The Startup Ideas Podcast - 4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow

Starting point is 00:00:00 Here's where I think service-based businesses are going to go. When you build a service-based business, think of like a design agency or an SEO shop or something like that. Number one, you start with humans doing the work. And then number two, you transition from humans doing 100% of the work to AI-assisted human work. And then step three, you transition to agents do all the work. Once you get to step three, the margins are going to three, four. or five X. Instead of making 20% EBITDA, you might be able to make 60% EBITDA, 80% EBITDA. And the reason why is because you're paying tokens and you're getting agents to do the work. And this might be in five years and

Starting point is 00:00:44 this might be in seven years or three years. But the point is, if they can get there and you've built up all the systems and processes and client base, then you're going to be in a really, really good place. And we're back. Another solo pod. Just me. I'm going to give away some ideas, some trends. I did one of these last week and you all loved it. So I figured I'd do another one. Let's get right into it. So I want to start off with the trend. And I'll give you some ideas for this trend. So recently I got married and my wedding was different than most people's wedding. A lot of people have weddings and they've got a hundred of their closest friends and families there. I had a wedding and there was 14 people there. And that was including me and my wife.

Starting point is 00:01:56 So weddings are changing. People don't want to spend thousands of dollars on weddings. They want to do something small. They want to do something intimate. And that leads me to my trend of the week, which is micro weddings. So what is a micro wedding? I think we need to just define it. So it basically means a wedding with less than 50 people. It's just way more intimate. And it's especially big in places like New York, L.A., Miami, where the cost per wedding guests could be more than $1,000 per guest. So it's absolutely out of control. This is obviously due to inflation. And over the last few years, it just got out of hand. So, okay, so this is the trend. I think a lot of you are probably nodding your head and being like, of course, this makes a lot of sense.

Starting point is 00:02:49 How can I create a business on top of this trend? So idea number one is just lead gen. So there's a bunch of small venues that haven't, they're not really set up for micro weddings. And the biggest challenge of that is, you know, these small venues don't have the visibility. they have smaller marketing budgets. And then they probably just don't know that this trend is happening. So you could go and just bridge the gap. So, you know, I just Googled here,

Starting point is 00:03:25 micro wedding Los Angeles. And I saw that there was actually a sponsored link called Intimate Mountain Weddings.com. So great domain, good SEO. And as the search volume starts to increase, if people become aware that micro wedding is a thing, traffic's going to go up. So how can you operate this idea as a service?

Starting point is 00:03:48 So step one is you just got to form the partnerships agreement. So you go to these wedding venues and you basically say, hey, I'm going to send you a bunch of leads for your micro wedding. And then would you be willing to give me 10%, 5%, 20% of a booking that's made through your platform? So it's like a win-win situation for the small business. venue. And a lot of these venues, they're hanging on by a thread. They want more revenue. Then you're going to step two is just to implement SEO and advertising. So you're going to generate traffic mostly by search. So the bet here is that more and more people are going to search it. You're going to show up. And then you could obviously do a little bit of ad arbitrage. What is

Starting point is 00:04:41 add arbitrage. That just basically means when, you know, you're spending $2 a click, but the average click gives you $3. You create this vending machine where you put $2 in, $3 comes out. So that's where you're going to mainly focus. Of course, you can do content and building an audience around it and just showcase these venues and showcase other weddings. That's definitely a given. So I would say implement SEO, advertising, and build an audience. And then step three is specialize and promote. So, you know, I would say become the micro wedding market gal or guy. You know, once you position yourself as that person, and I think that's ripe for the taking,

Starting point is 00:05:27 you're going to earn more trust. And, you know, the hard part about something like this is it is a new market. And whenever you have a new market, you have to educate people. this should exist. Everyone knows, oh, I just got engaged. I need to go and create a wedding, but they don't know about the concept of a micro wedding what that is, why it's better, why it's going to save you money, and why, if you forget all the money, it's just going to be a more intimate experience for the people that you love. So, you know, I think that there's tons of opportunity to own that, to own that category.

Starting point is 00:06:09 And this is just like one of those low-risk ideas. So idea number two in the micro-wedding space is just helping plan. So, you know, offering comprehensive, all-inclusive micro-wedding packages that streamline the entire planning process. So I found this Reddit post. So here's the post. micro wedding in Southern California, LA County, 13 guests, $23,000. And they basically just go into this. This is a long one for those interested in the numbers.

