BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Slack for Weddings 💒 

Groom to improve

Available Domain: Hitchhub.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Weddings are incredible. They’re the one day in a bride and groom’s life that everyone they love the most in the world comes together under one roof. But despite this fact weddings are still incredibly stressful to plan.

Part of this is because most couples, when they go to plan a wedding, open an excel spreadsheet and get to work. And as we know where people are using spreadsheets, there’s an opportunity to build a business. Sure there are many wedding websites, like the Knot, which help couples to find vendors or set up wedding websites, but we think they could be improved. So let’s build.

Market Size: The global wedding industry was valued at approximately $300 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.8% from 2024 to 2030. In the United States alone, there are about 2.5 million weddings per year.

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A messaging platform to help couples to communicate with guests and other parties while organising their weddings

How it Works:

• A couple signs up to the app and adds their wedding guests, bridesmaids/groomsmen and vendors to their wedding space

• They can then create different channels for different purposes, such as an announcements channel, channels for organising bachelor and bachelorette parties and a channel for everyone to upload photos during the wedding weekend. Even their vendors can communicate with each other to ensure everything runs smoothly on the big day.

• Guests can also private message the couple on the platform, making it easy for the couple to centralize all of these comms which are generally scattered between different messaging platforms

• You could also expand the platform to include tonnes of other features, such as hiring vendors or suit/dress rental for example

Go-to-market: Speak to people planning their wedding to confirm their biggest pain points and build a simple version of the app

Business Model: Charge a one-off fee to use the site, since this won’t be used long-term by couples, only for their weddings

Startup Costs: You could build a prototype here for a few thousand dollars to fully validate the idea

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: You could exit to a large wedding planning website like The Knot

Exit Multiple: Your revenue multiple here would be lower than a comparable SaaS business, so would likely be in the 2x - 5x revenue range

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Essence de Gasoline

Some people love the smell of gasoline. Some people hate it.

But for the petrolheads out there they can now smell like sweet, sweet gasoline with this new gasoline scented perfume.

Diesel’s version coming soon, with Vin Diesel as the face of the brand of course.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Beef Tallow

Beef tallow (rendered beef fat) is the newest skincare trend on the block. Using beef tallow for skincare has been said to rival retinol's effectiveness, improve the skin barrier, soothe acne, and more. However despite the ringing endorsements from TikTokers the world over, some still question the efficacy of beef tallow in skincare. But as we know a trend means an opportunity, so let’s see what businesses we can build here.

Business Ideas

• Skincare Myth-busting Blog: Create a blog or YouTube channel which tests out skincare trends to see whether they’re effective or just hype

• Animal Products Skincare Brand: A skincare brand which provides effective skincare products which appeal to the growing cohort of carnivores out there who only wish to consume animal-based products

THE MONEYSHOT

From $0 to $2.5bn Selling Rings

Rings come in all shapes and sizes. Some come with diamonds. Others with sapphires, ruby gems or opal. The list goes on.

But these founders have managed to go from $0 to $2.5bn dollars selling rings with no jewels in them at all.

This is their story.

Petteri Lahtela had a problem.

The Finn spent 14 years in the mobile and telecom sectors primarily focusing on product development. But after such a long stint in the industry Petteri decided he wanted to do more fulfilling work. He needed a deeper purpose, and turned his attention to human health and performance.

So in 2004, he joined a company developing IT systems for chronic disease management and prevention, an incredibly meaningful pursuit. During his time at this company he learned how the human body responds to changes in lifestyle. Which gave him an idea.

He wondered if you could develop a discreet, stylish product that would give users that feedback more immediately to better improve their health outcomes. This was his lightbulb moment.

So Petteri joined forces with two of his friends, Kari Kivela and Markku Koskela, and by joining forces with Hannu Kinnunen, a former employee at Polar, a company specializing in heart rate and activity monitoring, they were ready to build their business.

What followed was 2 painful years of R&D. Funding was difficult to secure, and years of research and development went into designing a device that was met their rigorous specifications on performance, accuracy and comfort. But the team persevered and they managed to build a prototype of their new ring fitness tracker.

They had founded Oura.

The team needed to secure funding to get their product into production, so they turned to Kickstarter. When they launched oura in 2015 on the platform, they had a goal of raising $100,000. At the campaign's end date however, they raised a whopping $651,803 from 2,383 backers worldwide, proving there was demand for this product.

This allowed the business to raise $5.3 million from investors in 2016 and eventually, in 2017, 5 years after starting the business the team were ready to launch their first product at the Slush tech conference.

The following year, with sales looking good, they secured $20 million in series A funding, valuing the company at approximately $100 million.

By early 2021, they had over 500,000 active users which allowed the business to raise another $100 million in Series B funding, bringing their valuation to around $800 million.

To date Oura has sold more than 2.5 million rings so far and is on track to reach $500 million in revenue through the calendar year 2024.

All of which goes to prove that, whatever business you start, it needs to be in an area you truly care about. That’s the only thing that will get you through the tough times, like 5 years of product development in the case of Oura.

So a good place to start might be with this simple question: ”what do I care about most in the world right now.”

Your business idea may well be the answer to that very question.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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