Jesse Pujji
Appearances
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
There's a huge hedge fund information business. I remind every one of my friends, you know who the richest man in New York is? It's nobody who works at a hedge fund or private equity. This person's richer than Schwarzman, richer than all the hedge fund guys. Michael Bloomberg. No way.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
For me at least, that's been the most tried and true way I've started every business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
I think the other thing I also find a lot of entrepreneurs doing... And I think I did this, but then... I don't remember what I did when I was young fully, but... man, if you go to someone and you're just honest and you put your hat in your hand and you say, you know what? Like, I think this is a good idea. And I mean, it's for anyone.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Like if I was starting this hedge fund thing and I didn't have a network, I know someone in finance. I try to find someone senior in the finance world, somebody's friend, somebody's cousin, someone's something. And I'd say, listen, here's the idea I have. Honestly, I don't know if it's a good idea or not. All I want to do is meet people to try to better understand if this is a good idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah, absolutely. Let's get into it. So what do you got for us? Well, what genre do you want? Because I can take us in many different directions. I think maybe I'll start with my formula. It might be helpful and then we can talk about some of them. Having launched a bunch of businesses, some which have been very successful, some which have failed, I think I've gotten a better formula down.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And if so, what do I need to do to make it a real thing? And man, humans are humans. And anytime I've come with that mindset or orientation to somebody, all that's happened is their heart has opened up to me. And they've said, you know what, there's three or four people I think you could connect with. And I think they'd really be able to give you a big perspective.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And if you come in pretending like you know everything and you're pitching everyone and you're selling everyone, it oftentimes has the opposite effect that you think. And I think owning where you are and being authentic in the networking process is a really powerful way to get something going.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Well, again, I say two things. I think, well, one is depending on your age, it does matter where you go to college. And that's like a fun one on Twitter that I always throw at people because people love saying it doesn't. And I can tell you that the biggest meal ticket of my life was going to Wharton. I went to a very average public high school. It was like middle class immigrant parents.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And man, that was a, I felt the step. Like I felt the step in my life and I have continued to feel it ever since. So that's one thing if you're 16 or whatever you are and you're wondering and you're reading this shit, it matters. I think it matters. So that's number one. I think number two is, again, if you're a construction worker, why would you start a business selling to hedge funds?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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It just makes no sense. Start a business selling something to construction people. Find the problems in the world you're in. Every business can make money. It's not like selling to construction is better or worse than selling to hedge funds. It's all just what you know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And then the third thing is, I don't want to get too spiritual here, but I definitely believe the quote that once you put out into the universe what you're trying to get done, it conspires to help you create it. So even if you were a construction worker... And you're like, I do want to do the hedge fund thing. You start talking about it at parties. You put yourself out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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You ask friends for introductions. You, you will, it may take you longer than it took me, right? It may take you six months to get your first really valuable meeting, but you will get a meeting. And if you go to that person and say, I don't, I'm from the construction world, but I think they should have data on construction and I want to sell it to hedge funds. Like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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people will start to help you and take notice. And I've never, I've just never experienced it. I mean, I don't know about you. I think you're like me. If some random person comes to me through a friend or through even a thing like an uncle's cousin, I usually take a call for 15 minutes. And if they say like, look, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I need some help.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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I would say, well, here's a few people like, you know, send me an email and I'll put a little bit of work on that person. I'll say, send me an email, outline it. Tell me what you... And if they don't ever follow up, then I know they're not serious. But then some of them are like, man, they come back, they follow up. I'm like, wow, I met this person. They seem to have a unique energy.