull up like what are the different graphs and what's starting to go up? What's the search volume? So you can see like AC cleaning, high income business. And then from that, again, you have to come up with ideas around what can I be building here?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And what I've noticed, it's actually quite easier to go to those anti-trends. Now, what am I talking about? What is an anti-trend? If everyone is talking about AI, AI-free AI, might be a great way to position your startup. There might be so much demand for AI-free that, yes, there's billions of dollars going into building startups that are AI.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And I've talked about how I use gummy search in a previous video, a previous YouTube video, how to do that. And I think I might create a video and a pod around how to validate some of these ideas if enough people are into that. Comment on the YouTube if you want me to create a video around that or pod about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
But coming up with ideas are on places like on gummy search or just asking yourself, okay, what do these people need? So Glimpse slash Google Trends is something that is very, very helpful. Another thing that I do is I'll go to a platform like Cloud. And by the way, in a previous video, everyone made fun of me that I call Cloud instead of Cloud. But I speak French.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
You know, think about Jean-Claude Van Damme. You know, I wouldn't call it Jean-Claude Van Damme. That's how you say it in French. So I'm sorry. I'm going to keep calling it Claude. I might be wrong in English, but that's how you say it in French. So then I go to Claude and I'll say... I want to build a business in slow living.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
Give me a list of the top creators in slow, sustainable living and top websites I can go show. I can go check out for some competitive research. And now I generally like to really define what it is. Slow living is the antithesis of hustle culture. Then give me 10 of each. Let's see what they come up with. So then I've got the list of the top creators in slow sustainable living.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And then I'll just go and check them out. And then the top websites. So this, like add this to your document, add this to, you know, and some people don't like writing down, that's fine. Put it into a notes file, like literally a notes file. You don't have to use anything fancy. The reason I like writing or using just a notes file is not using something fancy. Just, you know, go with what you got.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
And then you can take some of these websites. Let's see what slow.co is. I haven't checked this out. Okay, so it's a newsletter for slow living. And then you can go and look. Okay, there's something called theminimalist.com. There's something called slowyourhome.com. And then once I've done that,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
I'll take one of these, uh, take one of these websites and I'll go to a Ahrefs and I'll put it in, see what's happening, how many backlinks, what are the trends, what sort of traffic, like, you know, how are they doing? Um, And then I'll just start literally playing around with what are the opportunities, any low-hanging fruits in terms of SEO, backlinks.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
I'm always interested to see how many backlinks do they have. What are their top pages? Top pages are interesting because it signifies, okay, what do people actually care about on these websites? That gives you intel into what to do. The organic competition is really interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How I use Pinterest and Google Trends to find startup ideas
So just play around with Ahrefs and just see how competitive these anti-trend ideas are because that'll give you confidence around what to do, where the opportunities lie. So I would definitely do that. You can also go to the keyword explorer and just see how difficult certain terms are. And then I also love looking at the questions, you know, me on the questions part, like what is slow living?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
So Mr. Beast's How to Succeed in Mr. Beast's Production document just leaked. And I think it's actually a really interesting read. I think that if you're a creator, you're an entrepreneur, you're a founder, you work in a company, it's worth the read. Love him or hate the guy. I just think that there's something that you can take from this. And I posted it on Twitter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Mr. Beast wants things good, cheap and fast. Well, that's tough. That's a tough client. So. Sorry, employees. People always assume money is the answer, and if we just spend more money, we can give what Jimmy wants, which is wrong. Creativity is the answer. Here is an example I use all the time about our gaming team.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Basically, they love to give away money every video, but which sounds cooler to you as a prize for a gaming video? $20,000 or a year's supply of Doritos. To me, Doritos is much funnier. So, Contrain feels creativity. He wants people to come up with great ideas. Totally get it. That's my little edit to this slide. That's what I would have said. And I agree with him.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
