BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Meme Ad Platform 🖼️

What do you meme?

Available Domain: Memematters.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: We love memes. You love memes. We all love memes. Expect for Richard Dawkins. Ironically he’s not really a fan of memes apparently.

But all jokes aside memes are incredibly important. They account for billions of organic impressions and marketing teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars on meme ads since they convert really well (believe it nor not). So being on the cutting edge of meme culture is key for marketing teams, so let’s build a platform to do exactly that.

Market Size: The global meme industry was projected to reach $6.1bn in 2025 (whatever that memes means)

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform for marketing teams to create meme ads and track the popularity and emergence of new memes

How it Works:

• Marketing teams sign up to the platform where they can create ad copy using meme templates, with explanations of each meme provided

• The platform aggregates performance data across different companies to show what memes perform the best from an engagement and click perspective

• The platform also monitors social media for the emergence of new, popular memes which can be capitalized on to drive both organic and paid traffic to their site (would have been great for the Olympics)

Go-to-market: Start by working with marketing teams in industries who spend heavily on meme related content

Business Model: Monthly subscription fee

Startup Costs: You’ll need to be reasonably technical here to get this going, but you should be able to do this for a few thousand dollars

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell to a marketing software company, like Sprout Social or Buffer who could layer this into their existing software platforms

TOGETHER WITH INTERNET PIPES

What do these have in common?

Ready?

What do glowing sunscreen 📈, butterfly pea tea 📈, air quality monitors 📈, and permanent jewellery 📈 have in common?

They're all trending, but most people have no idea.

These insights are scattered across the web, hiding in plain sight. But with the right knowledge, anyone can access them.

Internet Pipes exists to give you that access. If all goes well, you will walk away with an upgraded pair of “Internet glasses” that give you a high-fidelity view of what people actually desire. What you do with that information is up to you.

Use code HALFBAKED at checkout to get 30% off Internet Pipes.

P.S. Internet Pipes' price increases with time, and this discount code is temporary, so this is the best value you will ever get.

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Carbecue

Summer is the perfect time for camping. But bringing your grill on the road is almost impossible.

But now, with the carbecue, you can turn your car into a barbecue wherever you are in the world and cook up some meats using your cars exhaust fumes, giving your food a delicious petrol or diesel flavour.

Is it dangerous? A little. Is it awesome? Absolutely. But just make sure you don’t breathe in too much of those exhaust fumes…

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Buy it For Life

“Buy it for Life” is a recent trend among consumers around the world. Consumers are increasingly looking to buy durable goods which will last for years and years, both to save money and help the environment. In fact the subreddit r/BuyItForLife has more than 2 million members and is growing rapidly.

Business Ideas

• Durability Reviews Platform: A platform for product reviews from users who have owned a product for many years

• BuyitforLife Certification: Develop a standardized certification process which rates products based on their durability

THE MONEYSHOT

Building a $600m Revenue Business in 4 Years

The iPhone is the greatest and most successful consumer product of all time. Period.

But this founder decided to take on the mighty Apple not once…but twice, and has built 2 huge companies in the process.

This is his story.

Carl Pei was fascinated by technology growing up. He was born in China before his family moved to the United States, and then to Sweden. In fact Carl was one of the first people in Sweden who owned an iPod.

But when Carl’s iPod broke just after coming out of warranty (bummer) he started looking at similar products in China while on a family trip there…and he was shocked by how good they were.

This insight would serve as the bedrock for the rest of his career.

After dropping out of college (of course he did) Carl worked at Nokia for 3 months, then at a company called Meizu before he went to work for Oppo.

Which is when an opportunity presented itself.

Oppo was focussed on selling electronics, including smartphones, through brick and mortar channels. But Oppo wanted to create a new brand to sell smartphones online.

The then 24 year-old Carl seized this opportunity and offered to run the project. So in December 2013 Carl co-founded OnePlus with Pete Lau in Shenzhen, China.

That same year OnePlus burst onto the scene with its “flagship killer” strategy of delivering high-end specifications at mid-range prices, by leveraging Oppo’s existing supply chain and technological know-how.

But OnePlus was incredible at marketing too. For years the company was only selling its phones to customers who received an invite from the company, granting them permission to buy. This created a sense of scarcity and give the brand a luxury feel.

The strategy worked and OnePlus became a major player in the smartphone market. Hell I owned two of them myself.

But after nearly a decade at OnePlus Carl became unhappy with the direction the company was going and decided to leave. He decided to spend 6 months travelling 10 days into his trip he got bored and decided to start another business.

So in 2020 Carl raised $7m from friends, family and a smattering of other people (including Casey Neistat) and he and Paul Yu started a brand new hardware company.

They started Nothing.

In 2021 they raised a further $15m and launched their first product, ear (1), a pair of wireless earphones. They overcome some huge manufacturing challenges but through sleek branding they sold 600,000 units in their first year.

But Carl wanted more. He wanted to conquer the smartphone market, but knew he needed a huge amount of cash to do this. So in 2022 Nothing raised a $70m series B and launched their phone (1) that same year.

That year they sold an incredible 750,000 Phone (1)s and earbuds, generating revenue of $200 million.

Since then the company has gone from strength to strength and has raised more than $250m and today is doing $600m in annual revenue. With all of this stemming from a single broken iPod.

For us Carl’s story proves one thing.

Everyone worries about competitors, but if Carl can successfully compete against the greatest product ever made any of us can compete in any market.

So get out there and start competing.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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Yami Sukehiro coming in with the best name ever for his idea

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