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Do you want to meet them? And then I'll check in with that person in a year. And guess what? They have a business and they're running. And so, yeah, I think even in the third case, it is, I wouldn't necessarily, but even in that third case, I think when you put things out into the universe and you're serious, it starts to conspire to help you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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One of my favorite things is unique insight and unfair advantage. Part of unique insight is I always tell people, look at your own situation. Who do you know? One of my favorites is cross-sections of things you know. Like one of the very successful businesses we started last year is called Ox Insights, and it's helping private equity firms understand marketing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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I find that helping people, I mean, it's funny, right? This private equity business, we're basically helping private equity firms assess companies' marketing capabilities, right? And we charge a quarter million dollars a month for our services. It's a very high ticket item. Half of the customers were students. I was older than them. And they're like VPs at these firms now, VP plus.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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But I was helpful to them. I prepped them for their interviews. And I just did it because they're two years younger than me. They're like, hey, Jesse, you work in finance now. Can you help me prepare? And that's just, I don't know. That's what I do. I help people. I'm willing to help someone just because if... people have helped me, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And I'm just like, okay, now you roll in and imagine they're a VP or principal at Blackstone or pick your favorite. And I'm like, hey, I got a new business. I'm trying to start it. What do you, you know, what do you think is going to happen in that sales conversation? They literally do everything and anything they can to find an opportunity for us to collaborate on something.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And then I get to say Blackstone is a customer or whoever, like, like, So it's just, you know, I think there's a lot to be said about finding ways to be helpful in ways that are true and unique to you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Again, I think being helpful inauthentically, everyone can tell, but being helpful authentically to the types of people and for the things that make you, light you up or give you energy, I think is a really valuable thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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You want to do some more off the wall stuff?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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So, you know, we started a couple supplement businesses in e-commerce, which have kind of been a slog. But I do think supplements are an awesome category. I think they're high margin. I think they're endlessly marketable. And I think there's something really interesting about making the person feel like the supplement is meant for them. Okay, so like let's use a most common example in the market.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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There's Centrum, which is this like daily multivitamin most of us have heard of. And there's Centrum Silver. And it's like, oh, that's for the old people. And there's certain things in that that the old people need.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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So one of my ideas is to take the world, and this came actually, I'll tell you, if you talk to any South Asian, again, this is myself, you talk to any South Asian dude, you probably have a million Indian and Pakistani friends. And I'll tell you their lipid profile. I can tell you right now. They have low D3. They have high LDL.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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They have some heart issues, like some, you know, maybe a little high cholesterol, like a... And probably high glucose. Like they just have a similar profile because of, you know, genetics and the fact that we were not meant to eat pizzas and burgers. We were meant to eat dal and roti, right? Like it's a very specific lipid profile.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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So one of my ideas was like, let's create a, by the way, South Asians are also the highest diaspora income in the United States. Higher than Jews, higher than everyone else, right? Let's create like an Indian South Asian men multivitamin. Like Centrum's not the right one for them. Right. Like we'll call it must be right.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And it's going to be a hundred bucks a month and it's going to be meant for them and it's going to speak to their issues and it's going to talk about that. And then I was like, okay, well, what about for black women? And what about for, you know, apparently lots of Jewish dudes have digestive issues. Like that's a common issue for Jewish dudes. Like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Like we basically do diligence for them and help them get it. It's like, okay, well, those are two cross sections that were kind of unlikely bedfellows that we've been able to build a very successful business in. So that's one. And then the unique insight is like, what's the problem in there that somebody's got? An unfair advantage usually around distribution. Who do you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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So one of my e-com ideas is basically like a hyper-demoed multivitamin or vitamin orientation. And I think that the ads on Facebook would just be perfect. Again, it's back to this thing of you just find an area that no one else is in. And I'm the only one who can say, this is the South Asian vitamin. And is it 70% similar to Centrum? Maybe, but like...