BUSINESS IDEA | CASH FLOW BUSINESS

Startup Accelerator Application Marketplace

Perfect pitch

Available Domain: Accelapplication.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Startup accelerators are great for early stage companies. They provide much needed support and capital to help fledgling companies get off the ground. But there’s a problem. Getting accepted into a startup accelerator is incredibly challenging.

Take Y Combinator for example. Every 6 months over 10,000 companies apply to just Y Combinator. And with a 1% acceptance rate getting in is harder than getting into Harvard or Stanford. So why not build a platform to support founders who are trying to get into these accelerators? Let’s do it.

Market Size: The US has around 3,000 startup accelerators

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform for startups to get support on their applications to startup accelerators

How it Works:

• A founder signs up to the platform and selects what startup accelerators they’re interested in applying to

• On the platform they can then view applications from founders who successfully got into the accelerator(s) they want to get into to see exactly how they got in

• They can also book in consultations with founders who successfully got into their accelerator of choice if they want more personalized feedback on their applications

Go-to-market: Start with smaller startup accelerators and grow from there

Business Model: Charge founders a one-time fee to access the platform

Startup Costs: These will be minimal here, it’s basically a marketplace

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: The value of the network here is enough to hold onto this business forever as a profitable, cash flowing business

TOGETHER WITH NAME.COM

Be your own boss

Rewind back 30 years to 1994. You decide you want to be your own boss and start a business. To stand a chance, you need 3 things.

1. A fax machine

2. A car

3. A lot of luck.

Fast-forward to today. You want to be your own boss and start a business. To succeed, you'll need 3 things.

1. A domain

2. An email

3. A website

Times change. Goals don't.

Name.com understands this, which is why 330,000 entrepreneurs trust them for their entire webstack - domain, email, website and security. Sign up before Thursday and you'll get 50% off a yearly plans + a free domain.

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Steering Wheel Mount

Most modern cars, like Teslas, have huge screens in them. But what about all of the older cars out there missing out on this?

Well with this new mobile device mount you can attach a large tablet directly to your steering wheel. Don’t worry about what happens when you turn. And if the cops ask you it’s totally legal.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Recovery Shoes

With more and more people taking up running, the market for running related products has exploded in recent years. One such product is “recovery shoes”, which are shoes that provide extra support, cushioning and comfort to your feet after a run. And where a new product is gaining popularity business ideas are sure to follow.

Business Ideas

• Recovery Shoe Comparison Website: Create a mobile app that helps users compare different recovery shoe brands, features, and prices.

• Recovery Shoe E-commerce Store: Create an online store which exclusively sells recovery shoes

THE MONEYSHOT

Making $500m/yr from Smiley Faces

Most founders have to invent some new technology or platform to become wildly successful.

But this founder managed to build a $500m business out of the humble smiley face.

This is his story.

In the early 1970s Franklin Loufrani decided that college wasn’t for him. Instead, at age 19, Franklin got his first job working at a french newspaper, France-Soir.

Pretty quickly though he got annoyed with the constant stream of negative news in the paper and decided to design a symbol that would point readers to positive news stories.

So Franklin designed a simple, smiling yellow face that would do exactly this.

After it ran in the France-Soir in January of 1972, a number of other newspapers paid to use this symbol. This is when Franklin saw the potential in this simple symbol and immediately secured a French trademark on it.

Now, with the trademark secured, Franklin wanted to get his symbol into popular culture. And luckily for him there was a cultural movement happening at that time.

In the early ‘70s, France was emerging from a counter-cultural movement similar to America’s hippie uprising. So Franklin printed the smiley on 10 million stickers and handed them out for free. The icon’s simplistic joy played into the movement and was soon visible on polls and car bumpers all over the country.

And as the symbol trickled into mass culture, brands came knocking.

Two years into his trademark, Franklin secured lucrative partnerships with the candy company Mars, Levi’s and many other huge brands to use his trademark smiley face.

Business was booming and after 25 years at the helm Franklin decided to hand the reins of his business to his son Nicholas.

Nicholas expanded his father’s empire, founding The Smiley Company and securing trademarks for the ‘smiley’ brand name in 100 countries around the world.

But then, against his father’s wishes, Nicolas made major updates to the old-school smiley face,

He saw how transformative the internet could be and morphed the symbol from a static image to a 3D orb. In 1999, Nicholas and his team rolled out more than 470 iterations, what are regarded as the first-ever set of emojis ever designed.

When emojis started to become more and more popular, they were seen as the originator. This allowed the business to roll out partnerships with toys and games companies, food businesses, fashion retailers and so on.

Today The Smiley Company does around $500m per year in licensing deals, working with companies like Nutella, Clinique, McDonald’s, Nivea, Coca-Cola, VW, and Dunkin’ Donuts, to name a few.

In fact if you’ve ever used a smiley face in a message, you should expect a bill from Nicholas and his team…

It’s a pretty incredible business. Is it replicable? Not really. Is there any actionable advice you can take from this story? Probably not. Is it interesting af? You best your ass it is.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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