BUSINESS IDEA | VENTURE STARTUP

Zoom for Earnings Calls 📊 

Call street

Available Domain: Marcast.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Every quarter around 6,000 public companies, by law, have to do an earnings call where they update their shareholders and the wider world on how the last quarter went. Investors, bankers and traders all analyze their calls in incredible detail, as do some of us at home.

But here’s the thing. For companies giving these calls is a real pain. It’s a mess of cobbled-together solutions (Zoom + phone bridge + Investor Relations website + separate Q&A system) and companies have to juggle multiple platforms while ensuring everything works perfectly for a high-stakes event. So why not build a dedicated product for this exact use case? Sure this would be a tough business to build, but it could be incredibly lucrative too. Here’s how to do it.

Market Size: The TAM here isn’t huge (6,000 publicly traded companies in the US, 4 earnings calls per year) but if you expand into other adjacencies like private equity/venture capital fund updates the TAM could get much bigger

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A specialized video conferencing platform designed specifically for earnings calls

How it Works:

• A company signs up to the platform and can schedule a livestream for their earnings call

• Viewers can join the call through a phone or computer and during the call slide decks and other key documents are available to viewers directly in the app, as well as a Q&A forum where viewers can ask questions

• All calls are recorded in accordance with SEC regulations and available to publish on YouTube or the company’s website after the call, along with a transcript of the call

• After the call the company can view detailed analytics on the call like number of viewers, engagement, watch time etc.

Go-to-market: Start with selling into small public companies and expand from there

Business Model: Monthly subscription fee (charge a few thousand dollars per month)

Startup Costs: The cost of building the tech, high hosting costs and the long sales cycle means you will need to raise money here to get this off the ground

Competitors: There are some old school players in the market but most companies opt for a mixture of 3 - 4 different tools, showing no-one has solved this problem yet

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: The goal here is to exit to a huge finance software company like Bloomberg or Refinitiv who could layer this into their existing product lineup

Exit Multiple: SaaS companies in the financial services space generally go for 10-14x revenue given the caliber and stickiness of customers

TOGETHER WITH NAME.COM

AI Agents are the New SaaS

We’re calling it now. AI Agents, which are programs that automatically perform tasks with limited human input, will be the biggest trend for the next 3 - 5 years.

So let’s get your creative juices flowing with these quick fire AI Agent ideas and domains so you can get started straight away with name.com:

💡Resum8 - Search for job openings at specific companies and tailor my resume to match each job.

Perfect domain: resum8.ai

💡Compare Competitors - Automates the process of collecting and analyzing data on rival companies, providing insights into their market position, strengths, weaknesses, and strategies.

Great domain: comparecompetitors.ai

💡Techstacker - Discover the technologies and tools used on any website.

Kickass domain: techstacker.ai

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Bed - Bath Conversion Kit

Ever found yourself short a bed for a guest to sleep in? Or had a friend pass out in your bathtub after a heavy night of boozing? Well boy do we have a product for you.

With the Bed-Bath Conversion Kit you can convert your bathtub into a comfy bed for guests to sleep (or pass out) in. We 3D print a fitted air mattress which you can drop into your tub for the perfect night sleep. Sheets and pillows are extra of course.

Coming soon…

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Executive Security

While the dust is still settling from the murder of Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, one clear second order effect of this event is that executive security services are about to explode in popularity. Some companies already spend big on security for their leaders, like Meta spending $23m in 2023 on security to protect Mark Zuckerberg, but you can expect more companies to take executive security more seriously in the future.

Business Ideas

• Freelance Executive Security Platform: Create a platform for companies to hire security personnel on-demand for their executives

• AI Bodycams for Private Security: Sell bodycams to be used by private security personnel which records and monitors for threats

TOGETHER WITH CIZZLE BIO

Own shares in early lung cancer detection.

Cizzle Biotech's groundbreaking blood test detects early-stage lung cancer with over 95% accuracy. Partnerships like Bio-Techne and Moffitt Cancer Center back our patented science. Our early detection could save lives and lower healthcare costs. Be a part of this vital medical breakthrough that could impact millions.

Join the Raise

^{Read the Offering information carefully before investing. It contains details of the issuer’s business, risks, charges, expenses, and other information, which should be considered before investing. Obtain a Form C and Offering Memorandum at invest.cizzlebio.com}

THE MONEYSHOT

From Prison to Making +$100m Selling Underpants

Every founder’s story is completely unique, but some are a little more interesting than others.

Take this founder who had to step away from his company to go to prison before it went on to become a +$100m/year business.

This is his story.

Jonathan Shokrian’s life story is a good one.

He was born in early 1985 in Beverly Hills to a family of Persian Jewish immigrants who had fled Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Jonathan attended Beverly Hills High School and graduated from Southern Methodist University in 2010 with a degree in Religious Studies, a degree I’m sure served him well in his entrepreneurship career.

After college Jonathan went to work for his Dad who owned a commercial real estate business. And with this job Jonathan was travelling a lot.

One day he was packing for a trip to Europe and lamented the fact that he didn’t have enough underwear for the trip. So he went to a department store to pick up a few pairs, but found the whole shopping experience uncomfortable, inconvenient and expensive. He was overpaying for what was deemed “premium” underwear that wasn’t even comfortable.

Once on the trip, Jonathan complained to his friends about the experience. One of those friends was Jonathan Neman, the co-founder and CEO of fast-growing salad chain SweetGreen. Turns out guys named Jonathan tend to be great founders. Who knew?

Neman urged Shokrian to channel his frustration into solving the problem, which is exactly what he decided to do.

So in 2011 the 25 year-old Jonathan went out and raised $400k in funding from friends, family, and angel investors in what’s known as an FFF round (friends, family and fools) in order to disrupt the underwear space.

He founded Meundies.

Meundies was reinventing the underwear game in a number of ways. It was the first DTC subscription-based underwear brand and the company created bold, colorful designs which really stood out. The product was also incredibly soft, which customers loved.

The company got some early traction and in 2012 and 2013 the company raised $1.4m to continue growing. The company was growing largely through word of mouth and viral ad campaigns, like giving an endorsement deal to then Dallas Cowboys running back Joseph Randle in 2014 after Randle had been arrested for shoplifting underwear. Super smart.

After about 4 years the company had sold their first million pairs of underwear, but as the business was on the up a ghost from Jonathan’s past came back to haunt him.

In 2014 a case was brought against Jonathan from his old job in his Dad’s real estate company. During his tenure he oversaw the improper removal of asbestos at a Texas property owned by his family’s company. He pleaded guilty to violating the 2008 Clean Air Act and was sentenced to just over a year in federal prison, ultimately serving a 7 month term.

When Jonathan went to prison he stepped down as CEO, but the business continued on without him. Over the next 3 years, from 2014 to 2017 they sold another 8 million pairs of underwear, and picking up $12 million of investment in 2015 for good measure.

The business was firing on all cylinders and ultimately Jonathan became CEO again in 2018, completing his redemption arc.

By 2019 the company was bringing in $75 million in revenue and in 2020 raised $40m to capitalize on growth opportunities presented by the pandemic. Today the business does around $100m in revenue per year, with the brand expanding beyond just underwear to other products like socks, t-shirts and other basics and loungewear.

It’s an incredibly interesting story that goes to prove that, in business, momentum is everything. Meundies had so much momentum that even the founder getting locked up couldn’t stop it.

And how do you get momentum you ask? It’s simple. You start…then you don’t stop.

1 - 1 FOUNDER FEEDBACK

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