I mean, if I'm trying to create creative ideas, I want the most creative ideas. Page 16. Backup day. No one will ever have 100% success rate when it comes to filming our videos on time and on budget. It's impossible. You can still do certain things that increase the probability of success.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And one of those is having a backup day, which is something I had never heard of, but it makes a lot of sense. Basically, the idea is have some buffer room. If you need to deliver on a Tuesday, You want to make sure that you can extend to a Wednesday if something were to go wrong and you can make up for it. So where is the idea of backup Dave in my whole life? Love it. Smart move.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
When you're reading this, you know that Mr. Beast has... gone into some tight situations where things got crazy he probably spent a million dollars on a set and all these people and they weren't able to finish it and the owner of the chateau says sorry you got to be out at 8 a.m tomorrow so um he's talking from experience i think that was a good slide
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And then he published this. So I think that more companies should do this, have their founders just write what they're feeling about how to do X, Y, Z. Let me take a sip. And yes, I'm drinking Coca-Cola Oreo edition. Don't ask me why, I'm trying it. And yeah, I'm not sponsored, obviously, but it kind of slaps. Okay, so that is page two. Let's go to page three.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
This could be one of the more interesting pages of the entire document. And basically, he talks about how to communicate with other people. And most people don't understand communication. And most companies are pretty bad at communication. They don't define what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to do it. So I love how he breaks it down. When to do in-person communication.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
When to do email. How to think about text. No excuses. Move on. Simple. I love it. I think that every company needs something like this. And it felt very human reading it. So I thought this was really cool. This was surprising. This is probably one of the more surprising pages in the entire document. He talks about consultants. Consultants are literally cheat codes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
You need to make the world's largest slice of cake. Start off by calling the person who made the previous world's largest slice of the cake, lol. Love how he puts lol there. He's already done countless tests and can save you weeks of work. I really want to drill this point home because I'm a massive believer in consultants. because I spent a decade of my life hyper obsessing over YouTube.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
I can show a brand new creator on how to go from 100 subscribers to 10,000 in a month. On their own, it would take them years to do it, but consultants are a gift from God, said no one ever, I don't think. Please take advantage of them, and every single freaking task assigned to you, always, always ask yourself if you can find a consultant to help you. You. I thought this was interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
I also tend to use... I don't call them really consultants. They're experts, right? Of course, you're trying to accelerate whatever it is you're doing as fast as possible. Get the person that's done the thing that you're trying to do. I don't think what he means here is hire McKinsey or hire BCG. I think what he means is hire experts. And I think... I think he's right. Quick ad break.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and ai that could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses i wanted that i didn't want to have to rely on mark zuckerberg i didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses i wanted to rank high in google that's why i like seo and that's why i use boringmarketing.com and that's why i invested in it
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Page 19. So this was a weird one. It's a weird page. So no does not mean no. So what he's saying here is basically you have to do everything you can to
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
to do the best possible thing for the experience, for the business, and just push through things. So if you get a no, let's say you can't film here, you have to keep going. And you have to say, of course, what can I do to film here? Don't take no for an answer, is basically what he's saying. I agree with him. You want that startup mentality.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
At the same time, you don't want to hurt other people, of course. So I would say I agree with the spirit of it and I just think I would have put a little asterisk. It could get a bit hairy there and make people feel uncomfortable. Let me know if you agree with me there. Page 20. This is a short page, but the takeaway, he leads his company in a very meritocratic way. Do you get him a one on 10?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
on YouTube Studio, which means your video is really outperforming, he'll love you. So he wants the best and he's data-driven. So if you're number one and you're helping, this is a guy who's going to go up to bat for you. It's my lesson learned there. Page 21 says, So this is his, it's cool actually that you can see this. So these are his top 10 videos in the first 45 days.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
The fact that like 44 days, the fact that he's getting like 198 million on his first one and 39 million on 10 is really interesting to see the variety. And like the lesson here is that, and I've actually been learning this myself as I'm spending more time on YouTube is, YouTube is like a hits-driven social app. So you can see here, this is the Squid Game in real life outperforming so much.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
