In this episode, we explore 8 standout startup ideas from Dani Grant’s list of 139. I’ll break down why each idea has potential or pitfalls and share the frameworks and strategies I’d use to grow these businesses.Here are the most interesting ones (with my takes):1) Product Spec Doc SaaS • Google Docs for PMs• Pricing Potential: $20/mo• Partner with PM influencers (e.g. Lenny Rachitsky )• Build MVP, then get creator buy-in• Solid idea, but needs influencer partner to succeed.2) Developer Portfolio Site Builder• Like Format but for devs• $15/mo avg per user, low churn• Start by designing for influencer devs• Build MVP after refining the concept• Great cash flow biz. Niche website builders still work in 2024!3) Blog + Newsletter in a Box • Set up blogs like Fred Wilson’s AVC• Use existing tools (Substack, WordPress)• One-time fee, cold outreach model• Good side hustle. Keep it simple, don't try to be Substack 2.0.4) JSFiddle Meets Twitter • Social code sharing + memes• Devs love to remix and share• Build on existing dev culture• Compelling idea. Devs crave better social tools.5) Shopify for X • No-code marketplace builder• No-code messaging app creator• No-code Instagram clone maker• HUGE potential. The unbundling of Shopify is coming!6) HQ Trivia for Dating • Live, gameshow-style dating app• Start in NYC or LA• Make it feel like reality TV• Love this. HQ format will make a comeback in new niches.Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: http://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas🚀 My FREE 5 day email course to learn how to build a business of the future using the ACP funnel:https://www.communityempire.co/free-course🎯 To build your own portfolio businesses powered by community you might enjoy my membership.You'll get my full course with all my secrets on building businesses, peer-groups to keep you accountable, business ideas every single month and more!Spots are limited.https://www.communityempire.co/📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free:https://www.gregisenberg.com/70,000+ people are already subscribed.FIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/To improve your rankings your business on Google and using AI for SEO, sign up tohttp://boringmarketing.com/Links Mentioned:Dani’s startup ideas: https://thedani.notion.site/Project-Ideas-b598df2c46ac4969af1ac28553d82411Episode Timestamps: 0:00 Intro02:18 Startup Idea 1: Product Spec Doc SaaS04:17 Startup Idea 2: Developer Portfolio Site Builder08:32 Startup Idea 3: Blog + Newsletter in a Box11:16 Startup Idea 4: Virtual Workspaces12:42 Startup Idea 5: Turntable FM 2.013:44 Startup Idea 6: JSFiddle Meets Twitter14:57 Startup Idea 7: Shopify for X16:17 Startup Idea 8: HQ Trivia for Dating
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So I don't think... The point is, I don't think the reason why HQ Trivia...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.