The Startup Ideas Podcast - 4 profitable startups from the founder of exploding topics

Starting point is 00:00:00 beauty of it. You build the audience, the world is your oyster, as you know. Like, once you have the audience, the product's the easiest thing to do. I mean, even if you don't want to create your own, just promote other people's ADHD apps. But the point is, everyone's trying to go, they go right for the product. They're going, okay, I want to make an ADHD chair. They're forgetting the most important part and the opportunity in this space is to create the brand. So when you think of, I need help with ADHD, I want to do something about it. I go to Julius.

Starting point is 00:00:28 and that's the brand that's associated with this growing huge market. And you don't see very often a huge growing market without a go-to brand. And that's what we're seeing. We're going straight into it. Yep. Brian Dean on the podcast, I think this might be the best ever episode of the 150 episodes or whatever I've done in this podcast. You're literally calling me from your couch.

Starting point is 00:01:17 Yeah. It's more of an intimate episode. We're just going right into it. It's already the best episode. It's only like 20 seconds in. So all the pressure is off now. Totally. Yeah, we wanted to invite you into Brian's home.

Starting point is 00:01:34 Yeah, that's what we're going for. Production meeting we had before is what we talked about. Exactly. All right, man. We're getting into it. So you are the trend God. I'm just going to call you that. That's what I'm going to do.

Starting point is 00:01:54 Okay. I'm not going to argue with that. You might even call yourself the exploding topics, God. All right. And so I was hoping you can come on and you can share some of the most interesting trends, topics, and ideas. And you're a listener of the pod, so you know what this audience wants. Brian, what do you got for us? Yeah, the first idea right off the bat is one that I would pay for it to take my money situation.

Starting point is 00:02:20 is an AI content updater. So there are a million and one tools for creating content with AI. There's, you know, content writing tools. There's tools that do outlines. There are tools that rewrite your content. There are tools that will take your long form video and chop it up into shorts. But what real publishers need is help updating their existing content library. So, for example, with exploding topics, we have

Starting point is 00:02:49 maybe like 500 blog posts, which is nothing compared to most publishers. And even that, we have trouble keeping up to date. We have about, you know, one and a half full-time people constantly updating this content. And they're going in, they're saying, okay, this stat's a little bit old, or this isn't really as relevant anymore, or there's a link that's broken, or there's a source that's more recent we can use, and they're doing it manually. So if there was a tool that could go through your existing content library, find areas that need to be updated and actually go into your CMS and update it, it would be a game changer. What do you think you can charge for something like that?

Starting point is 00:03:31 I would say this would be something you'd want to go more enterprisey for sure, like starting at a thousand bucks a month. Because anyone who has a small, if you don't publish that much or have a big library, it's not that valuable because you can do it manually. You can just use spreadsheets and have a couple of staff. members do it. That's what we're doing now. But let's see you have 25,000 posts. You're like Tom's guide or something. You, it's insane to even think of doing that manually, but you need to keep this stuff up to date because it's about technology. So I would say you're starting at like

Starting point is 00:04:03 thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, you know, that big enterprise contract level. And if you were to start something like this, okay, so this is a great idea. I see the need. I actually, I would pay definitely a few thousand dollars a month for something like this. how would you go about actually starting this? Like, what do you do? Okay, what's next? The first thing I would build it for myself. So I'd be my own case study to start with.

Starting point is 00:04:33 And it's one of the, those business ideas are usually, in my opinion, the best because you're using it yourself. So you can see what needs to be added. What does it need to be done? Where does it mess up? Where is it good? Where is it bad? So first thing would definitely be building a beta that I tell.

