BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

YC for Bootstrapped Founders 🚀  

No VCs, no cry

Available Domain: Bootstrapcamp.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: This is the golden age of the solopreneur. Don’t believe us? Well the data doesn’t lie.

More and more founders are swearing off building unicorns and chasing VC money, instead opting to go it alone and build small, profitable businesses that can support them and their families. And this path makes a lot of sense, particularly for solo founders embracing AI. But going it alone is tough. There are very limited supports for founders who choose this path. So let’s create one.

Market Size: There are millions of indie hackers, solopreneurs and micro-SaaS founders who could be interested in a program of this nature

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A no-equity accelerator built for bootstrapped founders

How it Works:

• Founders apply with their existing bootstrapped business or an idea they wish to build.

• Selected founders join a remote, cohort-based accelerator.

• The program lasts 8–12 weeks, with a focus on profit-first growth strategies, growth hacks and everything else a solopreneur needs to be successful

• Instead of equity, the accelerator charges a flat fee or takes a revenue share in the business for a specific period of time

Go-to-market: Focus initially on indie hackers and launch the program on Product Hunt. That’s where your audience is.

Business Model: Revenue-share agreement e.g. 5% of revenue for 2 years, capped at $500k.

Startup Costs: Once you can create great content and get great instructors for the course, your big early cost will be marketing spend to get the word out there

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: This is the kind of business you would likely keep for the long term

TOGETHER WITH KIXIE

I built a 9 figure business in a few years using Kixie

Andy Elliott runs The Elliot Group (a 9 figure business), and everyday he gets asked the same question...

"How do you grow so fast?"

His answer? 100 guys using Kixie’s Power Dialer.

• 5X More Connections – No wasted dials, just instant conversations.

• 10X More Sales – More calls = more deals closed.

• Automation That Works – Smarter follow-ups, seamless CRM integration.

“If your sales team isn’t using an autodialer, you’re an idiot.” – Andy Elliott

Book free demo

(Oh and to get an extra 10% off tell them Half Baked sent you)

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Permanent Birthday Cards

• Constantly forgetting your loved ones’ birthdays? Tired of having to fork out for a card every time their birthday comes along? Not anymore.

• Say hello to ForeverCard™, the world’s first updatable birthday card. Simply give this to a friend or family member once and then you can update it every year by changing the text on the screen. Think of the savings!

• Runs 24/7 for up to 10 years on a single charge. That’s longer than most friendships last…

Vote

• ✅ Yes this actually exists

• ❌ Nope you totally made this up

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Envelope Budgeting

• Younger generations are turning to an old technique to manage their money. And it’s called “envelope budgeting“.

• This is a money management method where you divide your income into specific spending categories.

• Originally done with real cash in paper envelopes, it's now often used digitally through budgeting apps. It's a simple yet powerful way that Gen Z has embraced to stay disciplined with their money.

Business Ideas

• Envelope Budgeting Kit for Couples: High-quality, aesthetic physical kits for couples who prefer analog budgeting

• Student Envelope Challenge App: Gamified budgeting app for college students that encourages envelope-based budgeting through weekly challenges and group competitions.

TOGETHER WITH SNAPCHAT

The Channel Most Brands are Sleeping on

Snapchat reaches 75% of Gen Z and Millennials across 25+ countries. And 40% of those users? They don’t check TikTok daily.

That’s untapped reach for your brand, from an audience that loves to shop and loves discovering new products through ads.

Most businesses haven’t caught on yet. That’s your advantage.

Learn more

THE MONEYSHOT

Making +$100m From Selling Lemon Water

Sometimes innovation can be incredibly simple.

Take this guy. All he did was add lemon to water…now it’s a $100m brand.

This is his story.

Yanni Hufnagel is an unlikely founder.

He had an extensive career as a college basketball coach, working at top Universities like Harvard and UC Berkeley. Unsurprisingly, as a basketball coach, Yanni was incredibly interested in health and fitness.

And in the mid 2010s he stumbled upon a book about the benefits of drinking lemon water since it supported metabolism, digestion, and energy levels.

But he found it irritating to cut fresh lemons each day for his drink. That’s when the idea hit…why not bottle the benefits of lemon water in a delicious, zero-sugar, shelf-stable drink?

Yanni didn’t have a background in consumer packaged goods or beverage manufacturing at all. He cold-called flavor houses, manufacturers, and packaging companies to try and educate himself and spent 2 years from 2017 to 2019 working with formulators to get the flavor right.

He used his personal savings and bootstrapped the company in its early days, and finally by 2019, he was ready to launch.

He founded Lemon Perfect.

The early days were scrappy. Yanni had to do whatever he could to get the word out there. So he started hand-delivering cases to stores, gyms, and influencers around LA.

Pretty soon the brand started gaining traction, attracting attention for its clean ingredients and sleek branding.

By August 2020 the business had taken off and Yanni and the team raised $6.6 million in seed funding to support the company’s growth both in-store and online.

But in 2020 when COVID hit, Lemon Perfect’s retail sales were decimated. So they leaned into DTC and e-commerce, seeing massive growth online, especially through Instagram and Facebook campaigns.

And then came the company’s viral moment when Beyoncé (yes that Beyoncé) discovered the drink in a convenience store, tried it, loved it, and later went on to invest in the business.

In 2022, Lemon Perfect closed a $31 million Series A round at a $100 million valuation, with revenue hitting the $100m mark just 2 years later in 2024.

That’s an incredible outcome for such a simple concept. Because in the end big wins don’t always require killer insights or groundbreaking innovation. Yanni put some lemon into water and that was his moment of genius. Or to put it another way…life gave Yanni lemons, and he made $100m.

Why can’t you do something similar?

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