The Startup Ideas Podcast - 6 JUICY Startup Ideas For 2024, with legends Theo Tabah and Jordan Mix

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Today I'm joined by Late Checkout’s Chief Operating Officer Theo Tabah and Operating Partner Jordan Mix.We talk about the importance of trust in business, our main takeaways from 2023, and six juicy startup ideas you can steal for 2024. 📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free: https://www.gregisenberg.com/70,000+ people are already subscribed.FIND ME ON SOCIALTwitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/LINKS FOR THIS EPISODETheo’s socials:X: https://twitter.com/TheoTabahLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theotabah/Jordan’s socials:X: https://twitter.com/jrdnmixTIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro01:28 Why trust is the key to business success08:44 Productized partnerships11:40 How Greg and Jordan met on X17:40 Finding out what fuels you21:51 Scalable consulting25:31 Greg’s biggest regret of 202330:16 First business idea: Locket for creators37:42 Second business idea: Apple Vision Pro bars45:10 Third business idea: A multi-industry fitness product 49:47 Fourth business ideas: Neighborhood work clubs58:02 Fifth business idea: Cup of sugar, an app to meet your neighbors01:02:44 Sixth business idea: Right hand, assistance for solopreneurs

So I really started the year. My word was publish and I wanted to do dope things with dope people. I was like, what am I going to do? I looked back through my bookmark tweets and was how to build a company in 2023. So whipped up a quick graphic, tweeted it. Bing, got a DM from Greg. Who are you? Building with people that gets you fired up, it's such a hack.

Everyone runs on batteries. So you have to figure out what charges and drains yours. Burnout occurs when your batteries get drained. And it doesn't mean you've worked six. 60 hour weeks. It doesn't mean you are like burning the candle at both ends. It probably means you're just doing things that don't get you fired up. This is a special, special pod, holiday edition, ideas galore, lessons learned in 2023. It's going to be an iconic episode. We've got Theo, my co-founder in Lay Checkout, who has been on the pod before, one of one of the best most listened to.

episodes of the year. So he's back. And then we've got Jordan, who's a new face and a new partner, operating partner, Atlee, check out the holding company. And I'm excited to have you both in the room. Great to be here. Yeah, stoked. Blessed to share this fine room with Jordan for the first time. Big shoes to fill for the most downloaded episode. See. So let's get started. We've got a lot to cover. And I'm going to start with you, Theo. What are some takeaways you have from 2023 building at our holding company? Lots of takeaways.

First, Greg, I want to say that one takeaway is I still love building businesses with you. So that's a good one. Jordan, you too, now that you've joined the roster. It's been a treat. It's still fun to build. So one of them I wrote down when building a business, most things boil down to desired outcome plus trust. Sounds really simple, maybe sounds even really obvious. But man, after the reps that we've taken in selling, in building teams, and speaking to customers across different businesses, those are really the two things that matter.

Is desired outcomes, what is the goal of the person that you're speaking to? and trust. Do they trust you to get them there to achieve those goals, to achieve those desired outcomes? And many people have spoken about this, many people have talked about this, but really when you're able to understand what people want and then have them trust in you that you will get them there, especially in sales where you have a narrow window to be able to do that, if you can master that, everything else is gravy. So if you use that framework, that has really helped me at least think through writing copy on websites and going into sales calls and speaking to prospects and even building the team and speaking of folks we have on the team and figuring out what they want

and how we can build trust and maintain that trust to help them achieve their goals. So that's been a big one. I have a lot more to say on that. If you want me to keep going. Yeah, I mean, trust. I mean, I could listen to that and be like, yeah, like, that's obvious. Like, the more someone trust me, the more likely they are to, buy my services or join my team or, you know, do whatever I want them to do.

But how do you go about actually building trust? And yeah, what have you learned about how you can do that efficiently? Yeah. So I call it the three Cs of trust. Credibility, competency, and connection. Those are the three things that you're trying to get to as quickly as possible and in the most effective way that I've found. And I could be wrong, and there's probably a fourth and a fifth and a tenth C.

