BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Timeleft for Running 🏃 

Sole mates

Available Domain: Rundezvous.app

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: In a recent edition of Half Baked we covered the epic story of Timeleft and how they scaled from $0 to $10m ARR by helping strangers to meet for dinner. Which got us thinking. Could you apply the same principle to burning calories instead of consuming them? And by burning calories we of course mean exercise, not the way I usually burn calories…

We’ve all heard about the recent running renaissance, mainly because we all have that one friend whose entire personality revolves around running. But finding someone to run with in a similar location, at a similar fitness level, at a similar time is almost impossible. So let’s make an app for that.

Market Size: As of 2024 over 60 million Americans engage in running/jogging regularly

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: An app which matches up small groups of runners in similar locations and of similar fitness levels so they can run together

How it Works:

• A user signs up to the platform and gives details on where they’re based, their running experience and what times they have available to run

• Users are matched algorithmically based on the time they want to train and their running experience. Groups of 4 - 5 runners get paired together for runs and can meet-up at the specified time and place to run together

• Users get to meet new runners every week but can build and maintain friendships with anyone they meet through the app

Go-to-market: Start by working with run clubs to create more opportunities for their members to meet-up and expand from there

Business Model: Monthly subscription fee based on the number of runs a user attends

Startup Costs: You could spin up an app here for a few thousand dollars and this will scale really well

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Exit to a fitness tech company like Strava

Exit Multiple: You’ll likely sell this for 5x - 8x revenue all going well

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Pre-Walkout

If you’re a gym rat then you’ll know that some days you need copious amounts of caffeine to power through your workout. Well if you have days like that, it’s fair to say that your dog could have similar days too? Well not anymore.

With “Pre-Walkout” your dog will never experience that feeling again. One scoop of this stuff and your dog will be transformed from a timid terrier into a wild wolf ready to walk and run anywhere.

Coming soon to a pet store near you.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Banana Ketchup

It seems like new sauces and condiments are being invented every few weeks. Take banana ketchup, a Philippine fruit ketchup condiment made from banana, sugar, vinegar, and spices. Or remember the viral Pink Sauce from 2022? I don’t even want to know what was in that stuff. But more broadly sauces are having a moment right now, so why not cash in on this red-hot trend and build a business in this space?

• Birchbox for Sauces: A subscription service where users receive sauce samples to try and receive monthly discounts if they give feedback on the sauces

• Supliful for Condiments: Create a company which allows restaurants or creators to quickly launch their own hot sauce brand

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THE MONEYSHOT

The Founders Who Waited 13 Years to Launch their $1.5bn Business

They say that good things come to those who wait.

Well these founders had to wait 15 years before they could turn their business idea into a $1.5bn business.

This is their story.

Michael Horvath (left) and Mark Gainey (right) have always been a great team.

The pair met at Harvard as undergraduates and were teammates on Harvard’s rowing team. Think the Winklevoss twins, without the twin (or the Bitcoin) part.

After they graduated in the late 80’s the pair went down separate paths. Mark went into venture capital in Palo Alto. Michael became an academic, pursuing a PhD in economics at Northwestern University.

But they were always interested in starting businesses and in the mid 90s would meet regularly at Michael’s office to discuss different ideas. Why? Michael’s office you ask? Mainly because his office had fast internet. The 90s were a different time man.

In 1996 the pair were discussing different business ideas and thought about how they could recreate the experience they had training at Harvard. They wanted to create an online community where athletes could connect, compete, track and share their runs or bike rides. But they had a problem.

Back in the 90s software this advanced seemed almost impossible to build. So they decided to table it and pursued a different idea. Instead they built software to help businesses manage email and web-based communications, so that year they founded Kana Communications.

It was a huge success and in 1999 the company went public. In fact the company’s valuation topped $10bn in 2000. But after the dot com bubble burst the company started to decline and by 2005 both Michael and Mark had left Kana.

After Kana the pair still felt like they had unfinished business…their original idea. Technology had improved so much that now they knew they could build the product they wanted.

So in 2009 they hired a small team of six to join them and created a very basic prototype of their social network for fitness enthusiasts.

They founded Strava.

Why the name? Well "Strava" is derived from the Swedish word for "strive." Why Swedish? No idea. But hey it’s a great name.

When Strava launched they began by telling friends and family about the idea. In fact they had to sign users up manually because they hadn’t even built out a sign up flow.

In the early days Michael and Mark invested their own money in the business, deciding to bootstrap until they understood the size of the opportunity in front of them. Pretty quickly though they realised this could be a huge business, so they raised a small series A in October of 2010 in 2011 over 2 rounds the company raised $16m. They were off to the races.

From there the company grew…and grew…and grew. Between 2013 and 2018 the company raised more than $50m in funding and by 2018 had more than 30m users.

The company still had room to grow and in November 2020 Strava raised a $110 million Series F from TCV and Sequoia Capital at a $1.5 billion valuation. By 2020 they had around 50m users and these funds helped to propel Strava to the 100m user mark.

As of 2023, Strava generates $275 million in revenue per year and has over 120 million registered users. It’s a gigantic business and even though they had to be patient, building Strava was worth the wait.

Which goes to show that sometimes, in order to make a great business idea work, you have to wait for technology to catch up. We think that AI will have a similar impact here, allowing us to build products that seemed impossible to create before.

So if you’ve been waiting for technology to make your big idea possible…now could be your time.

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