BUSINESS IDEA | CASH FLOW BUSINESS

Influencer-led Experiences 🤳  

From feed to friend

Available Domain: Fanbridge.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Airbnb has changed. For years it was the go-to destination for finding great accommodation. Nowadays? Not so much.

But Airbnb has innovated too, like in the area of experiences, where users can book unique experiences led by local guides. Which got us thinking. Could you get influencers specifically to lead or share these experiences with their fans? Like imagine getting to experience a food tour across a city with your favorite food creator. Here’s how we’re envisioning it.

Market Size: The influencer marketing industry globally was worth $21.1 billion dollars in 2023

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform which helps influencers to organise and monetize exclusive experiences with their fans

How it Works:

• An influencer signs up for the platform

• They can choose from pre-arranged experiences (arranged by the platform) which they can complete based on their location. For example a food creator based in London could select a food tour experience around London

• The creator can then decide what they want to charge for the experience and can share the opportunity with a select number of fans

• The fans can then purchase and attend the experience with their favorite creator and the creator takes a % of the revenue generated. A photographer and videographer also attend the event so the creator can turn the experience into content too

Go-to-market: Start with a particular creator niche where their content aligns with experiences, like food creators, then expand from there

Business Model: Platform fee where you take a % of the revenue generated (20% - 30%)

Startup Costs: You could start this for a few hundred bucks by organising some experiences

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: Given the network you would build up with this company you should hold it

TOGETHER WITH BEEHIIV

We love newsletter businesses

Newsletters are a high-margin way to build a tight-knit community of people just like you. Whether you’re sending to 10 people or 1,000,000, the effort is the same. But the rewards? They’re massive.

And because our job is to spark ideas, we’ve got three killer newsletter concepts you could launch (seriously, they’re there for the taking):

💡 Droids Daily

Your Morning Brew for robotics. A niche audience that’s ready to geek out—and pay up. High-value, untapped potential.

😂 The Meme Times

All the day’s major headlines, told through memes. Broad appeal, viral-worthy, and a totally fresh twist on news.

🎙️ The Employee # Newsletter

Interviews with the OG unicorn builders. Packed with insider insights from the earliest employees of billion-dollar startups.

If you’re starting one of these (or your own brilliant idea), beehiiv is the platform to grow your newsletter from Day 1.

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

30 Under 30 Year Sentences

Forbes famously releases their “30-under-30“ lists of all the movers and shakers in business and entertainment who are out there changing the world.

But since so many of their picks end up in jail we thought we’d start the “Half Baked 30 Under 30 Year Sentences“ for the entrepreneurs currently trying to innovate their way out of a jail cell.

In fact a new founder just added herself to the list this week.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Bluesky

Everyone seems to be talking about Bluesky right now. The decentralized alternative to Twitter crossed 20m users earlier this month, adding 2.5m users in just one week (the week after the election). The irony is that Twitter’s biggest competitor was initially built inside Twitter itself by Jack Dorsey before it was spun out. Twitter created their own biggest enemy. But what business ideas can we take from the rise in Bluesky’s popularity?

Business Ideas

• Rocket Internet for Decentralized Apps: Create a studio which specializes in developing clones of popular sites that are decentralized in nature

• Decentralized Community Management: Create tools for managing decentralized communities

TOGETHER WITH BELAY

Accomplish More. Juggle Less.

When you love what you do, it can be easy to take on more — more tasks, more deadlines, more hours – but before you know it, you don’t have time to do what you loved in the beginning. Don’t just do more – do more of what you do best.

BELAY’s flexible staffing solutions leverage industry experience with AI systems to increase productivity without sacrificing quality. You can accomplish more and juggle less with our exceptional U.S.-based Virtual Assistants, Accounting Professionals, and Marketing Assistants. Learn how with our free ebook, Delegate to Elevate, and leave the more to BELAY.

Download now

THE MONEYSHOT

How a Surfing Trip Led to the Rise (and Fall) of a $10bn Business

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall”. It’s an old boxing adage that equally applies to entrepreneurship.

Take this founder for example, whose brilliant idea turned into a multi-billion dollar business, until his excesses meant it’s lost 96% of its value.

This is his story.

Nick Woodman is a classic California surfer “dude”.

He attended the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) for college, earning a bachelor's degree in visual arts in 1997. Why UC San Diego? Mainly because it was close to the beach and Nick loved to surf.

But Nick also wanted to be a startup founder, so he set himself a challenge. He would give himself until he was 30 to invent a product and if he couldn’t he’d go and get a “real job”. The clock was ticking.

Sure enough, after graduating from UC San Diego and with his self-imposed clock ticking, Nick tried a few startups. He started a site which sold electronic goods for a markup of $2 or less, but it never launched.

He also founded a gaming and marketing platform called Funbug, which gave users a chance to win cash prizes in 1999. At the height of the tech bubble investors practically begged Nick to take their $3.9 million in investment, which he did, but by April 2001 Funbug had gone bust. Nick was down, but he wasn’t out.

After shuttering Funbug Nick planned a five-month surfing trip around the coasts of Australia and Indonesia with his wife. While it was meant to serve as a break from business it ended up being the best business decision he ever made, because on this trip he had his big idea.

During his trip Nick was surfing and he wanted to take some photos of himself, so he bought a cheap camera and strapped it to his wrist with a rubber band. It didn’t work very well, but it was the germ of a great idea.

When he returned home Nick wanted to build a proper surfer’s camera, so he borrowed $200,000 from his investment banker father (nice for some) and $35,000 from his mother which clearly proved that his Dad loved him 5.7x more than his Mom.

It was 2002 and with this initial investment Nick had just founded GoPro.

For the next 2 years Nick worked with a Chinese manufacturer to create a small, cheap 35mm camera with a plastic case and a strap. This was the first GoPro Hero and in 2004 Nick managed to sell $150k worth of products. Not a bad start.

For the next few years the company focussed on improving their products, meaning by 2007 revenue hit $3.4 million. In 2008 it jumped to $20m as the company opened up new markets and started selling ancillary products too.

By 2010 the brand was doing over $100m in revenue per year and in 2012 they received a huge injection of capital from FoxConn, who famously manufacture the iPhone. Foxconn invested $200million for 8.8% of the company, valuing GoPro at a whopping $2.25 billion. Nick retained 50% ownership in the business.

By 2014, the business was generating over $1 billion in annual revenue and in June 2014 GoPro decided to go public at $24 per share. By October the stock was trading at $86 per share giving the company a market cap of over $10 billion. It had taken a decade but Nick had made it. Now it was time to celebrate.

Nick started embracing his billionaire status and bought mansions, yachts, private jets…you name it. In 2014 he was the highest paid CEO in America, taking home $285 million in earnings.

But soon the tide started to turn for Nick and GoPro.

After the IPO operating costs exploded. Headcount doubled in just 8 months and marketing budgets increased drastically, which meant despite strong revenues, the business was hemorrhaging cash. GoPro also tried to launch new products, such as the GoPro Session which was hated and the GoPro Kama drone, which was a disaster too.

The business was losing $400m per year and at the same time Chinese companies were entering the market and selling clones of GoPro cameras for a fraction of the price.

Eventually the share price started to tumble and Nick saw the error of his ways. GoPro went through a few rounds of layoffs and tried to right the ship, but over time the share price fell…and fell…and fell to where it is today, where GoPro is worth just $185m. Sure that’s still a huge number objectively, but it’s a shadow of what it once was.

All of which goes to show that in business, you can’t take anything for granted. One day you’ll be on top of the world but if you get complacent, the market will come for you.

Because in the end, just like the house, the market always wins.

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