BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Men’s Laundry Detergent Brand 🧺 

The smell of success

Available Domain: Cologneclean.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Us men have a lot going on. But when we find a spare moment between drinking beers and thinking about the Roman Empire, despite what you may hear, we actually take the time to do our laundry. Most of us do anyway.

But if you’ve ever perused (what a word) the laundry aisle in your local supermarket you’ll notice that all of the brands are centred around smelling like flowers or meadows. What we need is a brand to make men’s laundry smell like cigars and monster trucks. So let’s create that brand.

Market Size: The global laundry detergent market size reached $51bn in 2023.

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A laundry detergent brand that’s cologne scented and marketed towards men

How it Works:

• Create a laundry detergent product (liquid or sheet) enfused with fresh, manly scents (think colognes, sandlewood, leather etc.) which makes the customer’s clothes smell amazing

• Customers can buy single packs or a subscription through the website to get the product regularly

• Market the product in a similar way to Dr Squatch or Old Spice

Go-to-market: start by selling DTC to prove the demand for the product, but then you gotta get into retail stores. This is a retail product.

Business Model: DTC subscriptions and sales in supermarkets

Startup Costs: You’ll need a few thousand dollars to get this going. A viral crowdfunding campaign, similar to Who Gives a Crap’s, could secure you some early funding

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Lucky for you the households goods market is dominated by a small number of players like Procter & Gamble and Unilever who are happy to snap up emerging, challenger brands

Exit Multiple: Most e-commerce businesses are valued between 4x and 6x Sellers Discretionary Earnings (total income generated by the company, including the owner’s salary, benefits, and any other discretionary expenses that may not be essential to the company’s operation.)

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Baby Simulator App

Ever wondered what it’s really like to be a parent? Wonder if you’re up to the challenge of raising a child?

Well wonder no longer with the Baby Simulator app. Get the full parenting experience when your phone starts crying non-stop, waking you up in the middle of the night randomly and needs constant care and attention.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Mobile Gaming is in Trouble

For years mobile gaming was in the ascendency. We all had that one friend who was weirdly addicted to Candy Crush right? But in recent years the industry has stagnated. Why? I think it’s probably a combination of the explosion of easier digestible content (TikTok, Reels etc.) plus headwinds faced by the sector (Apple killing IDFA, reducing ad revenue, persistent high app store fees etc.)

THE MONEYSHOT

How Calm Won the Meditation Wars

Back in 2012 Michael Acton Smith, who sounds like a character in the Crown, seemingly had it all.

He was running a hyper successful business called Mind Candy, a game development company which created the smash hit kids game Moshi Monsters. The game went viral, growing to over 80m users in 150 countries. But Michael had a problem…his mind.

Despite all his success Michael was incredibly stressed. In his own words he was “forever tired and the joy of work had faded to a dull ache.”

One day confided in his friend Alex Tew (whose exploits you may remember from a previous newsletter) that he was struggling.

Alex told him he should try meditation.

And thus, Calm was born.

But immediately this dynamic duo had a huge problem…Headspace.

Headspace had been founded 2 years earlier, was VC-backed and growing like a rocketship. So how were they going to dethrone the king?

Firstly, Calm noticed a usage spike between 9-11pm. Then it hit them…users were going to the app to help them sleep. So they created sleep stories and made other innovations to cater to this problem.

Calm also became well known for having much more content and customization options in their paid plan compared to Headspace. This meant they were able to convert more users to paid plans, managing to grow their conversion rate from free to paid subs from 2% to 5%. Plus, for their premium subscriptions they charged users annually and upfront for the service, giving them more cash to pump into product improvements and marketing.

Their playbook worked astonishingly well. In 2023 Calm made an estimated $300 million, compared to Headspace’s $195m in revenue over the same period.

This serves as proof that the early bird doesn’t always catch the worm. Being the best is more important than being first.

FROM THE FANS

#HalfBakedBizIdea

Alexander Isora taking Product Hunt’s model to personal brands. Could it work?

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