BUSINESS IDEA | VENTURE STARTUP

Bootstrapped VC Fund 💰

A one-time deal

Available Domain: oneanddonefund.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Venture capital is changing. And maybe not for the better.

But despite all the GPT wrappers out there, there are some amazing businesses being built by small, efficient teams. With AI tooling at their fingertips they’re able to do much more with much less. Oftentimes they only need a small initial injection of capital to get started and then run profitable businesses from there. Similarly, against this backdrop, mega funds like the $100bn Vision Fund, don’t make sense. So let’s make a fund that actually does make sense.

Market Size: Total capital raised in the venture capital market market in the United States is forecasted to reach $264bn in 2024

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A VC fund that offers one round of funding to bootstrapped founders to get them off the ground

How it Works:

• The fund writes cheques from $25k - $500k into seed stage businesses in return for equity. The fund size would probably be in the $50m - $100m range

• They work together to get the company to profitability so they don’t have to raise again and no further dilution

• LP's (Limited Partners) are aligned with cashflow over time, getting a share of the profits, rather than expecting and pushing for a unicorn exit.

Go-to-market: They key here will be immersing yourself in the indie hacker community to build real deal flow and work with investor influencers to get this off the ground

Monetisation: The fund takes a management fee (1% - 2%) and a % of company’s profits going forward

Startup Costs: You’ll need to actually go out and raise the fund here. I’d suggest approaching aspiring VCs to work with them.

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: It’s unlikely you would exit this business, you would likely hold forever

TOGETHER WITH DEAL SHEET

With Deal Sheet you get curated, actively investable startup opportunities sent once per week.

Deal Sheet offers the best (and actively investable) venture capital investment opportunities directly to your inbox weekly. Deal Sheet subscribers have already received investment opportunities alongside Kleiner Perkins, Naval Ravikant, General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and more!

The Deal Sheet Co-Founders Alex Pattis and Zach Ginsburg are the global VC Syndicate leaders with over 700 investments closed and over $200m invested into startups. Additionally, over the last five years, Alex & Zach have collaborated on deals with over 50 VC leads who have collectively put together well over 1,000 startup investments.

Sign Up Now

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Phone Cooler

Been to a beach lately? Has your phone become so hot you get a warning that you need to cool it down?

Well not anymore. With this phone cooler you and your friends can throw in your phones and they’ll stay cool all day long.

It also has built in Wi-Fi too of course. Expect this to be the product of the summer!

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Green Noise

Goodbye white noise…hello green noise. Green noise is a type of sound that centers around mid-range frequencies (roughly 500 to 2000 Hz), similar to many natural sounds like rivers or wind. It’s soothing and often used to aid relaxation and sleep, as it creates a calming auditory environment.

Business Ideas

• Green Noise App: an app which uses AI to generate green noise for users to listen to while they sleep

• Green Noise Eye Mask: a smart eye mask with earphones built in which play green noise

• Green Noise Kids Story App: an app which creates bedtime stories that incorporate green noise to help young children sleep

THE MONEYSHOT

From Homeless to Multi-Millionaire Selling Penguins

Many great entrepreneurs come from humble beginnings. But few have come from beginnings as humble as Luca Netz, the man making millions selling penguins.

Born to an immigrant mother, who hardly knew any English when she came to the US, Luca grew up homeless and lived at family friends, and strangers’ houses with his mother and his brother for 9 years.

The eventually settled in LA, where he enrolled in Fairfax High School, only to drop out a few years later at the age of 16 to help pay the bills.

After 6 months of trying and failing to make money as an entrepreneur, he decided to get a job. He went door to door asking for jobs and ironically knocked on the door of Jamie Siminoff, who had just founded Ring.com.

He was an early employee at Ring and got a taste for what it was like at a fast growing startup and wanted to forge his own path again.

In 2016, after leaving Ring, he held a number of different roles including as CEO of La Gold Cartel, a jewellery company, CEO of Manners Holdings, CMO of Von Dutch, CEO of LPT Technologies and CMO of Gel Blaster.

That’s quite the resumé.

Then, in 2022, Luca decided to get in on the NFT craze and spent $2.5m to acquire Pudgy Penguins, an NFT collection of 8,888 unique tokens depicting chubby cartoon penguins.

Since he took over as CEO Luca has moved Pudgy Penguins away from being just an NFT collection to become a brand.

And it’s working. Prices for the NFTs have stabilized and in April 2024 they launched penguin plushie toys in 2,000 Walmart stores, with sales of the toys expected to hit $10m for 2024.

Turns out people really love penguins. Who knew?

INFLUENCER IDEAS

#HalfBakedBizIdea

Brivael saying what we’re all thinking…

DM us or use #halfbakedbizidea on X/Twitter to get your idea featured in our newsletter.