BUSINESS IDEA | CASH FLOW BUSINESS

Hell Week Simulator 🪖 

Give ‘em hell

Available Domain: Hellweekcamp.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Most of us live pretty comfortable lives. Cushy jobs. Delicious food. Nice clothes. Which means some people have reached elite levels of readiness.

So these days many people are looking to challenge themselves through fitness challenges like Hyrox or Iron Mans…Iron Men? Triathlons. But the most famous (or infamous really) challenge out there is hell week, which is a training camp that only navy seals can go through. Until now.

Market Size: Hard to get a market size here but hundreds of thousands of people do endurance events and boot camps every year. It’s a huge (or as Donald Trump would say “yuge“) market.

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A camp where people can complete the navy seal’s hell week training program

How it Works:

• People go to the website and sign up for the camp they want to complete in groups

• There are a number of different programs available. A beginner’s which is just a day long, an intermediate version which is a full weekend and an advanced program which is the full hell week experience (make sure you get your customers to sign wavers btw)

• There could also be corporate programs with corporate rates too, since business are willing to splash some cash on team building exercises

Go-to-market: Start by finding people crazy enough to do a full hell week, find an ex-navy seal who has completed hell week in real life to design it, document the experience on YouTube or TikTok, build form there.

Business Model: Charge customers for the program

Startup Costs: The most expensive cost here will be the equipment and location, but if you can find a creative way around that you can do this pretty cheaply

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: You could franchise this out and build it into a cash generating machine over time

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Treadmill Toilet

Treadmill desks have become incredibly popular for those looking to get in some extra steps while they work throughout the day. But why stop there? Why not get in some extra steps while using the toilet?

Well with the Squat & Trot you can do exactly that. Up your step count each and every time you need to use the bathroom.

Genius.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: TikTok Shop

TikTok Shop is smashing it right now. TikTok is estimating they will do $17.5bn of sales in the US for 2024. It will be fascinating to see if this affects the looming TikTok ban, since a great way to get people on your side is to earn them billions of dollars. But the ban aside the growth of TikTok presents plenty of other business opportunities too.

Business Ideas

• TikTok Shop Product Sourcing Service: Find trending products suitable for selling on TikTok Shop

• Micro-influencer Connection Platform: Connect TikTok Shop sellers with networks of smaller influencers

• TikTok Shop Consultant: Help businesses set up and optimize their TikTok Shop presence.

THE MONEYSHOT

Turning $75k into $281m Selling Peanut Butter

Depending on who you are peanut butter is either a delicious, healthy snack or something you’re horribly allergic to.

But this founder managed to turn his love of peanut butter into a $281m exit.

This is his story.

Back in 2004 Justin Gold was living in Boulder, Colorado.

He’s always been an active guy, constantly outdoors riding his mountain bike whenever he had a free moment. But as a vegetarian he was constantly looking for other sources of protein, like nut butters.

But back in the early 2000s there were really only two types of nut butters you could buy…smooth peanut butter or crunchy peanut butter.

So Justin had a thought. Why couldn’t he make his own nut butters? How hard could it be?

So Justin started making different types of nut butters, like peanut butter and almond butter, with added flavours like cinnamon, chocolate, honey, even cayenne pepper (not sure about that one Justin).

But Justin immediately had a problem…hungry room-mates. They used to steal his concoctions so Justin started writing his name on the jars around their house.

He had accidentally just founded Justin’s.

So Justin decided it was time to start selling his products to the public and started with local farmer markets in Boulder.

Justin used these markets to test everything about the products. He tried different flavours, price points and packaging all to perfect his products.

Pretty soon Justin graduated from farmer’s markets to selling his products in local stores, but sales hadn’t taken off like he had hoped, meaning he had to wait tables and work in retail to pay for his production costs and keep the business running.

Until…Justin had a thought.

One day, while out riding his mountain bike, he grabbed an energy gel out of his pocket and thought to himself “why couldn’t you put peanut butter or almond butter in this packaging.” This was his a-ha moment.

So Justin borrowed $75k from one of his room-mate’s parents and bought a squeeze-pack machine to make his new products.

It was 2006 and once Justin’s nut butter squeeze packs, which sounds slightly wrong, went on sale they were a hit. This was the first innovation in this category in decades and customers loved them.

The business took off and a kept expanding into new product areas, like in 2011 when they expanded their product line to chocolate nut butter cups, taking on the mighty Reese’s.

By 2015 the business was doing $50m per year in revenue, which is when Hormel Foods, a multi-billion dollar food conglomerate came knocking.

They loved the brand and wanted to buy it…but Justin said no. But Hormel persisted and one year later, in 2016, Justin decided it was the right time to sell the business.

So in 2016 Hormel Foods acquired Justin’s for $281m. It was a long road for Justin, but like a mountain bike trail he managed the tough terrain to get to the end.

Which goes to show that there are always gaps in the market ready to be found.

So make sure you keep your eyes open.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

#HalfBakedBizIdea

Kevin Bell who clearly has bought some stuff from Ikea lately 🤣 

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