BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

eBay for Burial Plots 🪦 

We’re dead serious

Available Domain: Riteplot.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: None of us like to think about death. But at some stage we all need to make a choice, whether we want to be buried or get cremated. Although there may also be a third option.

Cremations have exploded in popularity in recent years, with 60% of people opting to get cremated today vs 20% just 2 decades ago. This means there are an estimated 1 million cemetery plots in the U.S. that need to be sold, with these plots selling for an average of $2k. So let’s build a site to facilitate these deals.

Market Size: Approximately 2.4 million funerals happen each year with around 40% of people opting to get buried

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: An online platform to buy and sell burial plots

How it Works:

• Individuals or funeral homes can sign up to the platform and list burial plots they want to sell. They pay a fee to list the plots.

• Others can then browse for plots they might want to buy on the site, by State, town or specific cemetery. They can also search for multiple plots next to each other

• The platform uses mapping data and drones to create maps of sites, making the website’s UI incredible

Go-to-market: In certain states burial plots must be sold by the cemetery that houses them. Create a site and work with them, then expand to create the marketplace to more buyers and sellers

Business Model: Charge sellers to list their sites on the site and take a small commission on each sale

Startup Costs: This would be pretty cheap to get started, you’d only need a few thousand dollars

Competitors: There are some websites which offer this service but they look like they haven’t been updated since the 90s, like Grave Solutions

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Your best path to an exit here would be to sell to a private equity house or a financial institution who could grow and exit this business themselves

Exit Multiple: Most marketplace businesses' EV/Gross Profit multiples range between 10x to 20x.

GIVEAWAY

You Think You Know The Internet. You Don’t.

Did you know there’s a tool to see how subreddits are connected?

What about this tool where you can view any website at any point of time?

Or this tool that converts any website into an editable Figma file?

Not so long ago, this information was impossible to discover. No amount of money could tell you that millions of people are interested in butterfly pea tea!

But thankfully, a magical place called the Internet ushered in a new era.

Unfortunately, a small percentage of people know how to leverage it effectively.

Internet Pipes exists to give you that leverage.

To celebrate hitting 15,000 subscribers, we're giving away a free subscription of Internet Pipes (worth $400) to one lucky Half Baked subscriber.

P.S. once you sign-up, you can increase your chances of winning by sharing your special link. Winner announced August 5th.

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Acquaintance Bracelets

Friendship bracelets have been around for eons. But what do we do to show our affection for the acquaintances in our lives?

Well with these acquaintance bracelets you can do exactly that.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Loneliness

As we discussed in yesterday’s edition of Half Baked, we’re facing a loneliness epidemic that many are trying to solve with technology. In fact New York state has started deploying robot cats, dogs and birds to keep older people company. The data here is worrying and something we need solutions to.

Business Ideas

• Walking Clubs: social clubs for walking, similar to run clubs but for people who would rather walk instead

• Performance Coaching for Loneliness: A service where you can hire coaches to hit specific goals around making friends

THE MONEYSHOT

From $5m in Debt to Building a Billion Dollar Business

Starting from $0 and building a billion dollar business is a one in a million outcome.

But starting a billion dollar business when you’re $5m in the hole is almost impossible. Unless you’re this founder.

This is his story.

Growing up Chris Ashenden was a big Bruce Lee fan, which fuelled an interest in sports and nutrition that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

So just after Chris finished college he started a sports supplement business which…failed.

For the next few years Chris worked countless odd jobs from selling cars to policing. But nothing really stuck.

He began reading self-help books which pulled him back into the world of entrepreneurship, going into the real estate space. But in 2008, his real estate business (who some allege was a scam) came crashing down, putting him $5m in debt.

Chris was stressed, depressed and constantly sick. He went to the doctor and was prescribed an incredibly expensive pill regimen to get him back to his best.

But he thought to himself there had to be a better way. So he set out to create an all-in-one, easy-to-consume nutritional supplement.

Chris invented Athletic Greens.

Chris had his product, now he needed customers. He decided to lean into influencer marketing and worked with health influencers who shouted out the product in return for commission.

It worked.

In 2010, Tim Ferriss mentioned Athletic Greens in his book The 4-Hour Body, and sales exploded.

This laid the foundation for Athletic Green’s marketing strategy. Today the company still works with huge health influencers, and spends more than $2m per month advertising on podcasts.

Today, AG1 as it’s now known is used by huge names like Lewis Hamilton, Hugh Jackman and Joe Rogan. This propelled the business to unicorn status when in 2022 they raised $115m at a $1.2bn valuation.

All by selling just one product. Incredible.

There has been some questions raised about the effectiveness of the product, but it still can’t be denied that Chris has built an impressive business here.

He did this by following a well-worn path in the entrepreneurs playbook…he built the product he needed.

Which begs the question, what product do you need right now? And why aren’t you building it?

INFLUENCER IDEAS

#HalfBakedBizIdea

Olivio Sarikas coming in with a great idea

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