BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Co-shopping Platform 🛍️ 

Co-shop ‘til you drop

Available Domain: Apartcart.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: If you’re addicted to online shopping…you’re not alone. We all are. The dopamine hit with every “Add to Cart”. The rush of clicking “Buy Now”. Unfortunately though, it’s not the easiest addiction to hide…

But online shopping does have one major downfall…it’s a lonely experience. In the real world, shopping is social. It’s something we do with friends, partners, roommates, siblings. But online? Shopping is a solo, isolated activity, even you try to text screenshots or send links to your friends. It’s time to change that.

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A real-time co-shopping app that lets people browse and shop online together in sync

How it Works:

• Start a Session: One user starts a co-shopping session and invites a friend, partner, or group via a link.

• Browse Together in Sync: Everyone can scroll, click, and browse websites in real-time seeing each other’s cursors and product actions live.

• Chat & React Instantly: Users can chat, drop emojis, or voice call while shopping to discuss picks, react to items, or vote on favorites etc.

• Save & Share Carts: Users can build shared wishlists or carts, compare options, and save items together for later purchase or gifting.

Go-to-market: Target Gen Z + Millennial women with viral short-form content and start partnering with influencers early on to get the word out there

Business Model: Partner with e-commerce stores for listings on the site

Startup Costs: You’ll need to be super technical to spin this up, so be prepared to partner with a technical co-founder

Competitors: Plenty of companies exist in the “co-browsing” space, but nobody has cracked mainstream co-shopping though (yet)

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell to a company like Klarna or a player in the live shopping market like Whatnot

Exit Multiple: Consumer social apps typically exit for 3x–10x revenue

TOGETHER WITH OMNISEND

Gone Viral Yet? Us Neither…

Going viral sounds nice and exciting, but even if you succeed the fame is more like 15 seconds than 15 minutes.

So why not talk directly to the people who already like you and your brand (and we aren’t talking about your mom).

Email & SMS marketing is the GOAT when it comes to this. As boring as it sounds, Omnisend can help you build an audience of people who like you and convert them into recurring sales.

1. Collect contact details of people who already like your brand.

2. Segment them.

3. Send them personalized offers.

4. Watch sales happen in front of your eyes.

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Settlers of Silicon Valley

• You’ve played Settlers of Catan before. Well now it’s time to play the newest version…Settlers of Silicon Valley™.

• Welcome to the wild frontier of startups and venture capital, where your resources aren’t wood, brick, and sheep - they’re code, cloud credits, and user data.

• Build your empire from a scrappy garage startup to a billion-dollar unicorn. Trade engineers, acquire server farms, and launch MVPs - all while fending off hostile takeovers, algorithm updates, and your rival founder’s shady tactics.

• You know you want it.

Vote

• ✅ I need this in my life

• ❌ What have you guys been smoking?

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Genome Mapping

• Today, after nearly 20 years in business, 23andme filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Waning demand for DNA testing kits, as well as privacy concerns around how they stored and shared sensitive DNA data, ultimately led to the company’s downfall. But there’s a wider trend in this space at work…

• Back in 2006, when 23andme launched, it cost about $10m to read all of someone’s DNA (called a “whole genome” test). Now? This whole-genome test cost just a few hundred dollars.

• This means that today you can complete a true DNA health test (for family planning, disease risks etc.) with a single cheek swab, opening up incredible possibilities for products.

• Who knows, 23andme may well be the Yahoo or the Blockbuster of the genetic testing market which may only be just ready to take-off

Business Ideas

• DuckDuckGo for Genetic Testing: Create a DNA testing kit service, similar to DuckDuckGo, fully built around privacy

• Genetic-Based Preventive Health Insurance: Partner with insurers to offer personalized premiums and preventive care programs based on individual risk profiles from genome data

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THE MONEYSHOT

How a Book Accidentally Became a $1.5bn Business

No two founder journeys are alike.

Take this founder who set out to write a book but accidentally started a $1.5bn business in the process.

This is her story.

Lynda Weinman is a true internet OG.

And back in the early '90s she was teaching computer graphics and digital design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Nothing fancy, just helping people to understand this new thing called the internet.

Eventually she decided to expand beyond her class so in 1995 Lynda wrote a book called “Designing Web Graphics”. The book was pretty successful but the key was the little companion site she launched alongside the book. It was a simple website where readers could grab example files and a few extra tutorials to help them apply the learnings from the book. Again, nothing fancy.

That little companion site though? It started getting bookmarked. Shared. Passed around like a…well you can fill in that blank yourself.

Seeing all the traction the site was getting Lynda and her husband, Bruce Heavin, began uploading free tutorials to the site in different areas like HTML, web design, basic coding etc. and over time the site became a go-to resource for digital creatives.

This was the beginning of Lynda.com.

Over the years the site kept growing, until 2002 when Lynda and Bruce made a bold move.

They decided to start filming their classes and posted them on the site. They were super early to online video, so early that YouTube wouldn’t be invented for 3 more years.

Their initial setup was very scrappy. They filmed in their garage or converted guest rooms. But they persevered and kept adding videos to the site, simultaneously launching a monthly subscription model (starting at around $25/month) that gave unlimited access to all the courses, something unheard of back in those days. But their model worked and turned out to be very sticky.

From there the site grew and grew, all without any outside capital. It wasn’t until 2013 that Lynda and the team took on some funding, raising $103 million in a Series A funding round. By then, the company was already a huge success. This was just fuel for the fire.

By 2015, the site had over 5,700 courses and millions of paying users around the world. This is when LinkedIn stepped in and acquired Lynda.com for $1.5 billion (cash + stock) in what was LinkedIn’s biggest acquisition at the time. The brand was gradually folded into LinkedIn Learning, and the Lynda.com site was sunset in 2021 after a 26 year run.

As for Lynda herself? Well she was an overnight success 20 years in the making. She didn’t chase virality. She didn’t chase money. She just kept showing up…teaching, building, improving. What started as a simple website to support her book became one of the most successful online education platforms ever built. That’s the power of starting small and staying consistent.

Because you never know which idea, link, or project will change your life. So write the book. Launch the site. Post the first video.

Because that could turn into your legacy.

1 - 1 FOUNDER FEEDBACK

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