BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Expert Chatbot Platform 🧠 

Brain trust

Available Domain: Neocortexts.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Here at Half Baked one of our favourite methods of coming up with startup ideas is called “remixing.” And in a way, remixing is how we write every newsletter too.

But in our world remixing involves taking an idea and applying it to another domain. So when we came across a Y Combinator-backed business called Dream RP, which lets creators earn money by turning their characters into chatbots, we thought “why not turn expert creators into chatbots themselves?” Imagine being able to ask Jordan Peterson or Andrew Huberman any question you like, for example.

Market Size: The chatbot market is expected to grow to $9.4 billion by 2024

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform where users can talk to chatbots of specific experts trained on their podcast or other data

How it Works:

• Users sign up to the platform and choose from a range of experts in various fields who they can speak to in chatbot form

• They can then chat to chatbot versions of trustworthy creators who are experts in their fields, drawing from their podcasts, books, articles, and other content.

• Experts give their responses which can include links to resources, content or products they sell (affiliate play)

Go-to-market: Collaborate with podcast networks and individual experts to test out the platform on a small number of influencers to gauge interest

Business Model: Share affiliate revenue with influencers

Startup Costs: You could get an MVP working cheaply here by relying heavily on Claude or ChatGPT

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell to an educational technology company (e.g., Coursera, Udacity) or an AI company like Character.ai

Exit Multiple: In the edtech and AI space, exit multiples can vary widely. Coursera IPO’d at around ~15x revenue but AI companies can see multiples of 10-20x revenue or higher. So make sure to position yourself as an AI business

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Retail Manager 13

Ever wanted to know what it’s like to be the retail manager of a store? Well now you can live out that dream.

We think this will be bigger than GTA 6.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Off-course Golf

More and more people are getting into golf. But a lot of us don’t have 4 or 5 hours to spare on a weekend to play a full 18 holes (known as on-course golf). That’s why so-called “off-course golf” has overtaken traditional golf in recent years. According to a report by the National Golf Foundation (NGF), the number of total US off-course golf participants (32.9 million) surpassed total on-course golf participants (26.6 million) in 2023. Off-course golf is any golf related activity that doesn’t happen on a traditional 18-hole, 9-hole or par-3 golf course, such as hitting balls on the driving range, swinging in an indoor golf simulator or playing mini-golf.

Business Ideas

• Mobile Golf Simulator: Create a truck or trailer-based mobile golf experience which caters to events, parties, and corporate functions

• Golf Fitness Center: A center which combines specialized fitness training with golf-specific exercises and technology to help golfers improve their game through physical conditioning

THE MONEYSHOT

Turning $2,300 into $15bn

It doesn’t take much to start a business.

Take this founder who managed to turn just $2,300 into a $15bn, industry leading business.

This is his story.

Frank Wang (AKA Wang Tao) was a mediocre student in his school in Hangzhou, China, when he was a child. But despite this from an early age he showed a passion for one particular area - flight. He attended Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) for college, where he impressed professor Li Zexiang with a class project where he built a helicopter flight control system.

But Frank was more interested in drones and HKUST granted him HK$18,000 (US$2,300) to conduct research into the area. He started building drone prototypes in his dorm room under the guidance of Li Zexiang, who went on to invest in this company later.

Frank realised he was onto something so using the last of his grant money in 2006 he moved to Shenzhen and started his drone company Da-Jiang Innovations (which translates to “great innovation without limits”).

Or as you may know it, DJI.

In order to keep the business going DJI needed money and in 2006 the company received an angel investment of $90,000 from Frank's family friend Lu Di.

They struggled for a few years, selling drones inside China, but in 2011 Frank decided to start selling drones outside China. Luckily that same year he met Colin Guinn who saw the potential in front of him. He took a 48% stake in the company and the pair co-founded DJI North America, an American subsidiary of DJI.

They spent the next 2 years working on their mass market quadcopter, the DJI Phantom, which was released in 2013 and took the market by storm. The company’s revenue for 2013 jumped to $130 million. But there was a problem.

The Phantom was commercially successful, but a difference in their approach to sales led to conflict between Frank and Colin. The feud got so bad that DJI had locked all employees of the North American subsidiary out of their email accounts and decided to shut down the subsidiary's operations. Colin sued DJI, with the case being settled out of court and went on to have his own crazy career, which is a story for another day.

But still the company marched on and in 2015, through selling over 400,000 Phantoms and expanding into gimbals and other products, the company hit $500m in sales.

By 2015 sales hit $1bn and the business was valued at $10bn.

Since then the company has continued to innovate, launching new drones, controllers and stabilizers and has continued to grow their market share. By 2020 the company held nearly 77% of the US consumer drone market with no other company holding more than 4%. That’s Google search levels of domination (although let’s see how much longer Google lasts).

Today the company employs over 4,000 people across China, Japan, North America and Europe, is doing around $4bn in revenue per year and is valued at $15bn. Frank is worth between $4bn and $5bn.

Not bad for a $2,300 initial investment.

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