Starting point is 00:04:49 out on my own site or a different property that I own to get the nuts and bolts out. And then from there, I'd probably do manual outreach and just be like, you have this massive library. I'm seeing a bunch of posts that haven't been updated in three years. We have software. I'll just go in, use AI and give it some updates that it needs. What about charging per update instead of going monthly? There's this monthly subscription fatigue. I feel like a no-brainer offer could be like per update. What do you think? Yeah, I love it. Yeah, and better expansion revenue too, because with the tier system, it's hard to get people to move up from the different tiers. You can, I mean, it's not possible,

Starting point is 00:05:30 but there's friction there. You have to lock out a feature or lock out a number of seats. The person has to click a button. They have to then, you know, decide on the next plan. And I don't know if I really need it or should I just wait until next month. But if you just do it where, you know, it's the first 10 updates are free or five updates are free. And then one, $1 each additional update per month, then that's actually probably better. And have you seen anyone doing this? No. I haven't looked like super extensively, but I haven't seen it.

Starting point is 00:06:01 I feel like you would know. Yeah, I kind of, yeah, I feel like I would have come across it because I've had this idea since I started, the Exploiting Topics blog got big, you know, with, you know, we got like 650,000 visitors a month. And I'm thinking how, and we're hiring all these people to update. I'm just like, how can we automate this? So I have my radar set to find this and I haven't seen anything out there for this. Brian, this is what I'm talking about.

Starting point is 00:06:28 This is such a good idea. Yeah, this is a take-my-money situation. And the best part about it is that it's a no-brainer offer for the right customer. If you reach out to a smaller blog and you're doing $49 a month, you're going to be in a world of pain with this product. But if you go to the bigger publishers that have at least, and it's easy to, defined. You're literally, your leads are sites that have more than X number of pages on the site and assuming those are, that's blog content. And you just cold outreach and say, I notice, you have these posts that are out of date. We just built something that can update them.

Starting point is 00:07:05 Or if you want to go crazy, here is, you know, here's the updated versions that are software created for you. You know, let me know if this is something you'd like to automate. Don't tell anyone. But I've got 30 plus startup. I do. that could make you millions, and I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into a one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast.

Starting point is 00:07:44 But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a, a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat cheat. The idea bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-loving business is waiting for you. I like it. I like it. So, dude, this is just, I like it. There's nothing more to say. Yeah. I've literally nothing more to say. Do you want my next idea, I guess. That's the transition. Yes, I would like, I would like. Okay. As a host, I thought you were just like ask, but no, I'll just do it. I'll host this one.

Starting point is 00:08:21 I'm going to make it as weird. I'm just going to try to make it as weird as possible. All right. Great. So my second one is definitely not an indie hacker business. This would require some cash. So I don't know if that's against the rules, Craig. It depends how much cash.

Starting point is 00:08:36 I think you like this idea, though. Hold on. Just tell me how much cash are we talking? In the millions, probably. So no? You know, millions is. Wait, wait. No, millions is in one to two million?

Starting point is 00:08:50 Yes, yes. Okay, yes. Proceed. So do you know Factor 75? No, I do not. There are like a meal service that there are these like pre-prepared meals that you buy. They sponsor a bunch of YouTube channels and you basically say, okay, I'm vegan or I'm keto and they deliver, let's say, seven meals a week. And you warm them up and they're ready to go.

Starting point is 00:09:15 and they deliver them to your door. These are huge right now, this meal service. But the problem is, the meals are like not the highest quality. They're about $10 a pot, $11 a pot. My idea, it's something else I would pay for, is like an Uber black of meal delivery, where we're talking $50 to start. And it's chef-prepared meals, super gourmet,

Starting point is 00:09:42 and it's essentially like what you get with a private, chef without needing to have a private chef come to your house because my buddy has a private chef and I go to his house and she makes these amazing meals and I'm always like, oh, I should hire her. But then I'm like, I'm going to have someone come into my house and cook in my kitchen and I'm playing fortnight with my friends. It's weird. But why would I do that? And I don't want to order a meal that's like 10 bucks. Their margins, you know, how much does it cost them to make? They're using like the lowest quality ingredients possible. I'll pay 50 because it's what I would pay for a nice meal out for a chef. prepared meal. It's not made to order. That's the thing about Factor 75, but you can tailor it to