So he says something here that's really interesting. He said, I could make a separate book for creative, a separate book for production, a separate book for editors, but I think that'd be dumb. I actually would kill to see what those separate books would look like. But I understand his point. His point is this is a book for everyone here. But I do think I would love to see that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
We're talking five times, basically. That's a big deal. For him, this is the difference between making a lot of money and probably losing money. And then when I look at my own, These are my recent videos. I'm a small YouTuber. Subscribe if you're enjoying stuff like this but want more of it. It's interesting. I have a similar hits-driven model.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
I got a few at the top and then these are underperforming. It's interesting that the reason why I bring this up is... If you're a small YouTube creator, this is relevant. This whole document is relevant because he's having the same problems that we are all having. And he's got big numbers, man.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
What clicked for me after reading this page and the last page is the difference between a title and a thumbnail is the difference between millions of views. And so he talked about like titling something catch up before. And just these little changes in title make a really big difference. And these little changes on thumbnail make a big difference.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And it just makes sense that he's just, he's like an AB testing God. That's what he does. I also, when I, when I saw this, Together, all these together. It was interesting because they're like basically all the same thumbnail. It's like all the same thumbnail with like a different image here related to the video. So this is kind of interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Random things that you should know. There was one thing that bothered me about this page that I think could be worded in a better way. So he says, I'd rather you be honest with each other than nice to each other. And he's talking about people on set. I think you can be honest and nice. And I think that you could create a more productive working environment and a happier world if you do that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
I like Mr. Beast. I like that you want people to be direct. You want people to be clear. You want people to be honest. At the same time, I think you want to do that in a pleasant, positive way. Or else it's not a fun work environment and it just kind of sucks. I'm going to assume that you mean that on this one. Because I do think that people can be honest and nice.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
I do think that I, you know, I really like here. He says me like simple, the simpler, the better, the better apply with a grain of salt in caps, but he keeps driving this point around simplicity home. And I really, really like that page 24 when he does, when he goes in bold, he he's basically like writing out things like almost like tweetable things and, and just like bangers, like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
But yeah, the biggest takeaway for me is when I'm reading something like this is what would be the difference in the quality of Mr. B's videos if people worked 40 to 60 hours a week? 60 hours a week is still working really hard instead of 100 hours. I'm not an all-nighter guy. I work hard, but I do not believe in all-nighters. I started and sold three companies before the age of 30.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I wonder what you think would be in some of those books too. I love how clear the goal is for this whole document. He says, our goal here is to make the best videos possible. All companies need this. All companies need just a really clear goal.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I don't think I've worked more than 40 to 50 hours a week. I just don't believe in it. I think that I need reset time in order to be creative. So I don't know. I think great work can be done in a standard work week if you work hard. And if not, something is broken. So biggest takeaway for page 25 is he says, what is the goal of our content? And Mr. Beast responds, to excite me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
The goal of our content is to excite me. I just didn't expect him to say that. I thought he would talk about like, there's all these people and we want to make them happy and people love our content. I did not expect for him to just talk about himself on page 25. So page 27 says, He's talking about one video has 120 million views, the other has 45 million views.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Look at these retention numbers and see if you can pick which one got triple the views. The point is, he's back to data. And I love it. I love that he's so data-driven. That was a huge surprise for me. But I was wondering why there's no talk around a metric, around comments and positivity around the comments. I know for myself, when I create a piece of content, yes, I look at retention.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Yes, I look at views. Yes, I look at subscribers. But the first thing I honestly look at is to see who's commenting. What are they saying? Are they enjoying it? And I don't know. I didn't get any of that from... So what am I missing? This was really interesting. so he, on page 32 adds his content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
He basically, he says, if you watch a lot of YouTube, you'll probably notice that when someone does a brand deal, it's boring and sounds like they're reading a script. We take a different approach to brand deals. Um, we like to integrate them. And then he shows what happens, uh, where the brain with the, with the brand deal.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