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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If you have the money, why wouldn't you buy the thing for you?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Totally. Yeah, exactly. So I think that you do supplements for different demographics... The other thing I like about it, dude, is here's a couple other data points to think about. One is this is a perfect example of something that could not be retail. Because you're not going to get shelf space for... There's not enough Indian people in any one area.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Maybe in Toronto or Vancouver, but every other city in North America, no.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Mississauga, maybe those two places, but nowhere else in North America, right? So that's number one. Number two is you could charge a lot for it. Number three is like it's... I forgot the number exactly, but I think it's somewhere in the ballpark of 10 million...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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uh south asian so five million men south asian in the u.s right growing growing category it's like a hundred thousand people paying you a hundred bucks a month like that's a real business dude like that's just like a nine figure it's a real business that's one of the verticals right so what i like about it is that it just it fits in so many different places frankly i wish this is what i would have i had the same idea and i chose a different thing and i like we wish we would have done this but it's still on the list
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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By far, he is the richest person in New York because he sells all the information and the picks and shovels to all the finance people. When I worked at Goldman, there's a ton of information businesses. Alternative asset guys are great customers because they're very rational. If you make them money, they don't mind paying you a lot. They're not price sensitive at all. They're very urgent.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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You know, it's funny. Some of these guys who are building airplanes and aircraft, sometimes I'm like, wow, it's so incredible. And then other times I'm like, the world is... The beauty of being alive right now as an entrepreneur is like, man, there is a system, there is a sub-market and a whatever for everything. So I had a similar intimidation in the beginning.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And then obviously you can go and... order the raw materials, and then find someone to mix your supplement. You could build a whole supply chain. On the other side of it, in the beginning, you could literally go to third parties who will white label their supplements for you and let you sell them however you want. If you wanted to validate this, you and I could build this business in a week.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And so I'll start with one for fun. I'm not sure the audience will love this one, but when I was running Ampush, I was making like $200,000 a year doing GLG and like alpha sites calls. And the reason was because all these hedge fund dudes had like 100, 200, $300 million positions in meta. And they would call me every quarter and they'd go, what are your clients doing? Are they spending more?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Because there's a third party who will slap a label on something, call it whatever we want, and we can start running Facebook campaigns on it within a week. And so the answer is that. You start with something like that and then you slowly get more, you know, that's how we started. Then you slowly go, okay, wait, let me actually work with a doctor and formulate something.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And they have their research and we do some other things and we start to formulate like a proprietary blend of something. And then you go to a third party who manufactures it for you and that's it. And again, I'm sure as you get bigger... you can keep ripping costs out and improving supply chain and all that stuff. It becomes a bigger function.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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But early on, it would be silly to do all that stuff, in my opinion. So I'd first start with one of these third parties that will literally make it for you on demand, whatever, and just throw a white label on it. Then I would go one level further and make a proprietary formula.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And then maybe when I'm a much bigger business, I would buy my own ingredients and maybe there's third parties that just mix it for you if you want that. But in the beginning, you just need something to sell someone and see if it works.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Yeah, you know, one of the funny things, you know this, right? I've probably overseen over my career $2, $3 billion in paid spend, right? We scaled Uber to $100 million a year in 600 cities, Dollar Shave Club was spending $3 million a month with us for four years. Stitch Fix, Casper, you name it. And we basically ran at least their paid social, if not all of their digital.
