IDEA #1 | VENTURE STARTUP

Lego Upcycling Technology Platform 🧱

To build or not to build, that is the question.

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

Lego was a part of all of our lives growing up. In truth, for many adults, it’s still a huge part of their lives.

We’ve all experienced the unrivalled sense of satisfaction from finishing a Lego set. Similarly, we’ve all felt the agony of accidentally stepping on a brick, as if they were purposefully designed to inflict maximum damage on our feet.

The market for Lego is massive…and growing Check out Lego’s revenue growth, with the company doing c.$10bn in sales in 2022.

Lego has historically been a great investment too. Between 1987 and 2015 prices in the second-hand Lego market rose by 11% annually, giving better returns over the same period than stocks, bonds or gold. Ditch the gold bars, get some Lego bricks instead.

But Lego has a huge problem…waste. Most Lego sets are built once and put proudly on display, until they’re either returned to the box from which they came or thrown onto the pile of random Lego bricks, all to make room for a newer build.

Not only that but the plastic Lego is made out of doesn’t biodegrade easily, which makes it very hard to recycle.

Lego fundamentally has a sustainability problem, which in 2023 means it has a big problem.

This is how it can be solved.

2. Solution ✅

Here’s the big idea…build a business which buys old Lego bricks from customers, dynamically sorts them and then sells sets online to customers second-hand.

Now you may be asking “people will have random assortments of Lego they’ll want to sell, not full sets right? How could this possibly work?”

Well unlike Sway, we’ve got the answers.

Here’s how it would work:

1. Customers take their used Lego bricks they want to sell, weigh them and input this weight into an app

2. The business then makes an instant offer for the Lego based on its weight and once accepted the customer gets paid through the app and the Lego is shipped to the business

3. All of the Lego bricks received by the business are then sorted by a machine which uses a combination of machine learning and computer vision to identify and sort the pieces received into what sets they belong to, or to even create brand new sets that have never been made before

4. These sets are sold online by the business for a profit

This would be an incredible business. Demand for Lego has never been higher and the tech component makes this business both highly defensible and an attractive acquisition target.

3. Business Model 🏦

Go-to-market: You should start by selling these sets on marketplaces where people are already searching for Lego sets…eBay, Bricklink, Brickowl etc. Go to where the demand already is. Over time you can launch your own website when you have the funds to drive traffic to it.

Monetisation: Earn money on each Lego set sold. Easy.

Startup Costs: In order to build your tech stack and sorting machine you’d need some outside funding here to get this off the ground, probably a few hundred k.

4. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

We’re gonna go big here. What business cares the most about Lego being a sustainable company? Lego themselves. Go for a home run here and try and get Lego themselves to acquire your technology as a CSR play.

Failing that this should be a multi-million dollar per year revenue business.

IDEA #2 | STARTUP

Relationship Assistant App 🎧

Out of the dog house, into the love shack

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

There’s a theory that anywhere someone uses a spreadsheet there’s a SaaS product waiting to be built.

But is there an equivalent in the consumer market? We think so…in phone notes. Wherever someone’s using their notes app for a specific purpose, we think there’s an opportunity for someone to build an app.

Which brings us to this:

@dbofficial27

Ill be lost without her 🥹💝 @Hollielouisee #foryou #fyp #EndlessJourney #foryoupage #notesapp #girlfriendnotes #trending #love #girlfriend #xyzbca

There was a tiktok trend recently where people (guys mainly) are sharing their notes app where they keep a record of important details about their loved one and their relationship - likes and dislikes, anniversaries and more.

When we saw this our spidey senses started tingling, and we think there’s an app here to be built.

2. Solution ✅

Here’s the idea…create an app which acts like a personal assistant for your relationship.

Imagine having someone who reminded you about an upcoming anniversary or birthday, knew your partner’s likes or dislikes, gave you date or holiday suggestions…basically a wingman to make make you the best possible boyfriend or girlfriend.

This is not an app for finding love, it’s for keeping love. If tinder helps you find a girlfriend, this app helps you keep her.