Starting point is 00:10:21 your dietary restrictions, gluten-free or what-have-you. So for me, that would be another take-my-money situation. I had a hot dog the other day in Quebec, and the hot dog, it was like, I don't know, 79 cents Canadian, which is like 40, I don't know, 45 cents US. And I'm like halfway through it. and I'm like, wait, wait, wait a second. If I'm paying 48 cents for this, they're paying 10 to 15 to 20 cents for this, I probably shouldn't be putting this in my body. And I feel like that's kind of,

Starting point is 00:11:01 even these meal planning services, like even if they say it's dope for you, and I just, I don't buy it at 10 bucks. Yeah, the same. That's what I'm saying. So I would pay 50 even if it was the same meal. I'm a sucker. I just don't want to think you're getting, I don't want to think I'm eating something that costs them a buck to make. I might as well get a hungry man meal for that. So why not get a nice? So it would be high end. And it would come at like, you know, with Uber Eats, it's like some guy gives it to you in a paper bag. Here you go. This would be presented almost like an apple product. You open it up and it would be like beautifully presented. It would be this whole like culinary experience at home. Because even during COVID, I remember a lot of really nice Michelin Star restaurants started doing Uber Eats because they were closed. And they were figuring out ways to do this. So it's not totally unprecedented to pay this much for essentially a delivery meal. But you have to order from Uber Eats.

Starting point is 00:12:00 This would replace those sort of pre-paired meals that come and you put them in the fridge and then warm them up when you want. But they're going to be like 50 to 75 bucks a pop. And it's going to be like lobster and free range chicken and grass. and grass-fed beef and stuff like that. And so you warm it up yourself, right? You put it like in the oven? Yeah. Or the microwave.

Starting point is 00:12:21 Or microwave. But no, you wouldn't want a microwave. No, no. Oh, for this thing? No, no, dude. Come on. What do you, come on? You're not a barbarian, Brian.

Starting point is 00:12:31 You're right. I am, I guess, because I thought of it. I must be. So, I mean, I don't know if you need one to two million dollars to start this, to start this idea. Yeah, maybe not. I just usually it's more than you think. So I usually go up. So whatever number first pops into my head, I usually double it. So that's where I came up with that, that number. I thought it cost like 500K. So probably double that because of all the stuff,

Starting point is 00:13:00 you know, that doesn't come to your, to your head. I mean, to test this idea isn't going to take one to two million dollars. Oh, no, no, no, no. You could do it yourself. I mean, you could do it in your house. I invested in a company that went out of business that did that here in, in Lisbon, where I spend most of my time. They started a at-home Uber Eats, basically, home-cooked Uber Eats. And they partnered with different home-cooked chefs and they would make a meal for you on-demand at their house instead of at a restaurant and they would ship it to you. So I have some experience in this world. And I know that the challenge with that business is the delivery on demand element where you need to make it now. Someone sends an order. You need to be like at the ready, ready to go.

Starting point is 00:13:45 And if you're not a restaurant or a ghost kitchen, it doesn't make sense. That's why I like these prepared meals because you can do them at a massive scale and just ship them out. All right. I like it. I don't, you know, we have a thing on this pod. Do I sip this idea or do I spit this idea? I don't like it. Sip is I like. I sip the test of it, but I don't know at scale if I love this idea. Like operating this in like 50 cities to me seems like a mess. But I do think that maybe this is just a business where it's in one or two cities and it's not crazy to do a few million bucks per city, isn't it? No. If you just, New York, San Francisco. Austin, a couple of those tech cities where people will have more money than sense like me who will just pay 50 bucks for a meal that someone made

Starting point is 00:14:36 that's you know you're picturing them in a white like with white gloves and making this thing yeah suckers the sucker market really yeah um that they'll pay for it because i'm at the point where i like cooking but i'm a little bit like i don't want to have to cook every night and the the challenge is uber eats is like a mixed bag i don't really enjoy the whole experience of like ordering waiting for it so these meals sound like a great thing. But again, 10 bucks, it's not as bad as the hot dog, but it's the same idea. Don't look at me like that, Brian. I saw you look down on me. I'm not judging. I'm not, I'm not judging. Now, you are judging. I see, I see you. If it was like a dollar, man, come on. But anyway, the idea is that usually, the reason that I like it is that in most markets,

Starting point is 00:15:21 there's an option for a higher tier, whether it's cars, software, gyms. There's usually a market for this higher-end version of that thing, but I haven't seen it in this space. Yeah. I also, if I was doing this, I think the trend around clean eating, I'm sure you're saying a lot of that. Like everything's clean.