Starting point is 00:06:48 They talk about how the original wedding was supposed to take place in June 2020. But obviously, because of COVID, they couldn't do it. They talked about how much they paid in their deposit. They talked about the ceremony, you know, the ceremony, but basically the budget breakdown. So ceremony venue, $2,000, dinner venue, $3,500, partial partial partial, planner, 1500. I guess that's a party planner, but only partially, which is kind of an interesting, that's a whole other niche to own. Another idea right there is, you know, like a fractional, you know, partial party planner. Photographer 3100, videographer, 1,000, string trio, $800,

Starting point is 00:07:26 $800, $1,500. Anyways, you get the idea. Bottom line is it's $23,386, which obviously is a lot of money, but isn't $100,000, or isn't, you know, some people spend a million dollars. So they just go into this. And you can see, you know, they talk about everything and they break this all down. This is an incredible content piece. I would love to see, you know, you could create a whole audience around breaking down different micro weddings. And then if you look in the comment section on Reddit, people are just so engaged. They're so appreciative of it.

Starting point is 00:08:03 Hey everyone. If you're anything like me, you've got a ton of design work that you need. Websites, landing pages, emails, social assets, you name it. But you don't just want beautiful landing pages or beautiful websites. You want the stuff that's going to convert. You want the stuff that's going to actually drive value. That's where design scientists.com comes in. It's an agency. that for one monthly price, we'll do all your design work, all your copywork, all your engineering, and do stuff that actually scales your revenue. You don't need a designer. You need a design scientist. Let's go. Designscientist.com. I liked it so much. I invested in the business. I like to use Reddit and see posts that go viral in particular communities as a way to validate a particular their business idea. So I see this. And I'm like, okay, there's something here in the micro wedding space because they put it in the wedding planning subreddit, which has 829,000 members. And it went viral

Starting point is 00:09:19 within that community. So, you know, one thing you could do is you can create the subreddit for micro weddings. You can be that moderator. So that's just an idea for you. Okay, let's get back to the idea. So the idea is basically to create an agency, a wedding planning agency, but only focus on micro weddings. And there's one company that I was able to find that's doing it. And it's called Our Little Wedding. And I found it via that Reddit post. They're based in San Francisco. You can tell, you know, there's basically a coming soon version of their website. So it's not exactly optimized, but you get the idea. There's these all-inclusive micro-wettings that they sell, and it's between $5,600, $5,000 and $6,100.

Starting point is 00:10:11 So here's one. The Bay Area Redwoods elopement, so it's an all-inclusive package, $5,000. You get a Mill Valley Amphitheater, private ceremony, one-hour, photography, personal florals, You get a luxury reception, dinner celebration, cake and cake florals, and you get add up to six guests. So you get this beautiful background, super picturesque, Instagram friendly, and it's beautiful, it's intimate, and it's $5,000. So this is the type of thing that you can go and create. Idea number two is you just go and organize these packages. build brands around it and capitalize on the micro wedding trend. So that's my trend of the week.

Starting point is 00:11:05 Micro weddings. I love it for a lot of reasons. Like I mentioned, you know, validated on Reddit, offshoot of a particular subreddit. You're starting to see little businesses pop up. There's so many validated business models. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. You can do things like an agency. And then people are willing to see.

Starting point is 00:11:27 spend on their weddings. So when you're creating a business, you obviously want to prioritize businesses where people are willing to take out their wallet. And this is something where people feel like they're saving money. You know, if they're spending $5,000 on a wedding and they thought that they're going to spend $50,000, they're going to be pretty darn happy. So I love this, I love this concept for a lot of reasons. And I also think that, you know, as someone who had a micro wedding, I didn't even know it was called a micro wedding. But as someone who had a micro wedding, it was just an incredible experience and special in its own way.