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And when I started doing this on my own, I totally fucked it up, actually, because I was so used to running bigger things that I was like, oh, go create this special creative, go do X, go do Y. And it turns out that what you actually need to do in the beginning is the first month or two is what they call seasoning the pixel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And so you create actually five to seven static non-video ads that are very basic with your product, with the pixel, and you spend 50 bucks a day, 25 bucks a day. And the first week is going to be the worst results you've ever seen. And then you'll see Facebook will start to learn your audience a little better.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And maybe every week you make a small adjustment just to what's working, spend a little more on what's working, pause what's not working, basically based on how much they're spending or what the metrics look like. And then you kind of let it go.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And so what you should see is after two months, the pixel will be seasoned because the CPA will be cut in half and you'll just notice that the metrics will all look better. Now Facebook knows who your audience is Now you can get crazy with the video creative and some of the other things that are, you know, UGC, like the more engaging creative.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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But part of it is you almost want bad creative up front because you want Facebook's algorithm to get a better and better signal on who your audience is. And if you give them too much good creative, like... you know, if I show you a pretty girl dancing around or whatever, you may buy the product even though you're not the right audience. And then Facebook kind of learns the wrong lessons.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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You want them to learn, oh, this is like a really crappy ad, but oh man, it's an Indian supplement. I'm Indian. Okay, I'm going to buy it. Man, the site looks really bad, but the formula looks good. Okay, you want that to be your first hundred transactions to calibrate the audience really tightly. And then you light up, again, video and UGC. Now, one of the big mistakes people make here is
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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You really shouldn't grow your spend until the economics are profitable, until you're first order profitable. Which means, let's just do this math. If you're doing a $100 supplement, it's kind of an expensive supplement, but let's go with that. You're probably doing 70% gross margins, maybe more. So you're making $70 in profit. Your CPA target should be like $50.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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at the highest because that makes money on every transaction. And what you have to do is calibrate your spend, your creative, your metrics internally to that. That would be considered a two ROAS on your spend And it's too easy to convince yourself to spend more on a shittier metric.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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And what it forces is a discipline of sorts that you're not allowed to scale until you can't spend more than $50 a day until that 50 is able to. And what it means is you may spend six months trying to rip through different creatives and hooks and all the things you and I know from the world of organic social.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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But then when you get it and everybody gets it, if they stay long enough, it is a dream because now all of a sudden you have a money machine that you can just keep turning up. And if you read my newsletter, we actually started using some lending in our case, and we didn't follow this rule, and it was a big mistake.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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It made us too able to spend money too fast, and that's actually a really bad thing in customer acquisition.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Are they spending less? And I was like, man, I don't have time for this. So I went from $500 an hour to $1,000 an hour. I'm not kidding, $2,500 an hour. And I saw no drop off in volume. So I was doing whatever number of calls a quarter. And so I'll give you two ideas actually that came from this. So the first idea is, You know, hedge funds, there's a huge hedge fund information business.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Yeah, I mean, I have a whole presentation I shared privately with a handful of business leaders that's like, get the organic social formula, which you and I know really well. Like, is it a good hook? Is it going to get someone to stop what they're doing? And in order to do that, I typically think of it as curiosity and benefits. I think Craig Clemens, the guy from Golden Hippo, says that, like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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Make me curious and tell me what's going to benefit me. And that's the first thing in the hook. And that means you've got to know your audience, you've got to know your customer, you've got to know all these different things. Then you've got to deliver some value, and usually it's informational value in the creative itself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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One of my favorite frameworks is the PAS, the Problem Agitation Solution Framework, right? Where you say, well, the hook is something you have an issue with. You don't immediately jump to the solution. You're like, ugh. And then you present the solution at the end of the ad. And obviously then you can trim some of the landing page. My favorite example of this, this has become my favorite product.
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This is like, if I was Oprah, this is Jesse's product of the year. Have you seen this Air Moto thing? So... Okay, so once you have kids and you're a dad, one of the random jobs you get assigned, of many, there's many, many jobs, like suitcase carrier and whatever, you just, you are the inflating guy. You inflate shit, okay? You inflate tires. on bikes, you inflate car tires.
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If something goes wrong with your car, you inflate pool toys. Um, just, just nothing you don't inflate. Your responsibility is to inflate. It's just, it's the law of dads. Right. And so I get this ad on, on Tik TOK. And it's like, it's like, you know, it kind of is making fun of this. Like, you know, do you get annoyed by this? You have to do it. And then it agitates the shit out of you.
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It's like shows the guy at the gas station looking for quarters, trying to fill his wife's tires and he's pissed off. Then he comes home and his kid's like, can you fill the bike tire for me? And the bike tire keeps deflating and it's like, it's annoying and he's sweating. And it was like, I was like, yes, yes, that's me.
