BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Teen Jobs Platform 🧽 

Lawn and order

Available Domain: Teentask.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Getting your first job is a rite of passage in this world. It could be mowing lawns, babysitting, dog walking, car washing, anything at all. My first job was going door-to-door selling electricity plans, which was an interesting experience to say the least…

But for young people today finding opportunities to complete odd-jobs in their neighborhood is tough. Most young people are too afraid to pick up the phone to order take-out, never mind go knocking on people’s doors asking if they need their lawn mowed or pet walked. So why not create a platform to bridge this gap?

Market Size: In the US alone there are approximately 42 million adolescents aged 10-19 (based on 2021 data).

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform where people in a neighborhood can post odd jobs they need done which are suitable for teenagers to do

How it Works:

• A teenager looking to find odd jobs signs up for the platform or their parent can sign up for them and list out what type of jobs they’re open to doing

• Members of the community post what odd jobs they need to be taken care of and how much they’re willing to pay to be on the platform. These jobs could include lawn care, snow removal, babysitting, dog walking/sitting, car washing, gutter cleaning etc.

• Teens can then accept the jobs, after which the money is held in escrow. Once the job is complete and assuming both parties are happy then the funds are transferred to the teen or their parents’ account

Go-to-market: Trying organising some Facebook groups where you get this exact service working, and if it works productize it

Business Model: You could either charge a subscription or a transaction fee, but a lot of users could circumvent transaction fees and just pay in cash which you want to avoid

Startup Costs: Using a no-code platform like Bubble.io you could build this very cheaply

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Exit to a freelancing platform like Upwork or Fiverr

Exit Multiple: Upwork and Fiverr are sitting between 1.5x and 2.5x revenue right now, which seem a little depressed from a valuation standpoint. You should be able to get between 3x and 6x revenue for a fast growing platform like this

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Parent’s Pick Dating App

Interesting fact: While the divorce rate for traditional marriages is around 40%, the divorce rate for arranged marriages is estimated at just 4%. So clearly we’re all missing aa trick here. It’s time to get parents back involved in everyone’s search for love.

Well with the Parent’s Pick Dating App you can do exactly that. Your Mum or Dad take over your profile and make those tough swiping decisions for you, since they clearly know best.

What could possibly go wrong?

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Yerba Mate

Yerba mate, also called mate, is a popular drink similar to coffee or tea. It's made from the leaves of the Ilex paraguariensis (a great scrabble word) plant and contains caffeine, but offers drinkers a “more balanced” caffeine experience than coffee. It also has more health benefits including regulating blood sugar and boosting cognition. In fact earlier this year Dr. Andrew Huberman acquired a Yerba Mate Beverage Company called Mateina. Hence the spike in interest in the drink.

Business Ideas:

• Yerba Mate Quality Testing and Certification Service: Does exactly what you’d expect

• Yerba Mate Growing Kits: Kits to allow people to grow their own yerba mate

• White Label Yerba Mate Gummies: Create yerba mate gummies which you then sell to brands who can create their own line of yerba mate gummies

THE MONEYSHOT

How a Coffee Cart Became a $700m Business

Coffee. Some people hate it, while most people can’t live without it.

But like it or not our world runs on coffee, which may explain how this founder managed to turn his love of coffee into a $700m business.

This is his story.

James Freeman is not a typical Silicon Valley founder. In fact, he’s the exact opposite.

He’s not a computer science major who dropped out of Stanford to start a tech company. In fact, before becoming a founder, James was an accomplished clarinetist. He studied music at the University of California, Berkeley and spent years playing with orchestras around his home state of California.

Eventually however, James found he was miserable in his music career. The highs were high but the lows were low…and frequent.

But while he hated his job James managed to find joy in his favorite hobby. Roasting coffee. He spent as much of his free-time as he could roasting coffee beans, experimenting with different flavors and techniques, trying to create the perfect coffee. At the time in San Francisco James noticed there was no brand selling fresh coffee, an idea that was hugely compelling to him.

He decided it was time to bring his coffee concoctions to the world so in 2001 he rented a small shed near his apartment and leased an old coffee roaster. He racked up $15k in credit card debt to do this and for the next 2 years James spent his time selling coffee around farmer’s markets in SF from a cart.

He had founded Blue Bottle Coffee.

Why was it called Blue Bottle you ask? Well the name "Blue Bottle" was inspired by a 17th-century coffee house in Vienna known for its exceptional coffee.

Pretty soon word started to spread about how great Blue Bottle’s coffee was. Bit-by-bit James started building a dedicated following and in 2005 Blue Bottle opened its first proper location, in a small converted garage owned by one of James’ friends in Hayes, California.

3 years later, as they kept adding more locations, James and his team decided to take on outside capital. They raised 5 million from Kohlberg Ventures and now legendary investor Chris Sacca from Lowercase Capital (get it?).

By 2012 Blue Bottle had opened 10 locations and needed more money still, so the company raised a $20 million funding round led by Index Ventures and Google Ventures.

But how on earth did a coffee chain manage to raise so much money? Well we think there’s 2 reasons. At the time e-commerce was starting to take-off and their product was perfect for e-commerce. Also, it was the location. Silicon Valley’s best and brightest were customers of the chain who knew this could be huge, so were willing to invest.

The funding kept pouring in, with the business raising $26m in 2014 and $75m in 2015. The business kept opening locations but was also riding the e-commerce wave, diversifying into new products like cold brew and selling brewing equipment.

The business was riding high and the big boys in the food market started to take notice. Blue Bottle was in Nestlé’s crosshairs and in 2017 Nestlé approached the company with an offer to buy a majority stake in the business. Nestlé shelled out $425 million to acquire a 68% majority stake in the business, valuing the company at around $700 million.

Today Blue Bottle has 80 locations across the USA, Japan and South Korea and the brand is still thriving. All of which goes to show in order to build an incredible business you don’t need to have the typical tech founder background or start a high growth tech company.

You can create a business doing almost anything, you just have to find a problem you’re passionate about solving.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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