BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Group Habit Building App ✅ 

Group up, level up

Available Domain: Goalsgang.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: We all have bad habits. Going to bed too late. Procrastination. Mindless snacking. And breaking these bad habits can be incredibly tough.

Sometimes we just need more accountability to break these habits. So let’s build an app to achieve exactly that.

Market Size: The global habit tracking app market was valued at $2.2bn in 2023

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A habit building app where friends, families or co-workers agree on habits which they all track together for accountability purposes

How it Works:

• Individuals sign up to the app, join their relevant group and set their habits they want to track

• Once someone completes a habit on a day all members of the group are notified and all users in a group can view everyone else’s habit progress. The app also links up to external data sources, like fitness wearables, to automatically track certain habits

• Groups can also give prizes to the highest performers or forfeits for the lowest performers in a group for extra motivation

Go-to-market: Start with your own family or friend group and expand from there

Business Model: Freemium model. Users pay extra for more features, like advanced tracking or groups over a certain size

Startup Costs: Building an MVP should be relatively cheap here. You could do a 1-and-done round here to get some capital into the business and fund that early expense

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: This could be a great little cash flow business

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Pet Painting Kit

Ever seen the video of the elephant who paints? Apart from being incredibly impressive (and ethically questionable) as a business it’s a real money spinner. So what if your pet has a similar artistic talent waiting to come out?

Well with “petspressions” you can find out. Kit out your pet with its own painting kit to unlock their hidden Da Vinci.

Hang their paintings on your fridge or try to sell their works of art, it’s your call.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Child Care Costs

Child care costs have exploded in recent years, making it incredibly tough for parents to give their children the care they need. This is a space ripe for disruption.

Business Ideas

• Nanny Sharing Service: Create a platform that connects families in the same neighborhood to share a nanny, reducing costs for each family

• Parent-friendly Coworking Spaces: Create workspace environments with integrated childcare facilities, allowing parents to work near their children.

THE MONEYSHOT

Making $26m in 3 Years

It can take founders many years to stumble on their killer idea.

Like these guys, who spent nearly a decade working on projects together before they had their big idea…and made $26m from it.

This is their story.

Our story begins in 2001 at the University of Pennsylvania where Andrew Kortina was starting his degree in computer science.

When he arrived at the college he was greeted by his new roommate, Iqram Magdon-Ismail, who he was randomly assigned. This would prove to be a match made in heaven.

Both wanted to be entrepreneurs so during college they decided to launch a college classifieds website called My Campus Post. It got a little traction but by the time graduation came around it wasn’t a fully fledged business.

So this dynamic duo hatched a plan. They found a cheap place to sublet and spent a summer building websites for local restaurants, salons, and pubs to make some cash while they worked on their new idea, an online music selling platform called Philafunk. It was basically a cross between iTunes and MySpace.

But eventually the wolves came knocking and the pair had to get jobs, where they spent the next few years working in various companies, including OMGPOP, which has its own fascinating story we covered on a previous edition of Half Baked. But they vowed to keep pursuing ideas in their spare time.

Their next idea came to them when a friend enlisted their help in opening her own yogurt shop and the pair realised how hard it was to set up point of sale software. So, they created software that would turn any laptop into a cash register. All it required was a USB magtek swiper, which costs less than $50. It was cool, but the pair weren’t super excited about the idea.

So Andrew and Iqram started working on another idea in the music space and one weekend, while working in NYC on this idea, Iqram realized he’d left his wallet in Philly. Andrew ended up covering him the whole weekend, and Iqram wrote a check to pay him back.

They thought the fact that they had to do this was incredibly stupid. It was 2009 after all. So they decided to solve the problem themselves.

They quickly spun up a prototype which allowed users to send money to each other over SMS.

They had just founded Venmo.

After their prototype was ready the pair started meeting with investors. In fact Iqram’s old boss made the first angel investment into the company with his father. They went on to raise $1.2 million in mid 2010 and launched the Venmo mobile app.

But while the idea was great, the business didn’t take off. After 3 years they had 25,000 users, with 5,000 of them active, and were processing $10 million in monthly payments. It wasn’t bad, but it was less a Space X rocketship and more of a Boeing rocketship…

They were burning cash and had to let staff go to ensure they didn’t go out of business. They needed a lifeline. A savior. And that’s exactly what they got.

Bill Ready, the then CEO of Braintree, loved the idea and wanted to buy the app. Andrew and Iqram agreed to a sale and in 2012 Venmo was acquired by Braintree for $26.2 million, changing their lives forever.

Despite this huge success though it was a long road for Andrew and Iqram. They spent over a decade working together on different ideas, striking out until they finally hit a home run.

So don’t give up. Just like these guys your big win could be just around the corner.

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