BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Lead Magnet Marketplace 🧲 

Lead-ing the way

Available Domain: Magnetmarket.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: We’re all familiar with magnets. Remember? They’re those things in school we all tried to join together…

But in marketing lead magnets are are very different. A lead magnet is a free item or service that businesses offer to potential customers in exchange for their email address. Think free eBooks, checklists, spreadsheet templates, webinars…the list goes on. We’ve all seen them, right? And great lead magnets can be invaluable to businesses, driving a ton of new signups and revenue for a business. So why not create a marketplace to allow businesses to profit off of their lead magnets in another way? Here’s how.

Market Size: The global digital marketing software market size reached $77.3bn in 2023

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform where marketers can sell their proven lead magnets (ebooks, templates, checklists, etc.) which can be customized by buyers for their own lead generation efforts

How it Works:

• A user signs up to the platform and uploads their lead magnet to the site

• Buyers can then browse different lead magnets by type, industry and so on and elect to buy them

• Once they acquire a lead magnet on the platform a user can customize it, add their own branding and prepare it so they can share it with their audience

Go-to-market: Start by searching Twitter for people sharing lead magnets and ask them if they want to try selling them on a platform to other marketers. They’ll be your first users.

Business Model: Take 10-20% of each sale on the platform

Startup Costs: You could start this very cheaply since the site would be very simple to build

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell the business to a large marketing company like SemRush

Exit Multiple: Marketplaces tend to sell for 6-12x EBITDA, so focus on topline growth but profitability too

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Election Cereal

With the election finally over we can all breathe a sigh of relief. But maybe some of you out there want a memento to celebrate the end of this election cycle?

Well the Airbnb founders famously funded their business by selling cereal during the 2008 election (dubbing themselves “cereal entrepreneurs”).

And hey, if enough people want to buy one, then we could do the same and make these for real 👀

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Hypochlorous Acid

While hypochlorous acid sounds like something you might use to kill a spy, in fact it’s used in skincare. It’s an active ingredient in skincare products used to fight common bacterial skin problems like acne, eczema, and psoriasis. And we reckon you could build some businesses in this space.

Business Ideas

• Men’s Hypochlorous Acid Brand: A liquid death style skincare brand that uses hypochlorous acid in its marketing, “burning blemishes” off a man’s face.

• Skincare Ingredient App: An app which scans ingredients in skincare products and explains what they are used for, if they’re considered safe, if they’re banned in other countries etc.

THE MONEYSHOT

How an Instagram Account Became a $100m+ Revenue Business

Sometimes, huge companies don’t even start as companies.

Take these two founders who turned an Instagram account into a $100m+ revenue business.

This is their story.

Nick Guillen (right) and Nick Ajluni go way back.

The pair met at California State University, Fullerton and at the time were obsessed with building brands. At the time Nick G ran his own hat apparel business and Nick A ran a powdered beverage brand.

Then after graduating college in 2015 Nick G managed to acquire something. He managed to secure the instagram handle @sauce. How exactly? Not exactly sure. But seeing an opportunity, the duo began using this account to curate and post food-related content. In fact in the early days they were posting up to 5 times per day, all to grow the account.

As the @sauce Instagram account quickly gained a following, the Nicks realized they were building an audience they could sell products to. They started brainstorming, considering various options like merchandise and salad dressing. But they kept it simple. What should you sell through the @sauce instagram account? Sauce.

They started looking at different products in the hot sauce market, trying to find a gap. Which is when they realised that no-one had created a truly premium hot sauce brand. So they started experimenting with various high-end ingredients, including saffron and caviar, and adding them to hot sauces. Ultimately, they decided on incorporating one luxury item into their hot sauce…truffles.

The development process was meticulous and time-consuming. The founders spent about two years perfecting their formula, going through over 300 recipes before finding one that met their exacting standards. But by December 2017 they were finally ready to launch their hot sauce brand.

They launched Truff.

Pretty quickly the brand started to gain traction in the market. The Nicks took inspiration from Liquid Death and designed viral marketing campaigns to both build their brand and sell their sauce.

Take their successful “food fight” campaigns where Chicago locals were asked to vote for their favorite pizza restaurant. The campaign involved influencer promotions and local billboards, culminating in a contest that generated over 12,000 votes and getting the brand tonnes of online recognition.

With these kind of marketing campaigns the sales of Truff have been very strong. While official revenue figures are hard to come by Truff says they have done more than $100m in revenue since they were founded. In fact the brand happens to be Kim Kardashian’s favorite hot sauce, which is why in Nov 2023 her private equity fund (that’s right, Kim K has a private equity fund) Skyy acquired a minority stake in Truff.

And since then the brand has gone from strength to strength and per filings with the SEC Truff raised $80m in Feb 2024 to further fuel their growth.

All of which goes to show that sometimes starting a business doesn’t start with a product, it can start with an audience. You can start by building a following and then sell products to your audience later. In fact this gives you a competitive advantage since you can acquire customers for $0 if you have a captive audience.

So maybe you shouldn’t be building a business, maybe you should be building an audience?

A hot take? Maybe. But definitely some food for thought.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

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