So I just think that, um, this, you know, we all know that people skip advertisements. Um, But if you can make it really exciting and make it a part of the content and just have no creator, that's when you're winning. So that's what everyone should be focused on. So we got a few more pages. This is where I guess a bit unhinged. So HR definitely did not review this doc.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I'll give you an example. If talent wants to draw a dick on the whiteboard in the video or do something stupid, let them, assuming they know all the risks and aren't missing context on why it's not safe, help them be idiots. I don't know. Being stupid and having fun, definitely I get that part of the shtick, but I can imagine that could offend people or go the wrong way.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
in english or whatever language but like sixth grade fifth grade fourth you know seventh grade just really easy to understand but this document is so simple that even a child could read it and probably because some children probably are reading this like and i mean i'm joking obviously not children but young people are reading this he makes it really really simple
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Understand his point and why it's important to the content, but I don't think it lays out a culture that most people would want. So I don't know if this scales and this seems like this can go bad. That's just my gut reaction. And then the last page, your career. Last but not least, he talks about people, the people who work for him. And he basically says that he's going to make you rich.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
If you do well and you're exceptional at what you do, you will be rich if you work for Mr. Beast, basically is what he's saying. And you'll make more money than you could ever dream of making at any other company. So he puts that in words, he puts that in writing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And, uh, my reaction to that is I hear like the sentiment I get, I think the sentiment I get is just, I don't know when I hear people saying stuff like that, I'm kind of like, okay, what does that mean for me? Does that mean I'm going to own 0.1% or 0.1, you know, 1, 2%, but I mean, he can fire me at any time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Like, I don't know what it really means, but the sentiment around, this is a big opportunity. If you do your job well, uh, you know, this is going to be big. I totally get. And, and he isn't, he isn't wrong on that. You know, if you stay there and I'm sure if you do a good job, you probably, you probably will be able to, to crush it for him. And, And that's the document. And I enjoyed reading it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Of course, I didn't agree with everything. That'd be foolish. But it definitely got me thinking about how to build on YouTube, how to build a content-driven business, how to think about getting your employees, your team on the same page. Yeah. And it got me thinking I want to create a, I know it's not a rule book, a not rule book rule book, a culture document. for my team.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
So I hope you got something out of this. Hope that got your creative juices flowing. And if it did and you've retained and you've made it here, avid few durations long, hit us up with a like and a comment and a subscribe and I'll see you next time. It's been real.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
So page four, he says, 99% of movies or TV shows would flop on YouTube. Now, that sounds really obvious when he says it, but I never thought of it that way. I guess, yes, every medium is different. What works on mobile, what works on different social platforms don't necessarily work on each other. So the fact that Jimmy, we'll call him Jimmy, even though I think there's two people on the planet.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
You either call Mr. Beast, Mr. Beast, or you call Mr. Beast, Jimmy. You know what? I'm not calling him Jimmy. We're going to keep it. I'm going to call him Mr. Beast because that's how, you know, I don't know him personally that well. Although I have DM'd with him a couple of times. All right. Mr. Beast, he's got that YouTube blueprint, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
It got like a million views, 10,000 bookmarks. So today Let's get through my unfiltered analysis reactions of the newly leaked Mr. Beast production document.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I think that saying that to everyone that, you know, we are not Hollywood or different what works there won't work here, I think is really, really smart. He says something at the bottom which I don't know about. He talks about you're either an A player, B player, or C player. There's only room in this company for A players.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
A players are obsessive, learn from mistakes, coachable, intelligent, don't make excuses, believe in YouTube. B players are people that need to be trained into A players. C players are just average employees. If you're a junior A player, I don't know. Could you be on Mr. B's team? Does that not work? I don't really understand his vibe here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I think that there's some people that just are, they don't come out of the womb as A players, right? They need to be groomed and stuff like that. So it feels like a bit much. I get his point, but let me know in the comments what you think of that comment. Page five. Okay, this is interesting. So here he explains how to go viral online. on YouTube in just a few words. So that's really cool.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