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Like, you know, it's such a random thing too, because I would never consider myself. And I was like, man, these guys, like I was just so agitated. And then they're like, it's a mini compressor. So it's like this tiny little compressor, right? It connects, it's really smart. It's automated. You can press a button, plug it in, and it just goes until it needs to turn itself off.
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It can just set to whatever PSI you need to. Right. And I kid you not, I like bought one and it blew my mind. Like I handle all the things, even taught my son now how to do it. He's a little older. Like, you know, it's like just a total game changer. Like it literally, we like joke about it. And then I was like, I just bought 10 of them. And every man I know, I just give them like, here you go.
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Here's an air moto, dude. And so for the second, the last part is kind of extreme, but like the example of great creative was knowing your customer really well, presenting the problem, like connecting and then really agitating it.
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Um, and again, they just did a wonderful job of like, and every single agitation was felt very real for me being at the gas station, trying to find quarters to fill my, my wife's car, my, you know, my kids incessantly asking me to, and that's just, that's a, that's a perfect example. That's the case study.
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Cause it allows you to, it's R and D basically. And here's the other thing about people get so strange about organic is And I, man, I screamed this at the top of my lungs. I'm like, if your organic sucks, no one sees it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
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By definite, even mine and yours now, we probably write certain, like I've written tweets where I'm like, this is going to crush. It gets like 1200 impressions. And I'm like, all right, well, that was a bad idea. But guess what? No one saw it. Like it's totally asymmetric. And, and the world, you know, everyone talks about the beauty of asymmetric payoffs. I mean, it has no downside whatsoever.
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I remind every one of my friends, you know, the richest man in New York is a richest person in New York. Who is it? It's not, it's nobody who works at a hedge fund or private equity. This person's richer than Schwartzman, richer than all the hedge fund guys. Someone in real estate? Nope. Nope. Michael Bloomberg. No way.
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Beauty and skincare is a great category. It's not one I know super well. I mean, I kind of accidentally know supplements. Look how expensive it is, too. $170. This has got to be super high margin, right? You can just see that it's there. Yeah, I love it, man. I think it's great. I think the question I would like, I want to see the Facebook account. My guess is a 70, 75% gross margin.
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The bottle looks a little fancy, so maybe a little lower than that. Shipping matters a lot in these things. Basically, the weight below one pound matters a ton to keep the cost really low because of the USPS shipping. Site looks fine. I would look at it in mobile because that's where all the traffic will come. Nobody goes to the desktop website.
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But to me, I would want to see their ads library on Facebook and I'd want to know from them, do they have an ad that generates greater than two ROAs. The only thing that matters in e-comm, dude, is first order profitability. It's just the only thing that matters. And if you can't be first order profitable in scale, then it doesn't matter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Basically, the market will tell you if the idea is good or not based on that metric and your ability to obviously put good creative out there, assuming there's demand for your product. And then obviously, one thing I should say, one big lesson we learned was having a good, unique, bleeding-edge product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
The guys who have done Colostrum, there's multiple nine-figure revenue startups because they were really early to that trend. That trend matters a ton in these categories of beauty and supplements. If I could go tell myself one thing when we launched the supplement world, I would have said,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
trends find something more on the bleeding edge don't pick like we picked gut health and it's just such a tired category we just I just wouldn't have done that that's the one piece of advice I would have told myself I'm sure I wouldn't have listened to myself but that's what I would have told myself Jess you have time for one last idea yeah of mine yeah or I can I could jump in no no I got I got a bunch give me a genre and I'll give you a good idea
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Here's what I texted our CTO about last night. You don't have kids. So there's a guy called Perry Grip on Spotify. And he's got the catchiest... kids songs you've ever heard in your whole life okay like i know them all so i will sing like one is called my favorite one is called haunted cupcake and he's like oh haunted cupcake sitting on the plate all right I want to eat you, but I'm too afraid.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
