BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Proximity Dating App 💟 

Near and dear

Available Domain: Meetcuete.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Despite all the dating apps out there, singletons are struggling to find love. No matter how hard they try.

Gen Z is famously ditching dating apps and trying to meet partners in real life, but making that all important first move is hard for a generation petrified by rejection. So let’s build an app to solve this.

Market Size: There are around 350m dating app users worldwide in a market valued around $8bn

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A dating app based on proximity which encourages users to meet and interact in real life

How it Works:

• Users sign up to the platform and create their profile like they would on any dating app and set their preferences to what they’re looking for

• When users are moving around other users who are within a few hundred meters and fit their criteria pop up. This encourages users to get out and about since that’s the best way to meet people

• They can then choose to meet at a close location straight away, or send a limited number of messages to arrange to meet up another time.

• Users can get a certain number of matches per day, but can pay a subscription for unlimited matches

Go-to-market: The play here should be to go to…

Business Model: Freemium model

Startup Costs: You’ll need a few thousand dollars to build a performant app here

Competitors: Competitors in this market include Happn, which is getting cooked in their reviews, and Pear, which is fundamentally flawed since most people don’t want to broadcast their relationship status

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell to one of the bigger players in the dating market, like Match Group

Exit Multiple: Publicly traded dating app companies are trading around 2.0x - 8.0x revenue currently

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Shazam for Bird Sounds

Ever been out on a sunny day, heard a bid call and wondered what type of bird it is?

Well now with Chirpzam you can identify any bird call through your phone.

Easily a billion dollar idea…

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Zone 2 Training

Thanks largely to influencers like Dr Peter Attia, zone 2 cardio training has taken off in recent months. Zone 2 is typically defined as 60-70% of your maximum heart rate, or to be more precise, it’s exercise with lactate blood levels below 2 mmol/L.

• Zone 2 Clubs: similar to run clubs, but for zone 2 training

• Continuous Lactate Monitors: wearable lactate monitor with link to an app to ensure lactate blood levels suggest you’re in zone 2 for training

THE MONEYSHOT

The Billionaire Founder Who Took on Jeff Bezos…Twice

Very few founders have the gall to take on Jeff Bezos, let alone doing it twice.

But that’s exactly what Marc Lore did.

He’s a business badass and this is his story.

Back in 1999 Marc took his first step into tech entrepreneurship by co-founding The Pit, an eBay competitor. Lore was CEO and The Pit was sold to the sports collectibles company, The Topps Company, Inc. for $5.7 million in 2001. But this wasn’t enough for Marc. He wanted more.

So in 2005, Lore and Vinit Bharara founded 1800DIAPERS, which was later rebranded to Diapers.com.

Diapers.com grew rapidly and caught the eye of a certain Jeff Bezos, who tried to acquire the company, but Marc said no.

So Amazon set up a team to track Diaper.com’s prices and undercut them, eliminating the tiny profit margin they were earning. Eventually Lore gave up and sold to Bezos for $545m. The hostility of Amazon’s pricing, coupled with the fact that Bezos shut down diapers.com the second he acquired it left a bitter taste in Marc’s mouth.

He wanted revenge. So he decided to take on Amazon directly.

In 2014  Lore founded Jet, a digital version of CostCo, with Nate Faust and Mike Hanrahan in order to compete with Amazon. In February 2015 Jet raised $140 million in pre-launch funding and it went live in July 2015. But then, just one year later, Walmart announced it had agreed to acquire Jet.com for $3.3 billion.

That’s right, the company sold for $3.3bn after a year in business.

Since selling Jet.com Marc has been an investor, is fighting to buy an NBA team and is in the process of building Telosa, a utopian city in the US set house 5 million people over the coming decades.

And odds are no matter how much he’s willing to pay, Jeff Bezos won’t be able to live there.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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