He just breaks down, this could be 100 pages, he breaks it down into basically one page. So on one hand, I think it's genius. On the other hand, I actually don't believe this applies to all video creators. For example, me, myself, I create niche B2B business content. I create content around how to come up with startup ideas and tactics in terms of taking those ideas and chipping them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Some of my best videos are literally like two hours long and with like very little preparation, just like live cooking. I mean, this video, who knows, maybe this video gets a million views, but it's literally just me talking about, you know, reacting to something and it's not like super, super optimized at all. So I think for niches, I'm going to have to disagree with you, Mr. Beast. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
But for maybe if you want to be for everything, if you want to be a top 10 video creator, I do think he's right. Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you. Page six. I looked at this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
This is a key moment for audience retention. And really the big thing that stuck out to me was that 60 million people clicked on his video. 60 million people. We just had the debate in the US here. Donald Trump. Kamala Harris. And that's about the same amount of people who watch that debate who watch this Mr. Beast video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
There's more people who watch this video than live in Canada, the second biggest country on the planet. So that's crazy scale. It was also a big reminder to me that I used to think of YouTube creators as entertainers, but they're actually more like data scientists than they are entertainers. So when you look at the top 100 YouTube creators, they are obsessing over the data.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I think that was quite an interesting takeaway from this one. Page seven. Here, I'm calling out Mr. Beast. Why isn't Mr. Beast building the Y Combinator of creators? As you're reading this, you'll see. If he understands how to make people go viral and distribution is more important than product now, it's easier to build product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
You can use like AI tools and other software to go and create those products. Um, but it's harder to get distribution. So I just don't really like, why is he selling a Lunchables competitor right now with KSI and Logan Paul, which he got tons of backlash for, um, when he could be building the Y Combinator of creators, building products, software, um, and owning piece of them. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
The other reaction I have to this is the idea of re-engagement makes so much sense, but I had never thought about it. When he writes in here, when he talks about re-engagement, I just think that concept, it's smart. And he's a smart guy. He gets it. And he defines it over here. We also want to do something around the three-minute mark called a three-minute re-engagement.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
A re-engagement can be described as content that is highly interested, that fits the story, and makes people genuinely impressed. Another way to look at this is if it's a segment that only Mr. Beast can do this. It's important to re-engage the viewer around this time because they could get bored of the story and click off.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
These re-engagements are usually spectacles and sometimes needs lots of time and money to perfect. Which, by the way, is a bit of his moat. Not a bit of his moat. It's his moat. So it's interesting that he calls this out. A good example of a re-engagement is when Carl was put in charge watching Josh in the 10,000 Every Day You Survive prison video. Page eight.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
so i'm not going to read you all of this you guys can read yourself while i'm talking but i think i'm just going to give you my reactions to all 36 pages and what i find most interesting so first is he doesn't call this a rule book you see this is not a rule book um and it's not just like a bunch of hey you need to follow these things um
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
You know, I'm reading this and especially now that I'm eight pages deep, I'm like, I love that this guy, Mr. Beast, defines his own language. You've got re-engagement, you've got lull, etc. This is really a hallmark of someone who is exceptional, a founder who's exceptional. And I actually had an opportunity when I was about 21 or 22
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
to be in a room with a founder of a billion-dollar e-commerce startup. He was the one who told me that I was in this brainstorm, and I was the young person there, giving advice on social media at the time. And I just wanted to get right into it. And he was like, kid, stop.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
stop because we need to define what you know so we're all on the same page these five or six different words so we can get to uh we can get we can get to our goal and so here you are mr beast doing the same thing um and i do really like it so in your life too by the way define these things number nine page nine So look at this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
This is literally like the product requirements for a software product. So I'll read a little bit. The shape of the audience retention graph can tell you which part of your video are most and least engaging to viewers. When the line is flat, it means viewers are watching that part of your video from start to finish. Gradual declines mean viewers are losing interest over time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
