BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Strava for Hybrid Athletes 🖥️

Flex appeal

Available Domain: Hybridflow.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: As we covered in a previous edition of Half Baked, the hybrid athlete movement is here to stay. Hybrid athletes are fitness enthusiasts who lift heavy weights while also doing marathons, triathlons and other cardio based activities. Which means were seeing less influencers totally focussed on weight training…

But for all the aspiring hybrid athletes out there tracking their training and activities can be tough. Existing products tend to focus on only one type of exercise (either cardio or strength training), leaving hybrid athletes juggling disconnected tools. So why not create an app for all the hybrid athletes out there? Here’s what we have in mind.

Market Size: The global fitness app market was valued at $14.7bn in 2023

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A social fitness tracking platform specifically designed for hybrid athletes who train across multiple disciplines

How it Works:

• A user signs up for the app and connects up whatever wearable device(s) they use to the platform

• The athlete’s runs, strength training sessions and other activities are automatically tracked through their device or can be logged manually by users if they prefer, such as logging the number of sets and reps they did on a particular exercise

• Workouts are shared with users’ followers and there are weekly and monthly competition and challenge features to motivate users

• Paid users have access to an AI coach feature which tracks their workouts and makes recommendations on training plans or specific exercises based on their goals

Go-to-market: Partner with hybrid athletes/influencers to get them to start using the app and expand from there

Business Model: Freemium Model with a basic plan, a premium plan for $9.99/month and an elite plan for $19.99/month (includes coaching features)

Startup Costs: Building an app with all of these integrations could be expensive, meaning you may need to do a small raise here to build the platform

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell to a wearables platform like WHOOP who would kill for the social aspect of this platform

Exit Multiple: Fitness tech companies typically exit at 5-8x revenue, like MyFitnessPal for $475M (5x revenue) and WHOOP for $3.6B valuation (8x revenue)

TOGETHER WITH OMNISEND

Black Friday without Panic Thursday

Are you feeling the traditional stress as Black Friday fast approaches, sending chills down your spine? This year, choose Omnisend and enjoy Black Friday without Panic Thursday. Our merchants see an average return of $73 for every dollar they spend, with:

• Effortless email & SMS automation to save time.

• Cart abandonment reminders to recover sales.

• Advanced segmentation for personalized campaigns.

• Customizable discount codes to drive conversions.

• Award-winning 24/7 customer support.

Take 30% off our paid plans for 3 months with code BFCM30OFF and enjoy email & SMS marketing that's so good, it's boring!

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

The Infinite Candle

With Christmas just around the corner Santa is hard at work preparing for the big day while Mariah Carey is defrosting as we speak, ready to re-emerge for the Holidays.

And as part of your Christmas celebrations you will undoubtedly either gift, or be gifted, a candle. But candles can often run out very quickly, until this innovation came along.

Introducing the infinite candle. The wax drips into the candle holder creating a brand new candle every single time.

Genius!

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: AI UGC

AI seems to be changing the entire world in real time, and one area that it’s changing is UGC. User-generated content (also known as UGC) is original, brand-specific content created by customers at no cost to a brand. It’s authentic, low cost, high signal content and brands love it. So what businesses can we build by combining AI with UGC?

Business Ideas

• AI UGC Localization Platform: Create a platform which adapts UGC content for different markets for brands

• AI UGC Asset Library: Create an asset library for generating supporting content elements, like background music or effects/transitions, for UGC content

THE MONEYSHOT

Making $5m Profit in a Few Months from 4 Letters

Once you have your first big win in entrepreneurship, winning becomes a habit.

Take this founder who, after building a $34bn business, managed to make a profit of $5m in a few months from selling a domain.

This is his story.

Dharmesh Shah lived a nomadic childhood.

He was born in India but attended 18 different schools across three countries (India, Canada, and the USA) growing up, before settling in the United States. For college he attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham, earning a degree in Computer Science.

But back in 1994, a few years after graduating, Dharmesh decided to launch his first startup. So at age 24 he founded his first startup, Pyramid Digital Solutions, with less than $10,000 in initial capital. The company specialized in developing software solutions for financial services and he bootstrapped the company for 11 years before selling to SunGard Data Systems in 2005, the company he worked for before starting the business.

After his exit Dharmesh decided to go back to school, completing a master's degree at MIT in 2005. But the most valuable thing he got out of his time at MIT wasn’t the education, it was the relationships, particularly his friendship with Brian Halligan.

The pair became close friends at MIT and both noticed something. They noticed there was a major shift in how people were buying products. Buyers didn’t want to be served ads, they wanted to be served useful content that could help inform buying decisions. They thought that someone needed to build a platform to help customers to leverage content-driven marketing strategies to drive sales. So that’s exactly what they built.

It was 2006 they were ready to launch their business.

They launched Hubspot.

In its initial phase, HubSpot had just three customers but grew rapidly by employing inbound marketing strategies that they preached. By 2007 the company was making around $250k in revenue and raised $5m to supercharge their growth. They raised again in 2010, bringing in $65m from investors like Sequoia Capital, when revenue was around $15.6m annually.

By 2014 Hubspot was doing over $100m in revenue and went public through an IPO that raised over $140 million, valuing the business at $1 billion. Today HubSpot is worth around $34bn and did $2.2bn of revenue in 2023. It’s a tech giant and an incredible story, but we’re more interested in a deal Dharmesh recently made.

In early 2023, Dharmesh announced that he had bought chat.com for $15.5 million. Quite the investment for just a domain name, but he thought it was worth it. A few months later he announced its sale without disclosing the buyer or final price, though he confirmed it was sold for more than he paid.

And just last week all was revealed when Sam Altman tweeted this:

It turns out the mysterious buyer of the domain was OpenAI. Dharmesh had seen the shift towards chat as an interface before the rest of the market did and bought the domain, knowing there would be a buyer interested in it eventually. While we don’t know how much the domain sold for we estimate it was around $20m, but that a meaningful portion of the deal would have been for OpenAI stock, which could be worth much, much more in the future. Not bad for a few months work (that work being making a single purchase).

It’s a great story, but what can we learn from it? We don’t all have $15m sitting around to yolo on speculative domains. That’s true. But what it does show is that once you get a big win, it unlocks more and more opportunities for you to win big in the future.

A quote from the late, great Charlie Munger comes to mind. “The first $100,000 is a b****, but you gotta do it.”

Because once you do, the floodgates for success really do open.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

#HalfBakedBizIdea

Elana sharing a super cool idea

DM us or use #halfbakedbizidea on X/Twitter to get your idea featured in our newsletter.