BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Secondhand SaaS License Marketplace 💻️  

License to bill

Available Domain: Secondsaas.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: From Slack seats for ex-employees to Figma licenses bought during a hiring boom, companies are bleeding money on unused or forgotten software. In fact, according to SaaS management platforms, up to 30% of software licenses in SMBs go unused, despite what companies might tell you…

Which begs the question…what if unused SaaS didn’t have to go to waste? We think there’s a massive untapped opportunity to create a “secondhand store for software”. Here’s why.

Market Size: Assuming 5% of software seats/licenses go unused in the $320bn SaaS market you get an addressable market of around $16bn

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A marketplace for buying and selling unused SaaS subscriptions, helping businesses recoup costs on leftover licenses.

How it Works:

• List Unused Licenses – Businesses post SaaS subscriptions they no longer need, with remaining term, price, and transferability details.

• Browse & Buy – Buyers search for discounted tools they already use or want to try, often at 30–70% off retail.

• Secure Transfer – Funds are held in escrow while login credentials or license access are verified and transferred.

• Get Paid or Save – Sellers get to recover sunk costs, and buyers get premium software without paying full price. Win-win.

Go-to-market: Start by listing tools that allow transfers and focus on selling to startups, agencies and procurement managers

Business Model: Transaction fee - take a 10-15% cut on each successful resale

Startup Costs: You could get this going for a few thousand dollars

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: This may not be a venture scale opportunity, but could be an amazing bootstrapped SaaS

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Bone Appétit

• Have you hopped on the bone broth trend? Looking for a more convenient way to consume it?

• Introducing Bone Appétit™, the world’s first bone broth juice box.

• Each portable box of Bone Appétit™ is packed with grass-fed animal bones, 10 grams of protein and enough collagen to make your skin bounce like a trampoline

• So grow a backbone, ditch the juice box and embrace the broth box

Vote

• ✅ Yes this actually exists

• ❌ Nope you totally made this up

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Analog Premium

• As AI floods markets with auto-generated content and tools, consumers are placing a premium on manual, human-made alternatives. Take certain hand-written business idea newsletters that you know aren’t AI written because we make mistakes in them (yesterday’s wrong Drunk Idea link if you missed it for example)

• A similar movement in physical products has been happening over the last few years, highlighting craftsmanship, emotion, and authenticity as key product features in clothing, furniture and so on. There will be something similar for content and software in the near future.

• Expect more labels like "Human-written" and "Not AI-generated" on digital products going forward, and for this content to come at a premium

Business Ideas

• Analog Skills Academy: A learning platform for manual skills that AI can’t replace (for now) like bookbinding, film photography, calligraphy, woodworking, sewing, etc.

• Post-AI Art Collectibles Platform: A platform or gallery for physical/digital art made explicitly without AI tools like brushwork, ink, film, etc.

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THE MONEYSHOT

Making $2.2bn at 84 Years Old

Athletes hit their prime in their 20s and 30s. Filmmakers? More like their 40s and 50s. But founders can peak at any time.

Take this founder who started a business in his 70s and sold it for billions of dollars in his 80s.

This is his story.

In the ‘90s, Sidney Frank (who looks like a badass mafia boss) wasn’t some young tech bro trying to disrupt an industry. He was already in his 70s. And by this time he had already had an impressive career.

He designed aircraft engines during World War 2. He rose to become the President of Schenley Industries, a major distiller and importer, a few years later. And in 1972 he founded the Sidney Frank Importing Company, securing the rights to import Jägermeister into the USA. But it wasn’t until 1997 that Frank had his big breakthrough.

At the time, the vodka market was crowded with brands like Absolut and Smirnoff. They were all mid-tier, mass-market, and fighting on price.

Which is when Sidney had a wild idea. Could you create a luxury vodka brand? What would that even look like?

So Sidney started working with a distillery in France to produce his luxury vodka. French wines were renowned, so why not their vodka? He worked with designers to create a tall, frosted bottle that screamed luxury and then went to market at a $30 price tag, more than double its competitors.

Everyone thought he was insane. But Sidney knew exactly what he was doing.

This was the beginning of Grey Goose.

With the product ready Sidney needed to build the brand. So he started hosting celebrity parties and got Grey Goose into the hottest clubs around the world. He positioned the product as aspirational alcohol for the rich, or at least those who wanted to feel rich.

In fact he deliberately designed the bottle to be too tall to fit on typical bar shelves so Grey Goose was stored at the top of the shelves so it stood out. Genius.

And Sidney’s strategy worked. In just 5 years, Grey Goose was the fastest-growing liquor brand in the U.S, selling 1.5 million cases annually by 2003.

Then in 2004, at age 84, Sidney sold Grey Goose to Bacardi for $2.2 billion in cash in one of the biggest exits in the alcohol industry’s history. Two years later in January 2006 Frank passed away at the ripe old age of 86. But his legacy lives on, not only in the brands he built, but in his philanthropic efforts too.

All of which goes to prove that in entrepreneurship age is just a number. When Sidney was in the twilight of his career and should have been slowing down, instead he doubled down and had his greatest success.

So whether you're 26 with a pitch deck and a dream, or 76 with an idea and a career behind you, you’ve still got time to build your legacy.

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