By far, he is the richest person in New York because he sells all the information and the picks and shovels to all the finance people. When I worked at Goldman, there's a ton of information businesses. Alternative asset guys are great customers because they're very rational. If you make them money, they don't mind paying you a lot. They're not price sensitive at all. They're very urgent.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
What are you filled with? Nobody knows. Is it creamy butter or a spooky ghost? Haunted cupcake. Haunted cupcake. There's that. There's like, it's raining tacos. And basically my kids from four to six, I mean, if you looked at my Spotify, obsessed with it. And this guy reportedly makes like a million bucks a month.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Because he just, I mean, you can just look at these hundreds of millions of streams of these songs, right? And so my idea, I texted our CTO last night and he was like playing around with AI stuff and for our supplement brand, he created a song about our supplement brand and it's a good song using AI.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
So I was like could we like create kind of like the ghost kitchens like could we create like ghost Spotify channels that are kids music that are all AI basically driven and just make a ton of music like you can make an unlimited amount of music basically. And I don't know how distribution works in that world. Like I don't know how Perry Grip got popular.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Like my kids I'm guessing other kids told I have no idea. That's the part I don't understand. It makes me a little nervous about it. Like I don't understand distribution but It feels like a good idea.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
I have no idea. That's a great question. My guess is you own it. But I don't know. I mean, we have to look at the user. But one way or another, there's a way to use AI. I mean, chat GPT. You could make me a funny melody about... I mean, this guy haunted cupcakes.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
The guys, I mean, well, I'm a creative enough person and so is Adam, our CTO, that I think we could brainstorm topics like that and just see like what are things kids talk about. And like I want, like even like, you know, as my kids got a little older, my older two are nine and seven now, like they're into like boobs and farts and like, and I bet you like there's probably a whole genre of songs.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
I mean, dude, there's a Spotify channel called that takes various categories and just says, it repeats the exact same lyric over and over again, and it's really catchy, but it's kind of annoying.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
That's the name of the channel, okay? And it's, I don't know if you can even hear this. Okay.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
They need the thing when they need it. One of my ideas was, let's create a business... where the customers are hedge funds and within a week, you and I could go get probably $5 billion of ad spend on Facebook, like agencies and friends who are running a lot of spend. And we survey them. And you can pay them a ton of money to survey them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
The number one is the Serial song. It's all the same shit is the point. It's just written to that thing. And they have 50 volumes of songs. I mean, maybe these guys are doing this already.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
I mean, dude, it's something. I want to see how hard it'll be for us to try this. This is my dream, by the way. All my businesses, private equity consulting for marketing, it's hard. You've got to get good people. You've got to know your shit. My dream would be to make a million bucks a month off a business like this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Sign up at bootstrapgiants.com. That's our big area of push right now. We're trying to build the largest community for profitable, ambitious companies. The pitch is there's a lot of content out there for VC-backed. As you and I both know, there's a lot of content out there for 4-Hour Workweek. It's kind of like this music example.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
I think that most underserved founders are building bootstrap, profitable, fast-growing businesses that just don't get... any love. And we're going to share my insights. I've done this multiple times. We're going to spend a lot of time opening up the private equity world to this group.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
So mid-market and lower mid-market private equity, which I think are the right types of partners for profitable businesses. And we're going to be doing a bunch of other kind of accelerator-y type things there. So bootstrapgiants.com, sign up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Or you can give them a trip to the Bahamas every year in exchange for doing this survey. And all the survey answers every quarter is, did you spend more? Did you spend less? Whatever. What are your metrics? You basically collect a bunch of really... And you go to hedge funds. You say, I'll charge you...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
$100,000, $200,000 a year to have access to this information and it's going to give you an edge. My better idea even, by the way, for pricing is we're going to hold a reverse auction. Only 20 people will get this information. Bid to your highest bid that you're willing to pay for it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And first you do it for Meta, then you go do it for Google, then you go do it for Amazon, then you basically go through the biggest public companies and you create information that the investment and hedge fund world uses. And I think that's easily a $10 million EBITDA business, maybe more.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