But for me, those three Cs matter a lot. So right off the bat, I try and form some level of connection. And that, to me, can be across a lot of different threads. But give you an example in a sales call the other day is someone came in and they were building a sports media empire. And right away, I figured out what this person's favorite sport was, which happened to be basketball. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I took a brief run at the NBA. It ended early when I was 15, but, you know, I went for it.

And so right away, I was able to call back to some basketball talk that brought me back to my childhood in early days, and we just jammed on basketball for a while. And then we talked about the NBA for a while. And then we talked about sports in general and playing sports. And before even talking about what their goals were, their desired outcomes were, I wanted to as quickly as I could form a connection with this person that separated me from

everyone else he was talking to. And so that was one way to kind of form the foundation for that call. And I do this time and time again, I always look for a tether, a thread where I can form connection. And then after that, how do I demonstrate competency and credibility in that call? So understanding their goal, ask a lot of questions, and then use some examples that showcase credibility. we've done this before. Greg is the CEO, et cetera, et cetera. And then competency is just jamming on potential solutions that could solve their problem and talking through their product or their problem.

And typically, that seems to be a winning formula. I also think that there's so much you can do with building internet audiences to build trust. Like content is the salesperson that works for you 24-7. Like, we're recording this once and thousands of people are going to listen to this. And a bunch of people are going to be like, whoa, I like what these guys are saying. I want to hire these people to innovate my Fortune 500 company or design this crazy website or build a new app or whatever it is. And we might be sleeping. We literally might be sleeping or we

might be on the beach or we might be, you might be, you know, shooting hoops, Theo. I know how much you like shooting hoops. From beyond the ark. Just every time. Break, break, break. Yeah. Yeah. So I think building trust is is definitely huge. And I do, I like that framework. But I do think that, you know, investing in content is such a efficient way to, to gain internet trust so that if you are, if you're you're, you're having a meeting with, you know, the CMO of Adidas. and you're trying to sell them a million or $2 million year contract to help them build their business, you want to have that first meeting that they know who you are and they know the work that you've done. So you're not just like coming in blind. Absolutely. And I think that ties back to the credibility, that competency and that connection.

And that's where content can be a huge level up for all of that because in a sea of sameness where a lot of people can compete on competence. see credibility, potentially, if you're in that type of market where there's a lot of people playing in the same space, connection might be your best bet to stand out. And if you've put out content consistently, I know I'm saying a lot of C words right now, so I'll pull back. You might be able to build connection over time, which you, Greg, have done masterfully and Jordan has started to do and our brands are starting to do is how do we speak to people in a way that they're connected to the brand and then demonstrate competency and credibility. Jordan, anything to add?

Yeah, I think like that equation is it credibility plus competency and then connection is almost like the multiplier on top of that. So you can do connection on the internet through content and that's like a micro amplifier. But then when you make those connections behind closed doors or index, etc., that amplifies it even further. Jordan, what have you learned? I know you've been at Lake Checo now for under a year. but what have you would have been a what's a really big takeaway that you learned in 23 that you're you're pulling into 24 totally i think it's around this idea of productized partnerships and really becoming a trusted advisory and partner for people um i think productized services were a big buzzword in 2023 and somehow that became an outbound marketing

strategy when it's really for internal use only to help run the machine more smoothly, but really changing a product-tized service, which is more of a transactional task-based deliverable, which is somewhat of a commodity, and turning that into a trusted partnership with a product-tized partnership, getting on the same side of the table as the client and really providing becoming a trusted advisor, and that's really where, like, novelty lies. like responding and providing strategic demand instead of just creating demand based on tasks, I think has been a really big takeaway toward the end of the year that I'm pumped to bring into 2024.

How do you like that sounds good, right? It sounds like, yeah, of course, be on, you know, be on the same side of the table. But how do you actually, if you're building an agency or building a service-based business, how do you actually implement that into your offering? Totally. Yeah, I think it's tough and it's interesting on a case-by-case basis, but I think going back to the connection piece of it, it's like slowing down to speed up.