Starting point is 00:12:06 I feel like, you know, I'm 35 now, and a lot of my friends have gotten married. And it just sort of feels like by the end of like the last weddings of my friend group, it almost felt like all these weddings were the same. And they were beautiful weddings and great places and beautiful hotels. But they all had the 100, 200, 300 people. They all had the same band. They all had the same sort of food. And I think this idea around micro weddings that are just, also just unique experience. Like imagine getting married in the sequoias north of San Francisco, all these

Starting point is 00:12:45 trees that they're hundreds of years old and they're as tall as skyscrapers. Like, how cool is that? So love this trend and wanted to give it to you. The other thing that I wanted to talk about is just a insight I had around building businesses that are powered by human beings. And when I'm talking about building businesses, I'm talking about service-based businesses. Here's where I think service-based businesses are going to go. So when you build a service-based business, think of like a design agency or an SEO shop or something like that.

Starting point is 00:13:23 You start with, number one, you start with humans doing the work. And then number two, it's you transition from humans doing 100% of the work to AI-assisted human work. And then step three, you transition to agents do all the work. And I think this is just an interesting framework and something I'm just thinking about and I wanted to share it with you around what are businesses that are going to translate into that framework. Because I think that once you get to step three, the margins are going to three, four, or five X. Instead of making 20% EBITDA, you might be able to make 60% EBITDA, 80% EBITDA. And the reason why is because you're paying tokens and you're getting agents to do the work and people are expensive. There are certain industries where this probably won't happen.

Starting point is 00:14:18 You know, we run an innovation design agency called LCA and, you know, we work with the Nike and the Dropboxes and the Shopify's of the world and these large companies with their executive team. And they don't want AI to do all the work. And they also need someone to talk to. And they need someone to brainstorm with. And they need someone to jam with. So there are certain spaces where it doesn't make sense.

Starting point is 00:14:47 But there are certain spaces where it does make sense. And I think that's sort of my homework for you. It's something to think about is. what are service-based businesses that are most likely going to hit that number three, basically get agents on board? And this might be in five years and this might be in seven years or three years, but the point is if they can get there and you've built up all the systems and processes and client-based in five years, then you're going to be in a really, really good place. So that's something that I've been thinking about.

Starting point is 00:15:21 And the last thing I want to talk about today is I've been doing these live streams where I've been bringing people on stage who have startup ideas who want my feedback. And it's been really, really fun. And also people who just have a business and they're past the idea stage. Like they've got something live. And they want my feedback. So I'm going to share with you a couple of the ideas that were shared to me that I wasn't able to bring people on stage. And I'm going to give, I'm going to give. I'm going to give. live feedback. And my hope, my hope here is it's going to get your creative juices flowing. It's going to help you, help you get a bunch of startup ideas. And so let's, let's get right into it. So Peter Gray messaged me and says, here's the idea. It's called More Than Academy. It's an athlete tailored entrepreneurial education startup. There will be online community networking master class type videos, more formal LinkedIn type online courses. for certificates and badges and an in-person workshop primary series targeting at high school

Starting point is 00:16:28 athletes with aspirations of being an athlete aimed at empowering student athletes. Well, it's a lot of athletes with the skills and mindset needed for both athletic and entrepreneurial success. The person workshops lead gen for the online community and online education. Our business would then lead gen potential clients for all the NIL agencies or organizations like Athletes.org. Okay, so I'm not going to give you specific feedback on do athletes or aspiring athletes need this. I think they probably do, but I'm not one myself, so you would know better than me. But I'll give you feedback and give everyone feedback on a really big opportunity, which is credentialization.

Starting point is 00:17:14 We're living in a world where the value of a Harvard degree and a Stanford degree and is going down. Of course, you know, it's valuable. I'm not going to say it's not. But in our world, our world of like Twitter, podcast, YouTube, what people really care about is what have you done, you know, has your content gone viral in your niche? And that's basically it. And are you an interesting, cool person that I want to work with? That's what people care about. That being said, getting in the front door is difficult today. It's probably even more difficult today than it was 10 years ago. And I think the good part of having a Stanford degree or Harvard degree is it gets you in the front door. I think that there's tons of opportunity to build online programs and

Starting point is 00:18:10 IRL programs that credentializes. So what do I mean by credentializes? I mean, you get a certificate. will pay for that certificate. So I saw this really good tweet by Peter Levels on Twitter, and he goes, if you're looking for a remote job, go learn Python and apply for jobs in AI. Python is the fastest growing and highest paid for remote jobs right now. The median salary is $80,000 a year for remote, but with massive outliers into $300,000 a year and higher if you go non-remote, usually in office in San Francisco. So then he's put this chart of basically the fastest growing and highest paying jobs in 2024,

Starting point is 00:18:55 Python, marketing, node, backend, typescript, sales, Ruby, React, non-tech, JavaScript, customer support. I would basically use ChapitGPT to build this list. Or you can even grab this list. We can put it in the show notes. But I would basically create a list. And then I would be like, how do I credentialize for Python? How do I, you know, credentialize for not marketing?

