BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

On-Demand Roadside Assistance 🛠️

A grade AAA performance

Available Domain: Roadaides.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Having your car breakdown is just the worst. It always happens at the worst time and you go through a rollercoaster of emotions during the experience.

But arguably the worst part is sitting around for hours, figuring out what organ you can sell to foot the repair bill, waiting for roadside assistance to arrive. And for those of us who have never had a breakdown (really tempting fate here) we’re paying a monthly subscription fee for…nothing? There has to be a better way. And we think we have it.

Market Size: The global vehicle roadside assistance market size is calculated at $30bn in 2024

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A distributed roadside assistance network to help drivers to cheaply and efficiently get roadside assistance

How it Works:

• Car owners looking for coverage simply sign up to the platform and give details about their vehicle.

• Similarly truck owners, garage employees or other people can sign up to the platform as “technicians” and are categorized based on their experience, expertise and access to equipment

• Then, when a car owner has a breakdown, they input details about the nature of the breakdown and are matched to a suitable technician who goes to them and repairs their car for a fee

Go-to-market: Focus on areas where companies like AAA have the worst coverage since that’s where this service is needed the most

Business Model: Either take a transaction fee or work with insurance companies and charge

Startup Costs: Asset light business model, just need to build out the tech which should be doable for a few thousand dollars

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: That path to an exit here is to find a strategic buyer, like Better World Club, who would acquire a business like this

TOGETHER WITH INTERCOM

Intercom for Startups

Join Intercom’s Early Stage Program to receive a 90% discount.

Get a direct line to your customers. Try the only complete AI-first customer service solution.

Apply now

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Chicken Wing Flavoured Ice Cream

Here’s the thing. Everybody loves ice cream, and everybody loves chicken wings. So why not combine the two?

Introducing chicken wing ice cream. Perfect for a hot summer day.

Collab with Wingstop coming soon…

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Declining in Alcohol Consumption

Around the world people are reducing their alcohol consumption. Take this chart showing drinking habits in the UK. If the Brits are cutting back on their drinking then you know it’s serious.

This is particularly true amongst the younger generation. The main drivers of this reduction in drinking seem to be a focus on wellbeing, rising costs and increased weed usage which seems to act as a substitute for it.

Business Ideas:

• Non-Alcoholic Beverage Tours: Organize tours that take participants to various non-alcoholic beverage producers, such as breweries making non-alcoholic beer or vineyards producing alcohol-free wine.

• Alcohol-Free Festivals: Organize large-scale festivals that focus on music, food, and entertainment without alcohol

THE MONEYSHOT

The Founder who Scammed Silicon Valley out of $120m

Silicon Valley has found itself at the mercy of scammers for decades. And these scammers are usually viewed as pioneers in a newly emerging filed of technology. Think Theranos or FTX.

But how about getting scammed on something a little less sexy, like a juicer?

Well this is the tale of how one founder scammed some of Silicon Valley’s best investors, and even Google, out of $120m.

Back in early 2013 Doug Evans, an American entrepreneur with a rich history in the food and beverage industry, wanted to help Americans to live healthier lives.

And Doug had an idea. He decided to go out and create the world’s most advanced juice press.

With his stellar background in the industry Doug raised $4.1m in seed funding and set to work.

But innovation requires time and money, and in Doug’s case it took him and his team more than 3 years to build and launch the product.

During this 3 year pre-launch period Doug raised a further $96.5m in funding from backers like Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures. Until finally, in March 2016, the Juicero Press was ready for primetime, around the same time the company raised their $28m Series C.

But this is where the problems began.

The first problem with the product was the price point. It was wildly expensive.

The Juicero Press went on sale for $699, back when that was a lot of money. Oh and and the “produce packs” to make the juice cost $5 - $8 each too. Yikes.

Against slow sales they eventually reduced the price to $399, but then Bloomberg of al companies fired a missile into the side of the company.

In a video that went mega viral Bloomberg showed how, instead of using the juicer, you could just squeeze the juice packs directly into glasses 🤦

The company was a laughing stock.

5 months after Bloomberg’s video the company was shut down.

Savage.

$120m of investor dollars down the drain, in no small part to a 60 second video.

Which all goes to show that sometimes the so-called “smart money” in venture ain’t so smart.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

#HalfBakedBizIdea

Mohit Mamoria with a YouTuber biz idea

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