Some of the apps features would include:

• Prompts for questions to ask your partner and a place to answer prompts, with dynamic “after date” pop up

• Reminders for important dates and anniversaries in the relationship

• Ideas for fun dates in your area based on yours and your partners preferences

• Countdowns to anniversaries, upcoming dates or any important events

• Gift suggestions based on your partner’s preferences

It’s a great way to earn brownie points with your partner and show you really care, as well as avoiding that awkward “I can’t believe you forgot our anniversary” conversation.

3. Business Model 🏦

Go-to-market: Social is your best friend on the go-to-market side. We got this idea from tiktok, so short form content here will be your best route to market and acquiring users.

Monetisation: There’s a few paths to monetisation here:

• Subscription - free version with basic features, then charge a monthly subscription fee for additional features. Option to include a “we broke up button” which is how you cancel your subscription, just for the memes.

• Affiliate links - if you’re making dynamic product suggestions in app then you need to be getting a slide of the action

Startup Costs: Building apps isn’t as expensive as it used to be. If you’re technical yourself then start building! If not then you should find yourself a technical co-founder or you should leverage no-code tooling like bubble.io or other platforms to build yourself an MVP and test out the concept.

4. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

This could be a very tidy exit for whoever executes it well. An acquisition by a dating app would very much be on the cards. Valuation multiples vary a lot for dating apps, but a 3x - 5x revenue or 10x EBITDA multiple is what an exit may look like.

IDEA #3 | VENTURE STARTUP

Nicotine Gum for Vaping 🚭

Declaring war on vape nation

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

Vaping is a huge market (or problem, depending on how you think about the world).

1 in 20 Americans vape, and teenage e-cigarette consumption has increased by 1,800% over the last year, despite what vaping companies will tell you about their advertising practices.

As more and more people take up vaping, the number of people actively trying to quit vaping also increases. This is where nicotine gum comes into play.

But here’s the problem…

Nicotine gum brands weren’t designed for gen-Z, they were designed for Boomers.

Until now.

2. Solution ✅

Here’s the idea - create a nicotine gum brand targeting young vapers…vapists…eh…people who vape, to help them quit vaping and/or smoking. Do what Liquid Death did for water, but in the nicotine gum space.

The value proposition here is very compelling, nicotine replacement gum can double someone’s chances of quitting vaping successfully by curbing nicotine cravings and reducing withdrawal symptoms.

On the product side get creative with your flavours and try and make sure the product tastes good. On the marketing side slick branding, Gen-Z lingo and memes will get you a long way.

You could offer customers a companion app too which allows quitters to track their progress, set a quit date and work with support groups for people trying to quit for when the going gets tough.

The law could be your friend too. If countries start banning vaping then a whole lot of people will be looking for a replacement for it.

On the competition side Blip is the only other real player in the market targeting this demographic, so there’s plenty of room for another entrant into this market.

3. Business Model 🏦

Go-to-market: This should start as a DTC brand with some slick, dollar shave club style marketing and eventually morph into a retail play once the brand matures.

Monetisation: The product lends itself to a DTC subscription model, given there should be a very strong returning customer rate and lifetime value (LTV) in the product.

Startup costs: this won’t be cheap to get started, you’re going to need to raise some funding to create the product and give yourself some runway while you wait for FDA clearance.

4. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

This is 100% an exit play. Big smoke (as in the big smoking companies, not the GTA character) are diversifying their portfolios, so this could be a great opportunity to exit to one of the big cigarette brands. You might want to leave your morals at the door however in this deal.

THEIR PAST, YOUR FUTURE

How 55 people made $19bn

We all dream of a multi-billion dollar exit, but very few achieve it. Very few achieve that feat in less than 5 years. And an even smaller portion do so with a team less than 60 people.

Well these guys managed to do all of that. Legends.

This is Brian Acton and Jan Moir and in 2009 they founded Whatsapp, a company so well known it requires no introduction.

The app grew like a weed in its early years and by 2013 the company was bringing in $10.2 million in revenue, but losing more than $100 million per year. Then in 2014 Whatsapp famously sold to Meta (née Facebook) for $19bn dollars. What’s incredible is that the Whatsapp team were just 55 people when they were acquired by Facebook.

What’s the takeaway? Small teams can achieve great things.

So build your team and go achieve something great.