BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

AI Weight Training App 🏋️ 

Strength in numbers

Available Domain: Repright.ai

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Depending on who you are the gym is either your happy place, or hell on earth. Although whether you love the gym or not we can all agree on one thing. We hate it when people film in the gym…

However not all people filming in the gym are created equal. Some are recording themselves for TikTok sure, but many film themselves to check and critique their form. They combine these videos with hardware devices which cost like $400 (like this one) which you attach to a barbell to understand the load they’re lifting. But here’s the thing. We believe that we can build just as good a solution for 100x cheaper using AI. Here’s what we’re thinking.

Market Size: The global fitness app market size was valued at $14.7 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.6% from 2024 to 2030

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: An app that tracks a user’s weight lifting form, force and reps using computer vision

How it Works:

• The user opens the app and sets up their phone to record themselves lifting

• The app then uses AI to track their body position, the number of reps, the weight on the bar, the bar path and the velocity/force exerted by the lifter all using machine learning

• This data is all recorded and the app provides feedback on what the lifter should do to improve their form which is generated by AI

• Users can also share their videos with verified experts on the platform too to get personalised feedback on their technique if they want a more personal touch

Go-to-market: Start with the “prosumers” in this market, like powerlifters, who are already recording their lifts and pitch them on the advantages of this app

Business Model: Monthly subscription fee

Startup Costs: You could spin up an app which does this for a few thousand dollars, ideally with a technical co-founder

Competitors: Your big competitors here are physical devices like the Beast Sensor, but this solution is far, far cheaper

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell to a major fitness business like MyFitnessPal (owned by UnderArmour)

Exit Multiple: Based on recent fitness tech acquisitions and market conditions you could sell this for 5x - 8x

TOGETHER WITH RYSE

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This year, RYSE surpassed $10 million in total revenue, expanded to 127 Best Buy locations, and experienced explosive 200% month-over-month growth. With partnerships in progress with major retailers like Lowe’s and Home Depot, they’re set for even bigger milestones, including international expansion and new product launches.

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

The Mouthbrush

The humble toothbrush has its roots in ancient society, where the Egyptians and ancient Babylonians used small twigs with frayed ends to clean their teeth.

But while “big toothpaste” likes to convince us that they’re constantly innovating, we all have cavities and various different tooth problems we’re nursing. We need something better than toothbrushes. And this is it…

With the Mouthbrush you simply put this in your mouth and let it do all the work. It never misses a spot and just 30 seconds on your top and bottom teeth is infinitely better than brushing your teeth.

Sure it looks slightly horrifying, however that’s the price you have to pay for the perfect smile (as well as the actual price of the device…)

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Bible Sales

While we’re not quite sure of the origins of the phrase “y’all need Jesus” , it turns out a lot of people are taking the phrase quite literally. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Bible sales increased from 9.7 million in 2019 to 14.2 million in 2023, a 46% jump in sales over that period. And in the first 10 months of 2024, 13.7 million copies were sold already, meaning this growth trend will continue. Why? Some think it correlates with rising levels of anxiety and depression with people turning to the Bible for answers. Regardless we think there are some great businesses to be built in this space.

Business Ideas

• NFC-enabled Christian Jewelry: Create a range of jewelry for Christians with NFC chips inside which users can scan to read passages from the Bible

• Bible in a Year Newsletter: Create a newsletter where you split the bible into 365 parts and send a newsletter everyday so someone can read the entire bible in a year

TOGETHER WITH AI TOOL REPORT

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THE MONEYSHOT

How Volunteering Led to a +$100m Business

Sometimes great business ideas take time to discover.

Take these founders who spent 2 years talking about different business ideas before they created a +$100m revenue business together.

This is their story.

Michael Karnjanaprakorn inherited two things from his parents. A second name which could serve as a kickass scrabble score, and a passion for entrepreneurship.

He was born in Virginia but spent his formative years in Korea, where he witnessed his parents juggling various small businesses, including a gift store and a seafood takeout.

He attended the University of Virginia and ended up working in tech, leading the product team at Hot Potato, a social media product acquired by Facebook.

At the time Michael was heavily involved in the tech scene in New York and through the NYC tech scene he met Malcolm Ong. Malcolm was a product manager at OMGPop at the time (the game studio famously behind Draw Something) and just like Michael wanted to start his own business.

The pair knew they wanted to start a company together, so they spent 1 - 2 years discussing various different business ideas. Until Michael had a lightbulb moment.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Michael started volunteering at a charter school in New Orleans where he recognized the limitations of traditional education. He wondered if you could democratize education by allowing anyone to teach and learn creative and practical skills.

So in November 2010 Michael and Malcolm founded a business to solve this problem, a company you’ve almost certainly heard of, but had to pivot to become what it is today.

They founded Skillshare.

When the site went live in April 2011 Skillshare started as a platform for in-person classes in New York City, leveraging community spaces as classrooms. In August 2011 they raised $3.1 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital for the venture.

But pretty quickly the platform ran into scaling issues. This model was inherently unscalable, so in August 2012 they decided to pivot away from in-person classes to online courses. That month they launched their first 15 online courses to rave reviews.

In May 2016 they raised $12 million in Series B funding to keep growing and added more and more classes to the site. By 2017, Skillshare had registered over 3 million users and offered more than 17,000 classes across a diverse range of subjects. Talk about exponential growth.

From there growth hasn’t slowed. They raised $28 million in 2018 and $66 million in 2020 to support the platform as it scaled. And boy has it scaled.

As of 2023, Skillshare has over 30,000 classes, 8,000 teachers, and more than 13 million users. The site brings in more than $100m in revenue per year, which makes sense given how much they seem to spend sponsoring every YouTuber on the planet. But I digress.

Ultimately Skillshare proves that it can take time for great ideas to present themselves. Michael and Malcolm spent 2 years looking for the right idea to pursue until they finally found the right one…and still pivoted before they made it work.

The key is to always keep your eyes open for opportunities, because if you keep looking hard enough you’ll have that lightbulb moment too.

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