BUSINESS IDEA | VENTURE STARTUP

Business Simulations Game 💼 

Practice makes profit

Available Domain: Bizsim.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: They say the best way to learn is by doing. We totally agree, except from learning through memes of course.

But learning about entrepreneurship can be pretty difficult. In an ideal world anyone who wants to start a company would just start one and learn as they go, but everyone isn’t in a position to do this. It’s similar to stock trading. Many people don’t have thousands of dollars to go and trade, so what do they do? They “paper trade”, trading the markets with fake money to test their skills. So why not create this for starting a business? Here’s how.

Market Size: The business simulation games market was valued at $4.8 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a rate of 13.2% from 2024-2029

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A hyper-realistic business simulation game where players can run a virtual business to learn about how to run a particular type of company

How it Works:

• A user signs up to the platform and decides what business they want to start e.g. an e-commerce business, SaaS business etc.

• The player is given an initial budget and must make strategic decisions about the business. This includes areas like what products to sell, pricing, managing inventory, hiring, marketing strategies, financial planning and so on

• The player also experiences problems like supply chain shortages or other events that will hamper the business, similar to the real world

• Over time players learn what the key drivers in a particular industry is and how to run that type of business

Go-to-market: Start with a single type of business, like e-commerce, which many people want to start then expand into different types of businesses from there

Business Model: Ideally you sell this into business schools or corporations who then pay per player

Startup Costs: Building this out will be costly. You may need to do a small raise here to get the business off the ground

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Exit to an EdTech company like Coursera

Exit Multiple: This idea is at the intersection of Edtech and Gaming so would likely fetch a 5-7x revenue multiple (EdTech companies usually go for 6-8x revenue, gaming companies for 4-6x revenue)

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Quick Fire Ideas

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Perfect Domain: Socialstakes.io

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Ideal Domain: Salesduel.io

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

The Smart Potty

Peloton. Tesla. Both of these companies have made billions by putting a large screen on an everyday object (stationary bikes and cars of course). So why not apply this to another product…the potty.

The Smart Potty allows your child to watch their favorite show during potty time, making the experience 100x better. And if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that kids need more screen time right?

Toilet version coming soon.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Carnivore Snacks

The carnivore diet is getting more and more popular these days. This means that this growing population of consumers are looking for delicious snacks that suit their lifestyle. So why not create one for them?

Business Ideas

• Meat-Based Trail Mix: Create a meat-based trail mix product mixture of different dried meats such as jerky, pork crackling etc

• Bone Broth Shots Business: Create concentrated bone broth in single-serve packages, similar to juice shots you see everywhere, but for carnivore diet proponents

THE MONEYSHOT

How One Phone Call Led to an $800m Business

In 2024 no industry is too niche to build a gigantic business.

Take these two founders who started a business in a niche industry, but completely transformed the market to create an $800m business.

This is their story.

Bill Shufelt (right) is what you might call a reformed “finance bro.”

He graduated from Middlebury College with a Bachelor's degree in Economics in 2005 and worked as a trader at a hedge fund for many years. The trader life is renowned for its excesses - booze, drugs, ludes (shoutout Jordan Belfort) etc. But Bill was far from the typical Wall Street type. He was an ultramarathon runner focused on his health and in 2013 he decided to fully quit drinking for his health.

But pretty quickly Bill ran into a problem. He enjoyed the occasional beer but thought the non-alcoholic drink options on the market were poor.

Which got him thinking. He wondered if you could create a high-quality non-alcoholic beer that could fit into an active lifestyle?

For the next two years Bill spent his free time researching brewing and searching for a brewmaster to join him in his non-alcoholic beer venture. He posted a job ad on an online brewing forum, which he described as being for "the most innovative sector in craft beer." He got a response to this ad from John Walker, an accomplished craft brewer from Santa Fe, New Mexico. The pair set up a call and the first words out of Bill’s mouth to John were "Don't hang up. Just hear me out. It's nonalcoholic beer". Thankfully, John didn’t hang up.

The pair teamed up and developed a unique brewing method that fully ferments the beers to less than 0.5% ABV (alcohol by volume), the legal limit for non-alcoholic beer in the US. Their process doesn't involve removing alcohol after brewing or adding ingredients, which distinguished it from other non-alcoholic beers.

After perfecting their brewing process through over 100 test batches on homebrew equipment, in 2017 Bill and John felt they were ready to start their business.

They founded the Athletic Brewing Company.

They scraped together some money and opened the first brewery in the US dedicated solely to non-alcoholic beer production in May 2018.

Athletic Brewing initially launched with two beers in seven New England stores. But the company quickly expanded, eventually distributing across the United States and internationally. Their innovative approach and focus on quality led to rapid growth, with sales increasing from just $2.5 million in 2019 to about $15 million in 2020.

They completely transformed the industry. By 2022, the company's sales represented nearly half of all non-alcoholic craft beer sold in the USA.

Their success has attracted investment from notable figures and companies, including athletes, celebrities, and Keurig Dr Pepper who took a $50 million minority stake in Athletic Brewing in 2022.

In 2023, Athletic Brewing produced over 258,000 barrels of beer and the company generated $90 million in revenue. And the business plans to keep growing and earlier this year raised another $50m in funding at an $800 million valuation.

All of which goes to show that business ideas and opportunities won’t simply fall in your lap. You have to go out and find them yourself by talking to people with similar interests to you, whether in person, on forums or anywhere else.

Since, just like Bill and John, you could be one phone call away from changing your life.

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