Like, what are you actually offering the client? What are you trying to provide them? And like actually aligning with their goals instead of trying to make your MRR go up or, you know, just close the next deal. and move on. I think really aligning with where they're trying to go, where they've been, and pairing that with an offering, like slow down to speed up painfully, obvious. But, yeah, I think that's really, that's how I think about it at least is like actually being a

partner. Right. Yeah. You can't just, it can't just be words on a website. You have to structure your offering so that it really means that. And I think that's where a lot of productized services are going to fall flat is there going to be a service that of course provides some value. But I think that in an AI generated world, like people are looking for partners, not service providers. Because service providers are just going to be tools like chatGBT or tools like BARD and Dolly and stuff like that. Where the value really is is in the advisory and the partnership. And I think people are willing to pay for that.

Jordan, I feel like we would be doing people a disservice if we didn't tell people the story of how we met. And I'm curious if that was a takeaway for you in 2023. 100%. Collaboration, permissionless apprenticeship, over solopreneurship and building things with people that don't get you pumped. So I started the year working on an agency that I had built. It was going great. The P&L looked amazing. profitable, everything, but I just wasn't fulfilled at all.

So I really started the year. My word was publish, and I wanted to do dope things with dope people. I made a little list, and Greg, you were on that. I don't even know if I told you about this list, but it had like some five people on it. Jack Butcher was one of them. Shout out Visualized Value, of course. He's created a business that he runs seamlessly and doesn't need me. respectfully. Like Sean Puri was on there. A couple other people were on there, but I just aligned with

what you were doing. And Theo, I didn't know you. You were just amazing sprinkles on top of this cake. But I was like, what am I going to do? I looked back through my bookmark tweets, saw a tweet that Greg had posted. I think it was like in November of last year. It was how to build a company in 2023. I'm decent at design, a self-taught designer. So I was like, how can I add value to Greg? He has this 50 character tweet it's a banger but people aren't really going to resonate with just words so whipped up a quick graphic tweeted it being got a DM from Greg who are you and this was from like a little do within account my little like side brand and it was like literally zero followers I'd started it like not long before that and Greg said it had double digit followers I said it had 18 followers and I was

like really is someone yeah I was sending this DM, I was like, I don't know if anyone's going to respond to this. Yeah, well, I responded. We jumped on a FaceTime immediately. I think it was like January 2nd or something. Just get gearing up for the year and we just started jamming. And I wound out of that agency and was more than excited to take the opportunity to come join and build with you guys. And I think that's like one of the biggest takeaways this year too is just like building with people that gets you fired up that you can align with is. so much better than doing it either as a solopreneur or even with a team that doesn't necessarily align with the way you think. It's such a hack of life fulfillment to build with people that get you amped. So, well, I just pulled up the DM with, with, with, uh, do within. And January

second, right? January 2nd, 2023, I send a message and we'll put this, if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple, get to YouTube, subscribe and watch it on YouTube to see it, to see the visual. But I go, love the image at 4.01pm. You go, thanks, Greg. Too good not to visualize at 403. So you, like, responded pretty instantaneously. You were ready to go.

And, you know, it's not like you were hung over from January, December 31st, January 1st thing. Like you're ready to hit this year with a bang. So I go, what's your name? And then you send me Jordan Mix as your Twitter. And then you write your name, Jordan Mix, which is intriguing just by like, I know your last name is not Mix. Like, but it's cool. Like that is a cool. The fact that you like put it essentially a nickname, like I'm interested.

Say more. Then all I do is give you my phone number. Curious to learn more about you. FaceTime me. 4.22 p.m. 425 p.m. Word will be a 901 number. So in less than 30 minutes, we get on a call and I was basically like, we got to find a way to work together. And your life changed. 100%.

It was dope. It was dope. So everybody. For both of us. Like in my life changed too. You know what I mean? For all of us. For all of us.

