BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Product Hunt for Newsletters 🗞️

The letter of the launch

Available Domain: Letterlaunched.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Newsletters are hot right now. Even if writing them can prove challenging.

But since everyone and their mother is launching a newsletter these days, it makes sense to give them a place to launch it, similar to Product Hunt. So let’s get it.

Market Size: The global daily newsletters market was $12bn in 2022.

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform for newsletter creators to launch their newsletters and readers to discover new newsletters

How it Works:

• Newsletter creators sign up to the platform and give details on what they’re launching as well as a sample issue for readers to read

• Readers then go to the platform and upvote newsletters they’re fans of and can subscribe to newsletters for when they launch

• The newsletter that gets the most subscribers each day gets featured and goes to the top of the feed

Go-to-market: People normally launch their newsletters on Twitter. Find them and get them to launch it on their platform

Business Model: Sell ads

Startup Costs: A few thousand dollars to build the platform

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: You could probably sell to a big email platform, like beehiiv or Convertkit

Exit Multiple: You could likely sell this business for 3x - 5x revenue

TOGETHER WITH PORTLESS

E-commerce fulfilment directly from China

As an e-commerce founder working with Portless is a no brainer. Why? Well with Portless you can:

• Improve gross margins by up to 40%, thanks to reduced shipping rates and leveraging Section 321 into the USA. 

• 3x your lead time thanks to JIT inventory. Replenish best-sellers in just 3-5 days, that way you can produce enough inventory to fulfil actual demand, rather than projected demand. 

• Leverage Section 321. This specific provision allows US-bound qualified shipments valued at $800 or less to receive duty-free entry.

This is your last chance to contact Portless and receive 20% off your pick-and-pack fees for your first three months.

PS: Make sure you tell the that Half Baked sent you 😉

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Hate Mail App

We all have companies who we hate. Airlines who lost our luggage. Fast food restaurants who got our orders wrong.

Well get you own back with our hate mail app which allows you to send abuse straight to companies for any grievance you may have.

The dream app for all the Karens out there.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Cryptocurrency ETFs

The cryptocurrency market is starting to mature. And given the success of the bitcoin ETF, you’ll almost certainly see ethereum and solana ETFs hit the market in the coming months.

Business Ideas

• Crypto ETF Robo-Advisors: a robo-advisor platform that automatically invests in a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrency ETFs

• Cryptocurrency ETF Comparison Tools: an online tool that allows investors to compare various cryptocurrency ETFs based on different criteria such as performance and fees

THE MONEYSHOT

From College Dropout to a +$100m Whiskey Empire

It’s 2013, and 18 year old Anthony Zhang is a wide-eyed college student at USC. After noticing he and his friends were always hungry while studying, Anthony decided to do something about it.

This was the genesis of this first business, EnvoyNow, an on-demand food delivery service for college students.

A few months later Anthony found himself pitching Mark Cuban and Mark Burnett during the pair's guest speaking event on campus. After the event he spoke to Mark Burnett and they did a deal of $100,000 of funding for 10 percent of the company on the spot.

Anthony had his start. He accepeted a Thiel Fellowship grant, dropped out of college and went all in on EnvoyNow. And it took off, growing from 3 to over 20 campuses in a matter of months.

Everything was on the up, until everything changed one fateful night.

Anthony and his girlfriend McKenna were at a pool party in Las Vegas with friends. Zhang decided to dive into the pool, but misjudged the depth and smashed his head on the bottom.

The accident shattered his neck and spinal cord, leaving him a quadriplegic.

But Anthony didn’t give up. He did five to eight hours of physical therapy a day for 8 months and managed to recover the use of his arms. In fact his girlfriend dropped out of school to help him with his recovery.

Buy while Anthony was recovering, without its intrepid leader at the helm, EnvoyNow was on the brink of collapse.

But Anthony returned and rallied the team to keep the company together. By 2017 the company was back to its best and was acquired by JoyRun.

But where does the whiskey come in? Well because in 2019 Anthony founded Vinovest, the alternative investment platform which allows user to invest in fine wines and whiskeys. Today the platform sits on more than $100m in wine and whiskey assets.

An epic story from an incredibly inspiring person.

Anthony is living proof of the old adage: “if you’re going through hell…keep going.”

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