BUSINESS IDEA | CASH FLOW BUSINESS

Sales Scripts Marketplace 📄 

Flip the script

Available Domain: Script Swaps

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Outbound sales is hard. Like really hard. Having to pick up the phone to talk to complete strangers and sell a product to them is extremely difficult. Most of us don’t even like picking up the phone to order a pizza, never mind having to sell someone something.

For salespeople though they all have scripts they use to navigate these calls. But here’s the thing. Not all sales scripts are created equal. Having a better sales script, even if it only increases conversion by 1%, could add a few million dollars to a company’s top-line revenue. So let’s build a platform for the sales gurus out there to share their killer scripts.

Market Size: The sales platform software market was valued at $77bn in 2023

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A digital marketplace where salespeople can buy, sell, and trade sales scripts

How it Works:

• Users can upload their successful scripts, set prices, and earn money when others purchase them.

• Buyers can search for scripts by industry, product type, or sales situation.

• The platform includes a rating and review system, allowing users to provide feedback on purchased scripts.

• Additionally, the marketplace offers editing and customization tools, enabling buyers to tailor scripts to their specific needs.

• Users can also request sales script feedback where their own sales scripts are critiqued by an expert.

Go-to-market: Launch a beta version with a select group of experienced salespeople to build initial inventory and partner with sales training organizations and thought leaders for early promotion

Business Model: Transaction fee on each script purchased

Startup Costs: You could build a website super cheaply here using a no-code platform to get this off the ground

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: You might not get a huge exit here but you could run this as a cash flow business

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Review Platform for Review Platforms

Review sites like Trustpilot and Yelp are great, helping us figure out if businesses can be trusted or not. But what about the review platforms themselves? Can they be trusted?

Clearly there needs to be a review platform to review review platforms, right? (Try saying that 3 times fast).

Then of course someone needs to build a review platform to give reviews to platforms which review review platforms. It’s review platforms all the way down!

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Clear Protein

In the realm of gym bros protein shakes are sacred. But traditional whey protein shakes can be tough to drink, can taste awful and if left in a shaker for too long creates a stench that can be weaponized. But in recent months “clear protein” has emerged as a new type of protein powder which is lower in lactose concentration, easier to drink and is more refreshing, with companies like Seeq Supply leading the charge. So let’s jump on the clear protein trend.

Business Ideas

• Clear Protein Functional Beverages: Create a line of clear protein drinks infused with additional benefits like caffeine, BCAAs, or vitamins

• Supplement Sample Store: Create a store which sells samples of different flavored clear protein powders (and other supplements) so customers can find their preferred brand and flavor. More detail in edition #9 of Half Baked.

THE MONEYSHOT

From $0 to $12m ARR in 2.5 years

Today’s newsletter was written on Beehiiv. We’re official Beehiiv partners too.

And today’s edition of The Moneyshot is about how the founder of Beehiiv went from $0 to $10m ARR in just 2.5 years.

This is his story.

It was the summer of 2017 and Tyler Denk was looking for his next project to work on. He had graduated the year before from the University of Maryland with a degree in mechanical engineering and had just shut down his company VentureStorm, a web application that connected entrepreneurs and startups to talented software developers.

And luckily for him around this time he met someone working on something he could get excited about. He met Austin Rief.

At the time Austin Rief and Alex Lieberman were running a small newsletter with around 100,000 subscribers called Morning Brew.

They were looking to hire their first employee, a developer, and despite his lack of credentials (he was a self-taught developer) Austin and Alex took a risk and hired Tyler. It paid off big time.

Tyler quickly became the architect of Morning Brew’s growth, building a team around him who created internal tools which improved Morning Brew’s deliverability, open rates and drove incredible subscriber growth. A little over a year after he joined Morning Brew went from roughly 100k subscribers to over 1m. He killed it.

But in 2020, after working for Morning Brew for 3.5 years, Tyler left to work at YouTube. But during his time at YouTube he and two of his former Morning Brew colleagues, Benjamin Hargett and Jake Hurd, were cooking up a new business.

They wanted to take all of the incredible tooling they had built at Morning Brew and turn them into a newsletter platform.

For 10 months they worked on the platform on nights and weekends and managed to pull together a $2.6m seed round in mid 2021. By late 2021 with funding in place they took the plunge, quit their jobs and launched their platform.

They launched Beehiiv.

The platform got off to a strong start but pretty quickly, tragedy struck. One of Tyler’s good friends and mentor, Andrew Platkin, who was an incredibly gifted programmer and technical advisor to Beehiiv’s founding team, unexpectedly passed away. The profound sadness and emptiness was incredibly tough for Tyler and the team to work through, but they did. For Andrew.

The business kept growing and after just 18 months they received their first acquisition offer. $50m. With a $50 million offer on the table 18 months after starting the company, most founders would start googling what Rolex they wanted to buy. Not Tyler. He turned down the $50m saying he was aiming for Mailchimp’s $12bn acquisition. Baller.

Instead in June 2023 they raised $12.5m to support their growth and more recently in April 2024 Beehiiv landed $33m in their Series B at a $192m valuation, with the business passing the sacred $1m MRR mark earlier this year.

Tyler is very public about how Beehiiv’s doing, sharing his and the company’s journey on his own newsletter Big Desk Energy if you want to check it out.

While we’re heavily biased, given we’re a Beehiiv customer and partner, it’s honestly a great platform. We couldn’t run Half Baked without it.

As for the future prospects of the business, the company still has room to grow. And while it’s impossible to know where Beehiiv will be in 2, 5 or 10 years time there’s one thing we know for sure.

Tyler and his team are making Andrew proud.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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