All videos on YouTube generally taper off during the playback period. Spikes appear when more viewers are watching, re-watching, or sharing those parts of your videos. And dips when viewers are abandoning or skipping. Point is... Someone should build software that looks at data like this and gives you insights and says you should do the following things.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And maybe that's ViewStats, which is Mr. B's software creator analytics company. Maybe that's where he's going with it, but I think that opportunity is a billion dollar opportunity. There's no question about it. Page 10. So he keeps talking about this. He keeps talking about being obsessed with YouTube, basically no matter what department you're in, is a prerequisite to work here.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I don't think he's wrong. I just want to put that out there. I don't think he's wrong at all. I think it's really interesting. It gets me thinking of my own companies. What does someone need to be obsessed with? What is the one thing that they need to be obsessed with in order for us to be exceptional at our work? That's my reaction to this page.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
I also have big points for him using haha in the doc. Keeping it casual, my guy. Keeping it casual. Page 12. We're about a third of the way through. We're almost through. When I read something like this, this is a man of excellence. The word late is not in his dictionary. And this whole page really is about don't be late. And it's your fault. And
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
it's important to have bias for action, meaning it's important to actually go and do things that you said you were going to do. And you can't blame people. And he just has zero tolerance for it, which makes me just believe it. I'm not surprised how he's able to pull off what he's able to pull off.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And you can tell how seriously, just by reading this, you can really tell how seriously he takes this. Page 13, I mean, this is a massive block of text. Seems stressful, but I get it. I like that he said he wasn't perfect here. You know, we see some humanity here. You know, he says he's not perfect. I think that's an important thing to say.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
But I find the most interesting thing is he's so casual about the whole thing. I feel like it's a friend of mine who's writing to me and I'm just reading it. It's almost like he's texting me this. He even calls out that there's grammar issues. And I think that's really powerful. It feels like he just had a pot of coffee one night. I can just picture it now. And he just started writing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I think, I'm sure some people work for him and probably most people who work for him, they look at Mr. Beast as almost like a god, you know? And it's great that he said that he's not perfect. He gets stressed. And I think that when he lays it out like this, it's just going to make his company run so much smoother because you're reading this and you're like, okay, I kind of get this guy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
Here I am working three, he says, here I am basically doing three full-time jobs all by myself. Little things like sending videos to people for birthdays, attending events, networking, all, et cetera, all add up because I'm the face of the channel. On top of that, I'm
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
On top of being the main talent, I have to work with each channel to make sure the creatives are basically evolving and not getting stale and in general, be a visionary for them. Basically running four channels at a high level, better than anyone else in the world can run one. We also have Beast Burger, Feastables. Now he has his Lunchables thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And I still have to set the vision and be the lead and creative. So he's got all these things. It's a lot going on and it's tough. I get it. I'm sure there's people listening to this that are like, boo-hoo, Mr. Beast, what a tough life you live. But I mean, listen, he's in the Olympics, right? He's doing it. And it's important that founders communicate what's going through their mind.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
And here he is doing that, so I do commend him for that. This whole page 15, I would have titled it Constraints Fuel Creativity. He basically just talks about how don't go over budget. I'll say a little bit of it. I don't think it comes to a surprise when I say we don't have unlimited money here. Actually, by the way, I think some people think that there is unlimited money.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document
So it's good that he said that. We can't have every video constantly going over budget because the money has to come from somewhere. But you're in a tough spot because I constantly want better and better videos. By the way, this is kind of like... There's like a Venn diagram, which is like the worst client, which is I want things like cheap, fast and good, good, cheap and fast. He wants Jimmy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
I went from zero to 145,000 followers in about 14 months on LinkedIn. Now I know what you're thinking. LinkedIn is mega cringe. And I was like you too, until I saw all the value I was getting from LinkedIn, literally millions of dollars of revenue flowing into our businesses. I think you should give it a shot.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So my whole thesis, like what I'm betting my entire career on, is this one funnel that I call the ACP funnel. So it's basically A stands for audience. You build audience up top. Then you convert that audience into a community. And then you build a product for that community. So when we start a business, most people start a business, they build software. They'll go and build a CPG product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
