BUSINESS IDEA | VENTURE STARTUP

Typeform for Calculators ➗ 

My type of idea

Available Domain: Calcform.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: If you’re anything like us when you were in school calculators were a hot topic of discussion. Mainly because teachers all liked to say the same thing about them…

Well today we’re gonna talk about calculators again, but for websites. How often do you go to websites and find they have useful calculators to help sell their product? Like tools which calculate car repayments or BMI calculators. But here’s the thing, adding custom calculators to websites can be time-consuming and difficult, which is why you don’t see more of them. So let’s build a platform to make this 10x easier.

Market Size: The website builders and CMS platforms market was valued around $14 billion in 2023

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform which allows businesses to easily create and embed calculators into their websites

How it Works:

• An individual or business signs up for the platform and enters their details in

• Businesses can then create their own custom calculators on the platform which they can then embed onto their own website, adding their own branding to the calculator too

• Members of the community can also build specialized calculators which businesses can use on their own website, with the creator getting a share of revenue generated (the business is billed for how much the calculator is used and the creator gets a share of this)

• Businesses can also put out a RFC (request for calculator) to the community for users to build a highly specific calculator for them which they can pay for

Go-to-market: Make a list of companies who could/should have calculators on their website, find out why they don’t, offer to build for them then once you understand the market and pain points build the platform

Business Model: Businesses should be charged a small amount every time a calculator is used

Startup Costs: You could start small as a dev agency for website calculators and build up cash to fund the platform build, keeping costs down by hiring overseas developer talent through a platform like Somewhere

Competitors: There are plenty of platforms that offer the ability to create calculators, but no-one’s cracked the marketplace/revenue sharing angle on this which would be transformative

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: The path to an exit here is to sell to a large player in the website builder market, like Wix or Squarespace

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Queue Quiz

We’ve all lived through the trauma of trying and failing to get tickets to our favorite musician’s concert. Meanwhile these fake fans manage to get to the top of the queue on these terribly designed ticketing websites (shoutout Ticketmaster) through pure luck.

Well with this brand new Queue Quiz extension, this takes all the luck out of it. It sends quiz questions to people in the queue to separate the true fans from the fake fans.

P.S here’s the answer in case you’re curious

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Electrolytes

For years we’ve all been told about concerns about our salt intake levels. But in recent months it seems that salt consumption, in the form of electrolytes, is on the up by athletes and non-athletes alike. Brands like lmnt (please sponsor us) and Liquid IV (also please sponsor us) have emerged as front-runners in this category. Which begs the question…are there any other businesses that can be built in this space? You bet there is.

Business Ideas:

• Electrolyte Calculator: Create a calculator which companies can embed into their websites to help users calculate their electrolyte needs

• Electrolytes for Dogs: Create a brand of electrolyte products for dogs to help prevent them from getting dehydrated

• Mobile Hydration Stations: Create mobile electrolyte hydration stations for events, like marathons, and festivals where you sell electrolyte-infused products

THE MONEYSHOT

The Dorm Room Project that Became a $6.5bn Business

College dorm rooms are usually tiny, cramped, messy spaces with the stench of alcohol and instant ramen noodles hanging in the air. But sometimes they can be a place of incredible innovation.

Like this founder, who managed to create a product in his dorm room that grew into a $6.5bn titan of the tech world.

This is his story.

Growing up Anthony Casalena loved technology.

He lived in Maryland and as a kid Anthony was dumbfounded that other kids chose to play in the woods instead of using the internet. In his mind the internet was a gateway to a new world with boundless entertainment and information. And as it turns out boundless wealth, but we’ll get to that.

Anthony began programming at around age 15, taking after his father who was a programmer too. He attended the University of Maryland, studying computer science, but during his time in university Anthony had a problem.

Anthony wanted to build his own website, but in 2003 there were very few legitimate options for people who wanted to build their own websites without coding. And the options that did exist had no emphasis on style or design.

So Anthony decided to build a platform that would help him create his own, beautiful website, which is exactly what he did. The platform had a simple drag and drop interface that anyone could use and learn easily. When he started sharing the platform with family and friends, he soon realized he wasn’t the only one stymied by the lack of options in the space. More and more people asked if they could use the tools he had built to create their own sites. He had accidentally started a business.

So Anthony took on $30k in funding from his father, a small grant from the university and pre-sold the platform at a discounted rate to 300 beta testers to fund the servers and other costs to bring his platform to life. And by January 2004 he was ready to show his creation to the world.

He launched Squarespace.

For the next 3 years Anthony was the company's sole developer and employee, working out of his dorm room in college. By the time he graduated in 2007, Squarespace was making annual revenues of $1 million.

After graduating he decided to move to New York City, began hiring, and had 30 employees by 2010. That same year, Squarespace raised $38.5 million in its first round of venture capital funding led by Index Ventures and Accel Partners, enabling it to hire more staff, continue to develop its software and double its marketing budget.

What followed was an incredible period of growth for the business. From 2010 to 2012, revenue grew 266%. In April 2014, Squarespace received another $40 million in funding and by 2015 Squarespace had reached $100 million in revenue.

Then in 2017 the company raised a monster round of $200 million, boosting its valuation to approximately $1.7 billion. No wonder every YouTuber on the planet is sponsored by them.

Finally in 2021 Squarespace went public via direct listing with an initial valuation of around $10 billion. Today, like almost every business that raised in 2021, their valuation is a little softer, coming in at $6.5bn, with the business generating $1bn of revenue in 2023. Clearly the business has come a long way from Anthony’s dorm room.

Anthony’s story shows that incredible businesses can be built from solving your own problems. So every time you come across a problem in your life, no matter how big or small, you should think to yourself “good”.

Because it could mark the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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