BUSINESS IDEA #1 | STARTUP

SimilarWeb for Newsletters 📧

Reports of my email’s death have been greatly exaggerated

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

@nahaknirmal with another great idea, shoutout to him!

For decades many have predicted the demise of email. But in 2024 everyone from solo founders to major media brands are launching newsletters.

And it’s no wonder why. For creators and brands platform risk is very real and relying on the algorithm Gods to bless you with distribution is a dangerous game.

Also newsletter readers happen to be most intelligent, insightful and attractive people out there (am I right?). So who wouldn’t want to build a big newsletter following?

In 2022, there were over 1 million paid newsletter subscriptions on Substack alone.

But here's the thing...while the newsletter market is booming, creators are flying blind. They can see their own subscriber counts and open rates, but have no idea how they stack up against the competition.

So let’s solve that problem.

2. Solution ✅

Create a platform that could track and analyze all the key metrics for newsletters across the web. Think of it like SimilarWeb, but for newsletters instead of websites.

Here’s how it works. The platform uses publicly available data signals, like website traffic, self reported performance and more to get an idea of the performance of different newsletters. The platform also works with large newsletter platforms such as ConvertKit to license their data and combines all of this data to create the data intelligence platform.

The platform then surfaces subscriber counts, open rates, click rates and growth trends for thousands of newsletters. Newsletter creators and businesses can sign up and benchmark their performance to see how they stack up vs the competition.

Armed with this competitive intel, newsletter creators could optimize their content strategy, spot emerging trends, and poach unhappy subscribers from underperforming competitors. Good shit.

3. Business Model 🏦

Go-to-market: Target professional newsletter creators, especially those in highly competitive niches like tech, business, and investing. Reach them via newsletter-focused communities and influencers.

Monetisation: Charge a monthly subscription fee for access to the competitive intelligence platform. Offer tiered plans based on features and number of newsletters tracked.

Startup Costs: You'll need funding to build out the technology platform and data science models. Plan to raise a seed round to get to MVP and validate the data quality and market demand.

4. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Once you become the default source for newsletter metrics, you'll be an extremely attractive acquisition target for newsletter paltforms like ConvertKit, Substack or Beehiiv (the GOATs).

BUSINESS IDEA #2 | STARTUP

Automated Customer Feedback Collection 🗨️

Using feedback to go forward

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

“The customer is always right.”

True, unless your customer happens to be named Karen.

But in truth customer feedback is invaluable to your business. Jeff Bezos, rich guy and Lex Luthor wannabe, famously made Amazon strive to be ”Earth's most customer-centric company” during his tenure. That approach worked out pretty well for him.

But customer feedback can be sprawled across different social media platforms, review websites, comment sections, forums and more.

So why not create a platform which automatically collects customer’s feedback from across the web on a company’s product?

Great idea me. Let’s do it.

2. Solution ✅

Create a platform which collects customer feedback from all corners of the web and organises and reports it to product teams and management.

Here’s how it works. The company signs up to the platform and the platform ingests data about their company and their product offerings. The platform then scrapes the web to find any mentions of the company and their products in written or audio form which is captured and stored by the platform. Sentiment analysis is performed on the feedback and reports are generated by the platform which can be used by management and product teams to inform product decisions or make changes in the business.

Early adopters here are likely to be product managers in tech companies looking to gather as much product feedback as possible when developing product roadmaps.

3. Business Model 🏦

Go-to-market: Start by scraping feedback from one of two sources and provide this free of charge to businesses. Then upsell the most engaged customers with a full software package

Monetisation: Subscription fee

Startup Costs: The tech build here could be complex, so you may need to do a small raise to get the engineering talent to build a compelling product

4. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Product management software platforms, such as Clickup or Trello could swoop in to buy a business like this.

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Glassdoor for Families

In companies giving feedback to each other is critically important for making people and the business function better. So why not apply the same logic to families?

Introducing Glassdoor for Families. Leave reviews about your loved ones so you all know what you really think about each other.

What could possibly go wrong?

BIG DECK ENERGY

Fisker’s $1bn SPAC Deck

Year: 2020

Stage: SPAC

Amount: $1bn

Fisker is in trouble. Big trouble.

The only thing worse than the performance of their cars is the performance of their stock.

Between safety issues with their cars, being forced to pause production, losing track of millions in customer payments and getting delisted by the NYSE the company is on the brink of bankruptcy.

But back in 2020 prospects were more promising for the business. Fisker went public through a SPAC merger in 2020 raising $1bn at a $2.9bn valuation.

Click the link to see the deck they used as part of the SPAC.

THE MONEYSHOT

Making Thousands of Dollars from Selling Snow

We all know someone so charismatic and charming they could “sell ice to the Eskimos” as the saying goes.

Well Kyle Waring and his wife Jess didn’t sell ice to the Eskimos, instead they sold snow to Americans.

One day they were shovelling 4 feet of snow out of their driveway they asked themselves one simple question. Would anyone buy snow?

A couple of days later they launched Ship Snow, Yo. Ship Snow, Yo offered to deliver a package of 2.7kg (6 pounds) of snow to your door for $89. After getting some coverage on local news, it turns out that people wanted to buy snow.

They received 100’s of orders within the first few days. Ship Snow, Yo is still in business today. It is reported to be a 5 figure seasonal business.

There ain’t no business like snow business.