They need the thing when they need it. One of my ideas was, let's create a business... where the customers are hedge funds. And within a week, you and I could go get probably $5 billion of ad spend on Facebook, like agencies and friends who are running a lot of spend. And we survey them. And you can pay them a ton of money to survey them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Dude, there was a company that we paid $100,000 a month at Goldman, maybe not quite that, maybe $50,000 a month, called First Rain. And it was literally a fancy Google Alerts for public companies. Because the argument was, you need to know first when something happens to your stock. And we are the fastest, best way to get you that information. And it was literally just Google Alerts.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And so I think there's a lot of ideas in this vein. And this is a good example, by the way, of getting super thoughtful about a customer and what they need and who they are and how to approach it. But that's one of my ideas for that world. The other one is a broad idea. I mean, you know, you've heard of Alpha Sites or GLG, right? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
So for anyone who's listening, there's probably 10 of these companies. All have been extremely successful. Their customers are hedge funds, private equity, consulting firms. And they basically supply them with expert networks, expert experts. I used to work at Goldman, right? And I had to get smart on the trucking industry.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
So I went to them and I go, hey, guys, I want to talk to a guy who owns 10 trucks. I want to talk to one of the biggest, you know, I want to talk to two truck drivers, like actual truck drivers. I want to talk to someone who ships through three different trucking carriers. I want to talk to someone who's built the truck engines, the special diesel engines. I made this whole request for them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And within two weeks. They had experts for all of those people. And I'm sitting there asking, how does this diesel engine work? Is the technology actually going to change the game? Blah, blah, blah. I'm learning all about it. And they've all been very successful. I'm talking nine-figure EBITDA. Multiple companies have hit nine figures in EBITDA. I think that whole space is going to verticalize.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And as my unfair advantage, I'm going to verticalize it in marketing. And I actually think there's probably even more to it. I think you could definitely sell into that group. I think marketers would pay marketers to get a little bit of information around how do you do X, Y, and Z. But I think there's an opportunity in building basically a marketing-centric expert network. Quick ad break.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah, I think there's all IT stuff, right? I think healthcare is another one. I mean, really, you just go down the GDP list and you pick them off, right? Healthcare, I think auto, and... AI, right? You could probably build a nice AI expert network that's just all these foremost people in AI. And I think the verticalization, you know, there's a company called Tegas, I think, that recently sold.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And first you do it for Meta, then you go do it for Google, then you go do it for Amazon. Then you basically go through the biggest public companies and you create information that the investment and hedge fund world uses. And I think that's easily a 10 million EBITDA business, maybe more.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And there's people innovating in the business model. Their innovation was we're going to record every call, transcribe it, and 90 days after the call takes place, we'll make it searchable and available in the database. So they were actually creating data and aggregation of information. that became very valuable and differentiating for them versus some of the other guys.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
So, you know, I think there's things like that that can be very differentiating. But yeah, I mean, any vertical, again, that you're in, it could be, there could be a content one. It's just an expert, you know, go get a collection of a hundred experts in content and people will want to tap into that in different ways.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
That's exactly for the marketing one. I just want to get all those experts. I think not only could you do the wall street people as customers, but I think you could do other marketers. There's someone who really knows how to run Facebook ads for dog food. There's someone else who really knows how to do Amazon for water bottles.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
There's somebody else who, and those people are sitting there with that information in their head and it kind of goes under monetized. And I think, I think there's a massive opportunity to connect the dots on those things. And I think vertical, the nice thing about verticalization is it, it just, it creates natural differentiation. Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
It's like the one thing you could pitch against GLG or AlphaSight. It's like, well, guys, this is all we do. We focus on one specific vertical. And it's just a natural pitch that everyone goes, well, yeah, it's all they do. So if we're going to do marketing stuff, we better talk to these guys because they're just naturally better in that space.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