Starting point is 00:15:44 People are just using the word clean. It's like clean is the new healthy. You know, in the 80s and 90s, people used to say, oh, that's healthy. Now people say, oh, that's clean. Yeah. So I think if you ride on that trend, like clean meals,

Starting point is 00:15:57 I think that could be really interesting. And I also think handwritten notes or just stories, you know, people, especially suckers, suckers love stories. They do. They can't get enough of them. But you're right. I can imagine opening it and you get a little note from the chef. Like, I hope you enjoy it. It doesn't have to be for every meal because you're sending these in bulk, right? Like a week or seven, 10, 20, 30 meals at a time. So one note from the chef that says, hey, I hope you enjoyed these meals. we made for you this week. Greg, you know, Chef Greg. I think that would go a long way for getting those suckers to share it on social media. I, have ever seen Lawson Translation the movie? A great

Starting point is 00:16:40 movie. Great movie. Incredible movie. Highly recommend. So that movie, they're in the park Hyatt in Tokyo. So I was there recently and I'm having breakfast. And as I'm sitting down for my first breakfast, One of my first breakfast in Japan, the chef comes over and he puts down a plate of Madeline cookies, these like French cookies that he talks about that his mom used to make and now he makes them and he comes from Paris and the whole story. And I'm like melting. I'm quite literally melting. And then I pick up one of the cookies and of course it's like perfectly hot temperate.

Starting point is 00:17:29 and he was like, that's the way my mom used to like it. That story, like productizing that in this, there you go. You know, huge margin in that. Yeah, for sure, man. Yeah, that company that I invested here was called Mama Food. They did that. And it definitely helped add that element of personal touch. But it's just logistically was difficult.

Starting point is 00:17:51 But yeah, they did that. They would have in your, like when you ordered from, instead of going by restaurant, you go by chef. So you go for like chef number one. oh, this lady, she's from Bangladesh, and this is her meal she made back in the day or her mom made for her. So it had that little bit of story element to it. You have another idea? Yeah. So the other idea I have, I don't know if you like this one.

Starting point is 00:18:14 But how many ideas do you have? You said come with some half-baked ideas, two to three. I think I have to check my notes. I have my notes written down. I wrote a bunch down. So the other one I have is based on a lot of trend data we're seeing, we're seeing a bunch of trends in the ADHD space, especially when it comes to products. So more and more people are getting diagnosed and self-diagnosing themselves with ADHD. And there's a lot of products around it now. Like, for example, some trends that we're seeing in that space include ADHD timers,

Starting point is 00:18:48 ADHD watches, ADHD chairs, ADHD coaches, ADHD apps. And this is basically a booming market. that people aren't really talking about that much. So for me, the opportunity isn't necessarily in these individual skews, these individual products. No one's creating the brand for ADHD. So anyone that creates that community, that brand around ADHD, then you can, the world is your oyster when it comes to selling these products. You can sell your own. You can sell affiliate products. You can promote other people's stuff. But I haven't seen that. out there. My wife recently got diagnosed with ADHD. And it's, it's, it's interesting because a lot of

Starting point is 00:19:37 people who are like influencers in this space are saying you can use it as a superpower. Actually, it can be an advantage for you. And I feel like the first brand that comes out in position to ADHD as that is like, we help you take this thing that could be looked at as, as a disadvantage. And it's actually something you can use to your advantage. We'll show you how. And we have a community of people that will help you do it. Here's how I would name a product like that. So I get migraines. And I used to get embarrassed about getting migraines