We don't do that at all. We start a Twitter account. And if the Twitter account gets traction or an Instagram account or the TikTok account, then we know that there's something there. We'll create a community and then we'll build up that product. What's a specific example of a product that you've built to sell to a community like that?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So we built a business called BoringMarketing.com, which, you know, will probably do seven, eight million dollars in ARR next year. And it started off as a Twitter account called at Boring Marketer. Yeah, you have people like, I know you're friends with Cody Sanchez, talking about boring businesses, right? But no one was talking about boring marketing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So we said, okay, let's just grab the Twitter username Boring Marketer, simple as that, and just give people tips on boring ways to grow your business. Turns out a lot of people wanted to talk about SEO. So we just kind of pivoted it to SEO. And then it started getting 10,000 followers, 15,000, 30,000. And then we built a free community for people interested in boring marketing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And then we built the AI-assisted SEO tool. So that's kind of how it works. So you built a SaaS tool that you sell to them instead. Exactly. Sweet. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And okay, maybe you don't need to give it a full shot, but you can give this episode a full shot. Learn how to grow really big on LinkedIn, a bunch of hacks that are not being shared anywhere, like how to create LinkedIn video and why LinkedIn video matters. Someone's going to listen to this podcast and make millions of dollars, so that's for sure.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas, or it's for people who have a startup but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So You can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So let's talk about something a little cringe. So I'm obsessed with LinkedIn right now. Good. And I talked about this in my session. And I'm obsessed with LinkedIn because 2024 LinkedIn is the equivalent of 2020 Twitter. When in 2020 Twitter, I know there's some people like Sean Puri, Andrew, actually you two, you know, you started going, guys like us started going viral in 2020, 2021.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And we all got hundreds of thousands of followers because it was just so easy. It was fishing with dynamite. LinkedIn is fishing with dynamite right now. And I can give you some tips on how to grow on LinkedIn. Yeah, please. Okay. So, by the way, I was like you. 14 months ago, I wasn't even on LinkedIn. And I grew from zero to 125,000 followers with probably like 15 hours of work in 14 months.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And that's actually translated into millions of dollars of revenue. And how I did it was a few ways. So, okay, so take notes, by the way. If you want to go viral on LinkedIn, get your notepads ready, because, like, you might as well. I like that. Right? Yeah. Like, you might as well. Yeah. Okay?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So step one, did you know that there's a tab on LinkedIn right now that was just added that's a video tab? Do people know this? I'm not even saying, no one knows this, but LinkedIn is becoming TikTok. If you post videos on LinkedIn right now, they go far. So some people don't have video content. So you're probably like, oh, I don't have video content. Okay, well, you have two options.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
Option one is you create faceless video content. Meaning you go out there, you use a bunch of AI tools to create video content, and then you just record over it. Or if you don't, you can use tools like Eleven Labs, where you can just write a script. Eleven Labs is an AI tool that will read the script and assign a voice to it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So go and create some faceless video content that you'll then post to LinkedIn. And then the second thing you can do is obviously record video content yourself. That takes a lot more work. And then also some people don't like being on camera, which I totally get. So step one is you post that video content and you have a few options on captions to post that work.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And I'm getting really technical here. These are things that work. Because I think that I really want people to leave with value. So one is, you just put a caption that people will agree with. AKA, the future is now. You just put something that everyone's going to agree with with the video. The world needs more positivity now than ever. It's like, yeah, I kind of agree with that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And you get some likes. And you accompany that with the video. That's one thing. So video. The second thing you can do is stories. Stories work really well on LinkedIn. I'm sure you've seen that. What you should do after this is get someone on your team to sit with you. and get them to ask you, what are the 15 stories that are most interesting in your career? And get them to ask you that question,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
It's a in-person podcast that was filmed at IP2, which is Andrew Wilkinson's event. People paid thousands of dollars to be there. You get the benefit of being there, but you didn't have to fly to Victoria, British Columbia. So hope you enjoy this episode. And if you did, comment below and let me know what you think. Enjoy. A little bit about Greg.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And write with them 15 stories, at least. Because it's hard to think about it on the top of your head. So write those stories down. Would we write those stories using the Matthew Dix type stuff?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
