BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

TurboTax for Small Claims Court 👩‍⚖️ 

Law & orderly

Available Domain: Litigaite.ai

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Every year, millions of Americans end up in small claims court for all kinds of reasons. Unpaid invoices. Withheld deposits. Wanting to start in Judge Judy. And in most of these cases people decide to defend themselves which, no matter how many episodes of Law and Order you’ve watched, is still tricky to do. Unless you get super creative that is…

Bottom line - navigating the legal system is a nightmare. Forms and procedures vary wildly by jurisdiction and trying to navigate it alone is almost impossible. Which is why it’s time to build a tool to help with this process. Here’s what we have in mind.

Market Size: There are millions of small claims court filings across the US each year

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: An AI tool that guides everyday people through filing (or defending) a small claims case in court

How it Works:

• The user selects their case type (e.g. unpaid invoice, landlord dispute) and answers a guided questionnaire about their situation.

• The platform then identifies the correct small claims court based on location and auto-generates the required legal documents using AI.

• It then walks the user through filing and serving the defendant, with jurisdiction-specific instructions, deadlines, and options to e-file or mail.

• Finally, the platform helps the user prepare for court with evidence checklists, auto-generated case summaries, and mock hearing practice and feedback to help them win their case

Go-to-market: Pick 1–2 high-volume jurisdictions (e.g., LA County, NYC) and focus on one use case, say freelancers with unpaid invoices. Expand from there

Business Model: Flat fee + % of any recovery

Startup Costs: You could build a simple version of this pretty cheaply but will need to raise money to scale this

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Acquisition by a legal tech player like LegalZoom or DoNotPay

Exit Multiple: B2C legal platforms sell for 4x–8x revenue

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Desk Hammock

• Does your super trendy standing desk tire you out? Need some extra rest to reach your peak work performance?

• Meet The Slack Hammock™ a sleek, under-desk hammock built for quick naps and quiet escapes for your gruelling work day.

• Designed with ultra-strong supports and clever leg slits for a comfortable sprawl, it’s the only way to truly disconnect.

Vote

• ✅ Shut up and take my money

• ❌ It’s a no from me dawg

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Food Allergies

• As of 2023, 33 million Americans (including 5.6 million children) had at least one food allergy, a huge increase from where the number was just in 2016

• Why? Well no-one’s exactly sure. There are many theories, including the Hygiene Hypothesis and the delayed introduction of allergenic foods to kids.

• Regardless of the cause this space presents huge opportunities for startups to help people manage their allergies

Business Ideas

• Food Allergy Telehealth Platform: Virtual consultations with allergy specialists, dieticians, and immunologists.

• AI-Powered Allergy Risk Predictor: A digital tool that assesses a user’s likelihood of developing food allergies based on genetics, family history, environment, and gut health.

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THE MONEYSHOT

Bootstrapping to a $600m Exit in 5 Years

“You gotta spend money to make money.” Well, not exactly.

Take these guys who built a $600m business in 5 years without taking on a cent of outside investment.

This is their story.

Brad Damphousse (right) and Andrew Ballester have always loved startups.

In fact the pair met in San Diego while working at the same startup. While working together they discovered they made a great team. So they took their first steps into entrepreneurship founding Paygr, a marketplace enabling individuals to sell services online. But the business never got the traction they wanted, so in 2008 they decided to launch something new…

They were drawn to the idea of “social saving” where friends could contribute to a small fund to buy a gift for a friend or family member, similar to a wedding registry. So they launched a platform to do exactly this called “Coin Piggy”, which they later renamed to “Create-a-Fund”.

Once again though they struggled to find traction with their platform…so they decided to pivot. They moved away from gift buying and instead allowed users to raise money for any reason they needed it. They rebuilt the platform with Brad handling design and user experience, while Andrew focused on engineering and backend development.

By 2010 they were ready to launch.

They founded GoFundMe.

The site gained early traction as users flocked to the platform to raise money for medical emergencies, funeral expenses and many other causes.

Over time the platform started to dominate the “personal causes” space, a category Kickstarter and Indiegogo avoided, and the users started pouring in. How? Because these emotional campaigns went super viral on social media, attracting thousands and thousands users to the site without the team spending any money of ads.

Soon the platform was bringing in millions of dollars in revenue each year with hundreds of millions of dollars getting donated to worthy campaigns. In fact in its first 5 years of operations GoFundMe channeled $1 billion in donations to various different causes.

Eventually, after a meteoric 5 year run-up, in June 2015 the founders decided to sell a majority stake in GoFundMe to a group of investors led by Accel Partners and TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures. The deal valued GoFundMe at approximately $600 million and since this was the first outside capital the business took on, the founders made out like bandits.

By 2016 GoFundMe was bringing in $100 million in revenue and the founders stepped back from the business to allow a new team to takeover. Their work was done.

All of which goes to prove that business isn’t always about being cold and calculating. Because all the spreadsheets in the world can’t engineer what GoFundMe tapped into…a deeply human need to help, and be helped.

It’s a powerful reminder that the best businesses don’t just solve problems, they serve people.

Which begs the question…who do you want to serve?

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