That's right, exactly. It happens all the time. It's a whole vertical SaaS thesis that people talk about. There was ACRM called Salesforce or whatever, and now there's 50 CRMs. There's a CRM for real estate, there's a CRM for... By the way, real estate would be another good vertical for this expert network.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Yeah, I think who you are matters a lot in this situation. For me... part of the reason the idea has come to me is cause like I have 50 friends who are at hedge funds. Right. And I just, cause I went to work college with a bunch of them. I worked at a hedge fund for a few years. And so I think the lesson for someone listening is like, who are your friends?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Like, like what world are they in who, you know, because you're, I could kind of call any of my friends and they would all support me. Right. And this is small money for someone at a hedge fund, but But in aggregate, you start to build a business against it, right? And it's like, well, we like Jesse. We trust him. And so I think if you're listening, it's not go sell things to hedge funds.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Well, I'll come to that in a second, actually. But I think you could start with who you know. And that's part of the unfair advantage in getting distribution early, often and early, right? You sell things to the people who you have a relationship with or you have some understanding or knowledge or know-how.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
And I think that's just an overlooked, I think there's so many entrepreneurs who I'll meet, you know, they're like salespeople at whatever, some business. And they're like, I want to start an e-commerce business. And I'm like, why? Like, but look, and if their answer is I love water bottles, fine, God bless, right? Like that makes sense if that's really what you want.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
But they're like, oh no, because I saw Shark Tank and this, and I had this really smart idea. And I'm like, yeah, I get it. But like, you've been talking to these people for, you know, 30, the last five years. Like, go sell them something. You know, go talk to them. So that's probably the biggest push I'd have. If you were to start this and you don't know anyone at hedge funds...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
you've got to go know people at hedge funds, right? That's the only answer for the business, which is why you go back to rule one and say, well, no, just go find people you know somewhere and sell things to them. But I mean, early on at Ampush, we did that. And it's just like, you leverage your network extremely heavily. I bet you with a week or two, you could get 10 hedge fund meetings, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Through friend of a friend, essentially, or some version of your network if you really cared. Obviously you go in, you've got to bring it in those conversations, you've got to be really well prepared, you've got to explain why it matters to them, you've got to match their energy and their orientation, you've got to know their culture of the buyer, and I think you'll have some good success with it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Again, my recommendation is more so find the people you already know and find something to sell to them versus try to go and learn some new thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
You know, funny enough, like I do both of those things also. I think you know that I do cold stuff and I also learned how to build an audience. Um, And I do think they have tremendous, I think the media stuff is way more valuable than I ever expected it to be. The first thing I would do is I have this crazy system on LinkedIn where I just find mutual introductions and it works like a charm.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
Like you get your 50 targets. Usually you'll have a second degree, maybe a third degree, but even third degree works better than you would think. Like, especially if it's like you, right? So I call you and I'm like, Hey Greg, you know someone, you know, Andrew and Andrew knows the head of Oxfam. Like you're my friend. Like it takes time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
It's a little more of a patient game, but within a week or so you actually have a pretty good introduction. And that's actually for all of my businesses. How I started is using, even when I was 25, by the way, or 26, because everyone's, I was like, you have a huge network, Jesse, which is true. But when I was 25 or 26, I was like, I did the exact same thing to get the first 10 Ampush customers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
They were through my network somehow. And I would just, I would sort of salute the people I wanted to talk to and I'd work backwards somehow to figure out how I could get an end to them. Sometimes, by the way, it's not even on LinkedIn.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
Niche Startup Ideas: Hedge Fund Data/Info Business, Expert Network, & AI-Generated Kids' Music
You have to connect the dots by looking at a board member or a C-level executive at a place and going, oh, they used to work at this company and I actually know someone. Was there any overlap there? And like, again, you work your network or you work the kind of connections a bit and next thing you know, you're having a warm conversation with someone. And I think