Don't forget me. You know, it changed my life as well. You know, it goes to show you, like, send the DM to, you know, put stuff out on the internet, get loud on the internet. And if you're not afraid of rejection and you're not afraid of, like, meeting strangers on the internet, that's the beauty about the internet, right? Like, it's weird to meet a stranger in person sometimes for safety reasons. But if Jordan was weird and then.

we were on a FaceTime, I could have just hit that end call button and feel like that was a weird way to spend January 2nd. But the upside is high and the downside is low. Yeah, 100%. You got to do it. Like, they might not be liking, but they're watching. So, like, even if your tweets get 100 impressions, that's 100 people seeing it, it's pretty crazy. If you picture 100 people in a room, that's wild. So I think more people should just publish more stuff.

And there's a lot of benefits other than just a follower count. I don't even think follower count matters that much other than like some some verified credibility. But yeah, send that DM, baby. Theo, upon reflection 2023, what else have you learned? I want to build off this. Jordan did a good job of building credibility and forming connection there. So way to steal my trust formula in January before I knew it existed.

Building off this and Jordan's kind of take on, you know, your agency and where you are today with late checkout is that everyone runs on batteries. So you have to figure out what charges and drains yours. That is, I guess it wasn't a learning in 2023, but a real big reminder that, you know, people, projects, problems to solve what you do outside of work. they all have an impact on your batteries and you have a finite number. And some people are running on a cyber truck battery and some people are running on double A's. So, you know, know how much you got in the tank. But at the end of the day, things drain and things charge your batteries and do more things that charge your batteries and way less. That drain them.

Nice. I love that you still have double A's. So I think like burnout occurs when your batteries get drained. And it doesn't mean you've worked six. 60 hour weeks. It doesn't mean you are like burning the candle at both ends. It probably means you're just doing things that don't get you fired up and or with people who kind of grind your gears or taking energy away from you instead of building you up and charging your batteries. So, you know, we've worked with people who I'd scratch my head and didn't understand why they were

feeling burnt out. I was like, you're working pretty reasonable hours. It's not like you're even capping 40 hours a week. The project seems exciting. But I just had them in a role that they weren't thriving in. So I had them trying to ship content or ideate on a new product when really they were best at program management and or, you know, internal operations. And so when you figure out getting people in the right place and allowing them to provide value and succeed, that gets people really fired up. They see momentum. That gets people even more fired up. That charges their batteries. So seemingly putting people in situations where from your perspective might be like, why are they not performing or why are they feeling this way?

Just ask yourself, are they in a situation where their batteries are getting drained? And I think, yeah, continue to move everyone towards that charging area. And you're going to see incredible productivity and just a lot of happiness, a lot of fun. So that was another fun reminder this year of, yeah, figuring out what those things are and doing more of them. I like that. Yeah, I like that. I like that. I think it's tough, though.

It's like you want people to do. enable them to do their best work at the same time sometimes like at a startup or in any business like you just have like work that needs to get done so it needs to also align with the needs of the business and it's if it's a vend diagram and you hope that overlap is like you know 100% but sometimes it isn't and I think it's also we've seen a shift in in 2023 from prior years, for example, 2021, when we were just trying to fight to retain as much of our talents as possible, not just us, but all, you know, startups in general, large tech companies. And it's moved now from employee to a little more in the camp of employer.

And I think it's probably a better balance. I think it should be a balance between what employees want to do, what teammates want to do, and what actually needs to get done and working, you know, working together to make it happen. But that's a really good one. Jordan, you have something we've talked about in the past, you know, scalable, this concept of scalable consulting. And you learned that in 2023.

Could you talk more about it? Yeah, for sure. Like courses and education is scalable consulting. After developing, email-based courses and courses throughout the year, I think there's a real opportunity to use education as the initial connection building and nurture sequences. But thinking about it, what is the dream outcome? Like alluding to what Theo was saying earlier, like, what are they trying to achieve? And then using that curriculum as scalable consulting to get them to that

that outcome. So I think a lot of people are doing courses and writing curriculums that are all about teach, teach, teach, and they don't really enable people to do. When everyone wants a dream outcome, they're trying to do something. They don't really care about learning to do the thing. They want to do the thing. And learning is usually the byproduct. So I think flipping that and really making education like a core across all of the hold code properties, um, has, has been like a core learning this year. And I think we're going to do way more of it in 2024 and make it multidimensional. So I think thinking about it as scalable consulting as that first touch point also helps downstream effects when you actually offer services or other products.