Starting point is 00:19:19 Because marketing is too, it's too big. But what about, you know, growth marketing? So how you'd actually go and build out this idea is, you know, you'd take out a piece of paper. You'd write in the middle, hub and spoke. The hub would be marketing. And what are the spokes? Growth marketing, PPC, you know, audience development, video content. What are all the ways that people market in 2020?

Starting point is 00:19:46 24, and then I'd look at credentializing. And the other way you can create this business is you can actually go to existing course creators and be like, hey, I'm going to manage the credentialization of your program. I'm going to manage the graduation of your program. And I'm going to send, I'm just going to make this experience incredible. And I think that's another business that would definitely cash flow. you know, $10,000 to $100,000 a month. So I'm not, you know, to answer your, you know, to give you feedback, Peter,

Starting point is 00:20:25 I don't know enough about athletes, but I think what you inspired me to think about is credentialization is something that's a huge, huge, huge idea. So I like it a lot. And then Jose Carillo says, I recently started building trip. It's an analytic platform for UX teams. I'd love some feedback. Okay. So let's bring up Trip.com and give him some feedback.

Starting point is 00:20:59 Okay, so I pulled it up. It says analytics for UX teams that tracks user task duration and helps you fix user sticking points for smoother task completion. Discover the true efficiency of your app with real-time insights into task completion times, identify and streamline complex workflow to enhance user satisfaction and productivity. Okay. And then there's an image here. And then how do they charge? So they charge $9.99 a month. And you get five different tasks configured or $19.99. So they call it a business plan where you get 10 different tasks. So this is one of those.

Starting point is 00:21:46 ideas that you've built something really smart, but the way you're talking about it and way its position could be optimized. So it's not just about, quote unquote, smoother task completion. Because what does that mean? It means if you get people to complete their tasks, we actually did some research. If you get someone to compete their task, their primary task of going on to a mobile app or going into a website, they're actually 67% more likely to buy a product or service from you. So if you can tell me that you're going to help me sell more stuff, or you're going to help me get more people to subscribe,

Starting point is 00:22:28 or you're going to help me get more followers, or you're going to help me drive word or mouth, all these things. Like that's what this is about. It's not about task completion. So the biggest thing that you need here is to reposition around what is unpacked task completion. And the other thing is, when you're writing copy, write like you talk.

Starting point is 00:22:52 You know, you would never say in a conversation, discover the true efficiency of your app with real-time insights into task completion times. So you just need to rewrite your website as if you're talking to an eighth grader. And that's something, that's a prompt that you can actually put within chat GPT. You can say, you can put in all your copy and then put into chat GPT and say, I really want this to be written in plainly. in English, can you make this really, really clear and catchy for an eighth grader? And then you ask it to rewrite it and you're going to get some good stuff. The other thing is, where's the video? You know, I'm on your website and it's just an image. I think that so many people are using images and just text on web pages.

Starting point is 00:23:42 I'm really, really bullish right now on you're having above the fold a video and that's going to help increase conversion rates, no question. Show me what you're doing. People are used to Instagram stories. They're used to YouTube shorts. They're watching video everywhere.

Starting point is 00:24:02 They should be watching video on your website. And the beauty is video is one of the best, I think, if not the best way to story tell because you've got audio, you've got visual, you've got sound. So you feel more connected to a product via video if it's just an image. And last thing is, I don't know about your business model. 999 to 1999, like that feels quite arbitrary. And it feels like if you're actually helping that much with task

Starting point is 00:24:33 completion, it's worth a lot more than 1999. So that's my feedback. Hope that was helpful. All right. So that's the pod. If you enjoyed it, please, please go to YouTube, subscribe and comment on the YouTube video. And I read every comment. I respond to most of the comments, especially if they're nice. And I'll see you on the next one. Hope this got your creative juices flowing. Later, everyone.

The Startup Ideas Podcast - 4 profitable startup ideas you can launch tomorrow

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