BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Zillow for Cheap International Properties 🏚️

No place like roam

Available Domain: Dollarhomes.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: The US housing market is insane right now. You can drop $400k on a house and depending where you buy you could be living in a mansion or a box.

But as crazy as the US housing market is, things are even crazier in other parts of the world. In Italy you can buy houses for $1, in Spain you can buy entire towns for a few thousand dollars and Japan has a huge problem with “Akiyas” or empty homes which are selling incredibly cheaply. There are around 9 million of these Akiyas in Japan which is creating opportunities for real estate investors. Take this guy who bought and renovated an Akiya near Tokyo for c.$110k which now brings in $11k per month through AirBnB. There’s clearly a huge arbitrage opportunity here, so let’s unlock it.

Market Size: The global residential real estate industry was valued at $8.8 trillion in 2022. This is a much smaller subset of the real estate industry but still a huge market.

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform for buying very cheap investment properties around the world

How it Works:

• The user goes to the site and can search for highly affordable real estate opportunities worldwide by location, price etc.

• It aggregates listings from various countries, focusing on properties priced significantly below market value due to factors such as foreclosures, distressed sales, or underdeveloped markets.

• The platform provides detailed property information, local market insights, and facilitates transactions through partnerships with local real estate agents and legal advisors so users can purchase the properties

Go-to-market: Start by partnering with local real estate agencies to source listings and handle transactions to get some sales over the line and prove out the model

Business Model: Charge a percentage of each successful transaction and allow local service providers (lawyers, property managers etc.) to advertise on the platform.

Startup Costs: You could start this pretty cheaply since it’s basically just a listing website

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell to an online real estate business like Zillow or Realtor.com

Exit Multiple: Based on recent exits in the proptech space and considering the potential market size, a realistic exit multiple could range from 4x to 10x annual revenue.

TOGETHER WITH OMNISEND

The Most Boring Marketing Tactic

Let’s be real.

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Who wants more excitement when you can have stable and effective instead?

Let’s be boring, in the best way possible.

Brands using Omnisend on average make $73 for every $1 spent using their all-in-one e-commerce marketing platform.

No need to learn anything new here. A platform so boringly intuitive, it’s like you designed it yourself.

No venturing into the great unknown. Their support team is available 24/7 to make sure you don’t have any unwanted adventures.

Use code HALFBAKED10 & get 10% off your first 3 months.

For new paid plans only, expires Dec. 31, 2024

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Torch Slippers

It’s the middle of the night. You need to use the bathroom. You need to make the long walk from your warm, cosy bed to the cold, dark bathroom. Making the trip is like crossing a warzone.

You have to avoid whatever crosses your path…sleeping pets, Lego landmines, the list goes on. And grabbing your phone to use as a torch is dangerous, since it invariably leads to a 2a.m TikTok scrolling session.

Well we have THE solution to this problem…torch slippers. Simply slip them on and allow them to light your path forward.

Easily a billion dollar business 😂

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: At-home Blood Tests

“You can't manage what you can't measure” is a famous quote best applied to the health and wellness space. In recent years, as more and more of us hone in on our health, there’s been a huge movement towards measuring our health markers, from fitness trackers to continuous glucose monitors. And the cornerstone of health monitoring is blood testing. In recent years giant businesses like LetsGetChecked and EverlyWell have been built through at home blood testing, and in the future more and more people will be taking blood tests at home. So why not build a business in the space today?

Business Ideas

• Mobile Phlebotomy: Create a network of mobile phlebotomists who can visit homes to collect blood samples professionally.

• Unified Health Tracking Platform: Create a system that combines at-home blood testing with data from fitness trackers and smartwatches for more comprehensive health monitoring.

• Phlebotomy Drone Delivery: Develop a system for rapid transport of blood samples from remote locations using drones

THE MONEYSHOT

Turning $10k into a $600m Exit in 4 Years

If I gave you $10k today what could you do with it. Buy a really nice watch? Sure. Buy a not-so-nice car? Maybe.

Or maybe you could do what these founders did and take that $10k and turn it into a $600m exit in just 4 years.

This is their story.

Peter Rahal (right) was never a model student.

Like many others with dyslexia Peter always found school challenging, but his dyslexia meant he excelled in many other areas.

Peter attended a small private college called Wittenberg University where in his freshman year he met Jared Smith (left), where the pair forged a friendship that would last a lifetime.

After college Peter spent some time working in marketing for Mondi Foods. Peter’s time in the food industry, coupled with his love of crossfit, gave him an idea. He noticed there was a lack of clean-label protein bars that utilized whole food ingredients, particularly those suitable for the many crossfitters who followed a paleo diet. So Peter decided he’d create something himself.

He brought in Jared and the two started making bars in Peter’s parents’ basement in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. They used simple ingredients like almonds, cacao, figs, dates and egg whites to make their bars. They then shared their concoctions with Peter’s CrossFit buddies, tweaking the recipes based on their feedback. Finally in 2013 they landed on a product they were happy with and they were ready to go.

They launched RXBAR.

The early days were scrappy. Both Peter and Jared only put in $5k to get the business going, meaning they operated on shoestring budgets. They would buy pouches from China, design the labels on PowerPoint and go to Staples to get them printed. The early bars even had Peter’s cell phone number on the label, their answer to customer support.

Their go-to-market strategy was super simple. They focussed exclusively on selling the products through crossfit gyms in the early days, which gave them some great early wins. In fact they managed to hit $600k in sales in their first 9 months of trading.

By year 2 sales hit $2m but they had a problem…the branding. They started to expand beyond crossfit gyms to convenience stores and other retailers and their sales were very poor. They needed to change something.

So in late 2015 they embarked on a project to rebrand the bar, focussing primarily on the ingredients found inside it. This turned out to be their breakthrough moment.

In 2016 regional retailers like Wegman’s picked up the product and sales ballooned to $36m that year. This laid the groundwork for the larger national retailers to pick up the brand, which led to a sales explosion. In 2017 sales hit $161m and it was the fastest growing bar brand in the US at the time. And incredibly they managed to achieve this growth without any outside investment, fully bootstrapping the business.

This explosion in popularity made them an acquisition target for the big players in the food market and in October 2017, RXBAR was acquired by Kellogg's for $600 million.

After taking some time-off (and waiting out his non-compete) after the acquisition Peter is back in the arena building another bar company - David. His goal for this business? $1bn in revenue. Talk about thinking big.

All of which goes to show that sometimes a small change can be transformational for a business. So don’t give up until you’ve exhausted all avenues, until you’ve tried everything.

You might be one change away from success.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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