BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Run Club Software Platform 🏃

The fast and the curious

Available Domain: Runclubshub.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: As we covered in a previous edition of Half Baked, everyone is talking about running clubs right now. Which basically makes run club the exact opposite of fight club.

While their popularity has soared, largely as an alternative to dating apps, no-one has emerged to build the definitive software solution for run club organizers. So let’s do exactly that.

2. Solution✅

The Idea: The all-in-one software platform to manage, scale and monetize run clubs

How it Works:

• A current or prospective run club organizer can sign up to the platform and create the website for their run club directly on the platform

• Run club members then sign up to the platform, join their local run club and all members can interact in a large group, similar to Slack or Discord. Users can refer their friends to join, link up their wearables to their profiles if they want to track their activities and do much more on the platform

• Run club owners can also discover and work with brands who want to sponsor run club events directly on the platform too, allowing them to monetize their creation

Go-to-market: Reach out to run club organizers, get them as early users and build from there

Business Model: Monthly subscription fee, a few hundred bucks per month

Startup Costs: This will be a pretty complex build so I’d recommend doing a small raise to get going, but plan for this to be your only raise since the TAM here is unknown

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: The goal here would be to exit to a large player in the running software market, like Strava

Exit Multiple: You should be able to exit this for around 6x - 9x revenue or 12x - 15x EBITDA

TOGETHER WITH…OURSELVES?

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P.S: You’re in good company. We’ve worked with Intercom, Hubspot, Omnisend, Portless, Rho + many more incredible brands.

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Toilet Meeting Rooms

Businesses are all about maximizing productivity. Yet employees are wasting time going to the bathroom and not being productive.

But what if you could combine toilet breaks and meeting into one?

Well for just a few thousand dollars our team can convert your toilets into hybrid bathroom/meeting rooms, taking back hours and hours of wasted time.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Second Passports

Worried about geopolitical instability, an estimated 15% to 20% of high-net-worth Americans are either actively pursuing another citizenship or are planning to do so, like Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt have done. Countries like Portugal, Greece and Malta are among the top choices for Americans getting second passports. Take Malta, where demand for its golden visas and passports increased by 447% over the last five years.

Business Ideas

• Passport Portfolio Management App: Develop apps to help users manage their citizenship and residency documents, renewals, and benefits.

• Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Advisory: Provide expert guidance on CBI programs, helping clients choose the best options based on their needs.

• International Real Estate Agency: Specialize in properties that are part of citizenship or residency by investment schemes.

THE MONEYSHOT

From $0 to $500m Revenue in 5 Years

How much is a business idea worth?

Well for this founder a great business idea, coupled with some epic timing, was worth around $12bn to him…so far.

Here’s how.

Alex Bouaziz spent his early years all over the world. He grew up in Paris, attended college in Israel and did a Masters in MIT for good measure. And after his studies Alex decided to give entrepreneurship a shot.

So Alex founded not one but two companies. He started Lifeslice, a video collaboration platform and was simultaneously a founding partner in Sarona Ventures in September 2016.

Sarona Ventures is still operational today but Lifeslice is not, shutting down in 2018.

But Alex didn’t spend too long focussing on this failure. Instead he got back on the horse and almost immediately thought about his next venture.

Which is how, in 2019, 25 year-old Alex and his fellow MIT alum Shuo Wang, along with Ofer Simon, founded Deel.

Interestingly Ofer is listed as an ex-co-founder at Deel, which is apparently a thing. Eduardo Saverin vibes much?

Anyway, Deel originally launched as a cross-border payment solution and was accepted into Y Combinator’s W19 batch. But during the program the team realized that it wasn’t just hard to pay people in other countries, the entire process for hiring companies in other countries was incredibly difficult.

So just a week before Y Combinator’s famous demo day they pivoted the business to what Deel is today - the all-in-one platform that simplifies and streamlines every aspect of managing an international workforce.

They had found a killer idea and like a great joke, the timing was perfect.

In 2020, when covid hit and remote hiring skyrocketed overnight, Deel exploded.

Covid driven demand allowed the company to grow from $1M ARR to $100m in just 20 months (FYI the average company takes 33 months to hit just $1m ARR). This makes Deel one of the fastest growing companies of all time…and that growth hasn’t slowed.

In 2024 the company announced they hit $500m in annual recurring revenue. Oh and the company also happens to be wildly profitable, posting 85% gross margins.

Hot damn.

The company was valued at $12bn in its most recent financing round in 2022.

Which goes to show that while luck has its part to play in outsized outcomes like Deel, as Matt Damon famously said, “fortune favours the brave.” Unless you bought crypto when Matt Damon said to…

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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