Starting point is 00:20:09 because I'd be doing something. And then all of a sudden, like my vision would get blurry and it really suck. And I would get this migraine. And then I went to see a neurologist and he told me that this is when I was young. He was like,

Starting point is 00:20:27 you know, you start off the conversation by saying, you know, you know who else had migraines? And I was like, no, who? He was like, Julius Caesar. And Julius Caesar did a lot of big things. Granted, I think he probably killed a lot of people because he was like a general and stuff like that. But I mean, he was running Rome, you know, like he, he was able to live a successful life, whatever that meant at that time. I think that with ADHD, how do you find someone like that? So, okay, so if I was creating a migraine brand, I would call it Caesars or Julius. For ADHD, who is someone like that that people look up to and then just call it that? Yeah, that's a good idea.

Starting point is 00:21:18 That's a good way to do. That's a good brand. The person would have to be, you know, someone that's not a likeness that's copyrighted. at a trademark. So it has to be back in the day like that. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so I buy the thesis, but what it's not clear to me is what the actual product is. But that's the beauty of it. You build the audience. The world is your oyster, as you know. You can worry about the product later. It can be a suite of products. It can start with an app and then be fidget toys and then be a chair. Like once you have the audience, the product's the easiest thing to do. I mean, even if you don't want to

Starting point is 00:21:54 create your own. Just promote other people's ADHD apps. But the point is, everyone's trying to go, they go right for the product. They're going, okay, I want to make an ADHD chair. They're forgetting the most important part and the opportunity in this space is to create the brand. So when you think of, I need help with ADHD, I want to do something about it, I go to Julius. And that's the brand that's associated with this growing, huge market. And you don't see very often a huge growing market without a go-to brand. And that's what we're seeing. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called Boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the

Starting point is 00:22:38 world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use Boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back

Starting point is 00:23:13 guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend Boringmarketing.com. Who else, like, who do you look up to in terms of other brands that have done something similar that they're just amazing at building audience and building brand? Well, in meditation, like for example, I don't know if you know Dan Harris from 10%, he built a huge meditation brand where they were, you know, meditation was seen as like a woo-woo thing

Starting point is 00:23:41 that you did in your garden, cross-legged, and he was a newscaster who had panic attacks. and he wrote a book called 10% Happier about his journey from being a skeptic about meditation to someone that practiced it every day. And then he created an app around that and they have a whole community and a brand. So he was able to take that and turn that into a brand for a specific niche within meditation

Starting point is 00:24:08 that is this like skeptical group. So that's one that comes to mind as built completely from scratch in a growing space. How about you? Do you have any, Greg, that you can think of? The one that comes top of mind is a friend of mine and friend of the pod. Her name's Natalie Ellis.

Starting point is 00:24:27 She started, it started off as like basically a meme page called Girl Boss, I think it was called. And she was sharing memes and quotes and stories around female entrepreneurship, women-led businesses. And it grew to 6.4 or something million followers on Instagram. Big, you know, and once she had that, she was like, okay, what are the things that I could sell? Templates, a membership, you know, events. Now she has one of the top podcasts, one of the top business podcasts.

Starting point is 00:25:06 So she went from a meme page to a millionaire basically quite quickly. and it started with the brand. Yeah, yeah. I mean, some businesses start with the product, and they do well that way. There's no right or wrong way. But for me, there's... Okay, well, what's the right way, I guess?

Starting point is 00:25:30 I mean, my take is... I mean, I was joking a little bit, but my take is it's way easier to sign up with an Instagram account than it is to, you know, build a D to C product and figure out logistics and, and manufacturing and all that sort of thing. So I think that if you're creating a minimal viable product, I always think about it as like the minimal viable product is the social account. Yeah, for sure. I'm with you 100%.

Starting point is 00:26:03 Especially because in this particular area, the crowded area is the product area. So if you were to create another ADHD chair, you're one of like 100 of those, and you can get knocked off really easy on Amazon. If you're a brand, then you don't need to worry about knockoffs because you'll say, we have the best ADHD chair or we have the best ADHD planner. And next thing you know, people are buying it. I like it. You want to give us one last Brian idea? I need to check my notes on that. Oh, yeah, this is another good. I think you might sip this one, as the kids say. Greg. So this is another, back to B2B, a content repurposing service. So this is another scratch my own edge thing.

