BUSINESS IDEA | VENTURE STARTUP

Outsourced Wearable Free Trials 🆓  

Wrist assured

Available Domain: Tryalytics.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: With summer just around the corner it’s time to lock in and get shredded. And if you’re anything like me you have a long way to go…

And as we pursue our fitness goals fitness trackers are a great way to track progress and keep us on track. But there’s a problem. Until you own a device, at least for a few weeks, it’s impossible to know if a particular fitness tracker is right for you. which got us thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if all wearable brands offered free trials, so you could try out a tracker for a few weeks, but at no extra effort to them? Sort of like a “trial logistics layer” for the fitness trackers. Here’s what we have in mind.

Market Size: The wearable tech market was worth $70bn in 2024

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: An outsourced “free trials as a service” platform for wearable brands to let customers try devices before they buy to boost conversions and reduce returns

How it Works:

• The brand onboards to the service and adds a new option at checkout for customers to complete a 1 month free trial

• The customer is then shipped a refurbished or older version of a product to trial which they then return after a month. The platform handles all aspects of this transaction from storing the inventory to developing trial packaging (sanitized, branded, reusable), shipping and returns etc.

• If a customer then converts from a free trial into a customer the platform then gets paid a performance fee

Go-to-market: Initially target small to mid-sized wearable brands or DTC wellness tech companies who need conversion boosts.

Business Model: Charge a set-up fee ($2,000–$10,000 for onboarding, packaging design etc.), a per-trial fee ($20–$50 per unit) plus you can tack on a success fee for any conversions.

Startup Costs: You’ll need to raise a decent amount of money here to get started, at least $70k - $100k here in order to get it off the ground we would estimate

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: A private equity house like L Catterton (heavily invested in the wearables space) could acquire something like this

Exit Multiple: 3x–6x revenue is a good rule of thumb for managed logistics businesses

TOGETHER WITH KIXIE

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Keyboard Waffle Iron

• Do you love waffles? Does anybody not love waffles?

• Well with the WafflePress™, you can turn your boring breakfast into a tech-lovers masterpiece.

• It’s the perfect gift for the programmer in your life who dreams in code or the workaholic who cringes everytime they hear the Microsoft Teams chime.

• CTRL+ALT+EAT. You know you want to.

Vote

• ✅ Yes this actually exists

• ❌ Nope you totally made this up

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Acquisition Entrepreneurship

• Here at Half Baked we’re all about starting businesses from scratch. But if you’re looking to become your own boss it’s not the only way…

• More and more entrepreneurs are pursuing the “Acquisition Entrepreneurship” track, where they buy an existing business instead of starting one from scratch, usually a profitable, cash flowing business. Many opt to do this in lieu of an MBA, since there’s no better education in business than actually running a business.

• Tools like SBA loans and seller financing are making deals more accessible and as many boomers are looking to retire and sell their small businesses, we’re just at the beginning of the acquisition entrepreneurship wave.

Business Ideas

• AngelList for Boring Businesses: A platform that allows accredited investors (or even non-accredited via SPVs) to discover, evaluate, and invest in boring businesses (from edition #317)

• Boring Business Brokerage: A brokerage which specialises in sourcing and selling boring businesses (from edition #43)

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THE MONEYSHOT

Making $1bn by Competing with Paper

Some founding stories are truly remarkable.

Take this founder who decided to build a product to replace paper, building a $1bn business in the process.

This is his story.

As soon as he could walk, Magnus Wanberg was obsessed with technology. As a child growing up in Norway, he wore away the keys on his family’s IBM PC and Nintendo Game Boy. By 18, he was building and selling computers out of his father’s garage.

But by 2013 Magnus, who was now in college, was frustrated. He spent all day on his laptop but found it impossible to focus while doing so (join the club Magnus).

So he decided to ditch his computer and worked exclusively on pen and paper, printing out anything he needed to. This was when he had his lightbulb moment. Could he build a tablet that felt like paper, but worked like tech?

After graduating he assembled a small team in Oslo, raised some early funding, and spent the next 3 years perfecting the hardware. This wasn’t a “move fast and break things” build. It was slow, deliberate, and Scandinavian in all the best ways.

Finally, by 2017, the team was ready to launch their first product.

They launched the reMarkable 1.

The reMarkable tablet was positioned as a premium, distraction-free writing device. But the price tag was pretty distracting for a lot of customers…$499.

But Magnus knew there was a niche audience for this product at that price point. Writers, academics, lawyers, thinkers. People who wanted to unplug and think clearly. And soon after launching Magnus was proved right.

Within days of launch, reMarkable did $10m in pre-orders. In 2017, reMarkable sold approximately 45,000 units, generating revenue of $23 million. An overnight success 3 years in the making.

In 2019, reMarkable raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by Spark Capital to support the development of their next release, the reMarkable 2, a thinner, sleeker, and more powerful device, which launched in 2020.

Just a year later, in 2021, reMarkable raised $300m at a $1bn valuation, making it Norway’s first hardware unicorn.

Since the company was founded over 1 million devices have been sold, and the company has quietly built a subscription revenue model on top, charging for cloud sync, handwriting conversion, and more. It’s a powerhouse in the productivity space, with more people than Magnus ever imagined wanting to buy the device.

And that’s the interesting part. Magnus managed to build a Silicon Valley startup but without following the Silicon Valley playbook. No blitzscaling. No viral growth loops. No pivot to AI. Just a focused, well-built product...for people who want to focus.

His story proves that, as we’ve all heard before, “the riches are in the niches”. And once you identify your niche your only job is to create a great product.

Because remarkable products win.

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