BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Ridehailing for Freight 🚛 

In it for the long haul

Available Domain: Freightist.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: The trucking industry is part of the backbone of the American economy. Even if some truckers can run into issues from time to time.

But the trucking industry is ripe with inefficiency. Around 25% of truck miles in the US are driven empty and those that are not empty are at a 57% loading. This means that more than half of truck capacity goes completely unused. So let’s build a business to solve this problem

Market Size: The global market for freight trucking estimated at $2.2 trillion in the year 2022

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform which allows small businesses to secure unused truck space to cheaply transport their goods

How it Works:

• Small businesses sign up to the platform and provide details of what goods they need transported, where they need to go to and from and over what time period

• Trucking companies sign up to the platform and input details of the routes they’re already completing

• An algorithm matches truckers to businesses where they have excess capacity and their route matches up with where the business needs their goods transported to/from

• Trucking companies charge the businesses for transporting their goods at a rate below market (since this is unused space)

Go-to-market: Start by approaching trucking companies, build out the supply side of the market then reach out to businesses to build the demand side

Business Model: Transaction fee (c.10% of every transaction on the platform)

Startup Costs: As an asset light business you could start this relatively cheaply, but getting investors on board early would be smart here

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Companies in the supply chain logistics space, like Flexport, would likely acquire a business like this to bolster their existing offering

Exit Multiple: This is effectively a marketplace business, so you’ll get valued as a multiple of gross merchandisable value (1x - 3x) or revenue (5x - 10x)

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Vegan Water

Everyone is more health conscious than ever. So we went out and invented the ultimate health drink.

Introducing our range of vegan, gluten free, non-GMO, zero sugar, zero calorie, zero carb beverages.

Coming soon to a store near you.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Dupes

Today millennials and Gen-Z want to buy luxury products, but they don’t have the wealth levels of boomers to do so. Enter dupes (cheaper alternatives to premium consumer products). According to a Morning Consult survey, 49% of Gen-Z have purchased a dupe of a premium product at some point.

Business Ideas

• Dupe Comparison Website: Develop a website that reviews and compares dupes to their high-end counterparts, providing ratings, detailed comparisons, and links to purchase

• Niche Dupe Finder App: Develop a mobile app that helps users find dupes for expensive products in a particular niche by scanning barcodes or searching by product name, with links to purchase

THE MONEYSHOT

From Pizza Delivery Boy to 30 Year-old Billionaire

n the early 2010s, Ben Francis spent his life balancing lectures, delivering pizza across Birmingham and late-night lifting sessions at the gym.

Driven by his passion for fitness and entrepreneurship, Ben sought an entry into the fitness industry. A few workout apps and a social network were his first attempts to build a business in the space, but to no avail.

But then came Gymshark…

In 2012, Gymshark Ben and co-founder Lewis Morgan started as a website selling performance supplements via drop-shipping.

That’s right, Ben Francis began his career as a dropshipper. Clothing was added, but the clothes were very poor quality.

This led to a new business plan: create fitted, lightweight, physique-enhancing products that they wanted to wear. Ben started sewing and printing Gymshark products himself.

They had the products, but now they needed to grow. So Ben and the team took a pretty novel approach to growth at the time. They gave products to fitness influencers who became the brand's first athletes and promoted it to their communities. This approach propelled Gymshark’s sales to $45,000 per day, up from just $450.

Since those early days the brand has gone from strength to strength (pun very much intended).

In 2020 General Atlantic purchased 21% of the company for $300m, in a deal that valued the brand at over $1.45bn and made Ben the youngest self made billionaire in the world at the time.

Today the brand is worth more than that, posting revenues of over $700m in 2023.

While the brand is an incredible success story, they still have a long way to go to topple the giants of the industry, like Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and so on.

But one things for sure…it beats the hell out of delivering pizzas.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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