Starting point is 00:26:51 So if you work in content marketing and SEO for bigger brands, they always, even smaller brands, they have content that's just sitting around collecting dust that was published once. It's an email newsletter. It's a video. It was a webinar. It's an article. It's a tweet and they never repurposed that content. And for me, that's the greatest opportunity with content marketing right now is repurposing rather than creating original stuff from scratch because it's cheaper and it has a proven track record already.

Starting point is 00:27:26 So in my case, for example, with exploring topics, we have all this blog content and we're starting to repurpose it into videos on a YouTube channel that we're started. So it's so much easier to create those videos because we already have the building blocks of the article. We don't have to think and say, oh, what should we make a video about? Oh, what should we start with? We go, okay, here are the biggest marketing trends. We have a blog post about marketing trends that was updated last week. Let's turn that into a video. Or the reverse.

Starting point is 00:27:55 Let's take the video and turn it into a bunch of shorts and an article and an email newsletter and a webinar or whatever. So for me, that's another take my money if someone email me and said, hey, you have all this content. let's get some more value out of it. Yeah, so Mega SIP, you know me too well. Oh, nice. Yeah. What I'm seeing is there's a bunch of AI tools that are promising that. It's like give us your content and we'll spit out other formats of it.

Starting point is 00:28:23 And I just don't think that the AI tools are probably 100% there yet. So I do think that, oh, so that's one end of the spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum is humans creating new content. which is like, well, I don't want new content. I've got all this great stuff. So I agree. I think that there's something in between that is a big opportunity. And I think the way to sell it is you do a cold reach out and you're like, hey, you wrote this post in 2005.

Starting point is 00:28:53 I've turned it into this. Do you like it? Yes. You know. And if and then you have to prove yourself on the cold DM basically. Yeah. But I think like you said, it's kind of an easy sell for it's again, it's kind of like the updating idea and the sense there's a small market that will 100% get it. And most people won't. That's fine because the market that get it, like we'll get it is huge. And they have money. And they're willing. And you're basically saying, you know, if you're selling a dollar for a dime, basically, you're saying you have all this content, you give me this money as a service. And then we'll just get you more ROI from that content. You've felt obviously. you felt good enough to create it once. So why not just distribute it eight times in eight different

Starting point is 00:29:38 formats? And we'll do that for you. So for me, it's an easy sell, easy everything. The hard part is of delivery, like you said, Greg, where it's not something AI can do because it does require some ingenuity in terms of what's the best way to turn this video into a blog post, to turn this, you know, blockpost into a video, however, whichever direction you're going in. Because what a lot of people do is they'll say, oh, I want to get more out of my video. So I'll get a transcript of the video and I'll publish it as a blog post. They never do well because you need someone to turn that into, you can take that content, turn into a blog post, but you need to filter it through the lens of writing it as if it was a blog post for the first time. But even that

Starting point is 00:30:19 is so much faster than writing from scratch. So for me, that that's another idea that I would happily be shelling out money for. How big is this idea? How big could this get? I would say it. Max, like if you create a huge agency out of it, like eight figures, like 10 million. Cool. All right. There you have it. Those are my ideas.

Starting point is 00:30:43 Those are really good ideas. Oh, thanks, man. I spent some time on it. I really want to come prepare it. I appreciate it. It shows. Thank you for inviting us into your home on your couch. It's very kind of you.

Starting point is 00:30:59 Yeah. Hey, you're welcome anytime, Greg. Where could people get to know you better? The best place is probably on X, Brian E. Dean. Cool. Well, we'll find you there. And come back anytime, please. We'll do. Thanks for having me. All right. Don't eat any hot dogs, okay? Okay. See you later.

Starting point is 00:31:22 Later.

The Startup Ideas Podcast - 4 profitable startups from the founder of exploding topics

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