Exactly. And now everyone here is equipped with how to tell a good story. So you can write the stories yourself. I just find it's helpful to have someone there to ask you, like... You know, what was the hardest thing in your career? Or tell me a story about how you failed an exam in college. Vulnerable stories work really well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And then you have to, the thing with LinkedIn is you actually have to pair the story with a picture of you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
You have to. That's the way you're going to get those likes. Sweet. So you have to go find interesting photos of you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
The third thing is finds find infographics that have gone viral before and and just post them, obviously giving credit to that person with a banger line, kind of like one of those... The future's now. The future's now with it. I had a post, one of my first posts on LinkedIn, was a year and a half ago or so. And it was like, I guess it was 2023, January 1st.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And it was basically like, this year's gonna be great. It was like an infographic that this year's gonna be great. It's like, of course this year's gonna be great. Everyone wants that to be great. It got 456,000 likes on LinkedIn.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
Yes. We'll get actually very specific about how to take audience from LinkedIn and convert it to leads. So the mistake I was making was I would create a post and then in that post put a link to something I was trying to sell or some lead magnet or some community, whatever. It didn't work because LinkedIn is suppressing that piece of content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So I actually went to the LinkedIn office and I asked them, how can I put links in my content such that I can get people to click things? Because what is the point of creating content if you're not going to be able to get people to sign up to the things that you want them to sign up to? And by the way, side note, Twitter sucks right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
Like, yes, you can get a lot of impressions, but once you put that link in there, your post is going nowhere. So what the LinkedIn team told me is that if you post something that gets more than 150 likes, 200 likes, after four hours, if you put the link at the bottom of the post, you will not be suppressed by the LinkedIn algorithm. So you edit the post? You edit the post.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And by the way, this is all going back to what we just learned about delegation. This is all things that you can delegate, just create SOPs around, which I do. I barely log into LinkedIn like you. So to answer your question, I'm obsessed with lead magnets. And we talked a little bit about lead magnets in my workshop for those of you there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
But the mistake that entrepreneurs, many entrepreneurs make around creating websites nowadays is They get strangers to come to the website, and it's all about buy my product. But people don't come to your website to buy your product. They come there to learn. They come there to do, I call it a primary task. They have some primary task of why they're going to the website.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So the example I used yesterday was, if you're going to Ford.com, you might not want to buy a Ford Expedition, but you might be there to learn about EVs. You might be there to just see pretty pictures of a red Mustang. So you make the link magnet. So what I do is I try to figure out what are the things that I want people to do. And I create multiple lead magnets every single month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
I link them in my LinkedIn posts. And then I nurture those people. And so I have people interested. For example, I have a lead magnet around a database of startup ideas. 5,000 people have downloaded that in the last 30 days from LinkedIn. Now I have those 5,000 people interested in startup ideas. I don't know what I'm going to sell them. But at some point, I could sell them something.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
And now I have them segmented in ConvertKit. That's how it works.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
I would be honored for people to come up to me. And please do. Please do. I'm here. So come say hi. There you have it, folks. Now I hope you got a few nuggets from this episode. And just start posting on LinkedIn. Just start. Learn. Get some reps in and see if you like it. And if you don't like it, you can always... Stop doing it. But I think 2025 is going to be a huge year for LinkedIn.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
I also did an episode with Cody Schneider, friend of the pod, where we talked about some opportunities with LinkedIn agencies as a startup idea. And I will link that link in the description. So, uh, like comments and subscribe. If you want more of these videos, uh, given the sauce away for free. Uh, and, uh, I read every single one of these YouTube comments. So, um, I I'd love to see you there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
All right, go get them. Happy building. I'm rooting for you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year
So started and sold three VC-backed companies, was an advisor to Reddit, TikTok, and now I run a cash-flowing holding company like some of you here. What's in the cash-flowing holding company? Where do you make money from? We've got four agencies. Three of them are productized agencies that use AI, of course. AI-assisted SEO, AI-assisted ads, design agency, internet communities.