So a lot of people probably listen to that and we're like, no, I don't want to do courses. I'm too good for courses. And because, you know, it's the C word. It has a bad rap. And I get that. But I think that the way to reframe it is educate. You know, people do want education. And I was just at the Apple store the other day and there was like a how to do finger painting on the iPad session.

And it was packed. You know, there was probably 100 people doing it. And people want to learn, right? And then they learn about how to finger paint on the iPad. and before you know it, they're buying an iPad pro. And I guarantee you that Apple is investing in that for a reason. They know that some of these educational, you know, they're kind of like courses or educational experiences,

build trust and trust will help you sell more. And so I think, yeah, you're right. In 2020, we learned that the power of education and how education builds trust and how it does allow for scalable consulting if you want, if you want it to be. So huge learning. But guys, I think we've got to get to the meet, the meat of this episode, which is free startup ideas for the listeners, things that you're, are top of mind. And so maybe let's start with Theo.

What are some startup ideas that you have that people can steal and get them thinking? Well, off the bat, I'll say that Greg, I still want to hear your biggest learning or one of your biggest learnings or takeaways from 2023. So you're not going to get off the hook that easy. I mean, I'll go. I'll say it. Let's hear it. I'll say my regret from 2023. Flip it on its head.

Let's do it. Invert it. My biggest regret was not doubling down even more. Like we've got real product market fit with a lot of our businesses. Like boringmarketing.com is really the best, like the tools that they've built, like the AI tools to build SEO optimized pages is like best at class. And it's a big, it's getting to be a big business, but like how could we have doubled down even more?

dispatch meet dispatch.com how could we have doubled down on that design subscription even more twenty three twenty twenty four is a very unique time in technology there's going to be an increased amount of startups that are going to die an incredible influx of talent that is looking for work and opportunities to acquire these businesses for pennies on the dollar and I think our specialty, which is knowing how to build internet audiences, knowing how to convert those audiences into communities, and then knowing how to come up with product ideas and build those product ideas, is, couldn't be more relevant today. And I wish that we took a few more risky bets on hires and acquisitions in 2023. So,

my regret is not being my I guess my my my lesson is don't lead with fear right you should never lead a business with fear um you know at the time in 2023 we're reading the news people are cutting you know we work with some of the largest tech companies in the world on our services business it's like you know they're they're cutting 50% of their staff are they going to retain us and turns out they did we when I you know they did we shouldn't have even thought about, hey, maybe we should grow slower this year. So I trust your intuition, man. Trust your gut.

Can I build off that with one more learning? It'll be a quick one. Sure. And then let's get into the meat to your point. It's not a perfect saying, and I'm stealing it from somewhere else, but I think it goes something like nobody cares, work harder. I think this was from, you know, someone I heard on another podcast. And what I mean by that is like this was a real thing that I was telling you.

that I was telling myself at one point where I was like, oh man, like I was, I had COVID last week and, you know, Greg's on his honeymoon and oh, this person just left the business and, oh, but we're still here and there and we'll get back at it. And in my head, I was justifying or kind of adding the circular logic or this logic to what we could do when and how it would all be fine and that everything would end up how it was going to end up and that there were valid reasons. for us being in the situation we were in. Maybe we were a little bit behind on revenue targets. Maybe we didn't make as much one month.

Maybe we lost a person on the team. But at the end of the day, when I look at my bank account or our business bank account or the client who just left or the person who just left, it doesn't matter. All of your excuses or reasoning or logic, there are things that are definitely valid reasons to pull back from something and to reshift your focus. I'm not discounting that. That's very true and that happens. But I'm saying in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

Like, what matters is what happens is the output, is the results, is what you deliver, is what is the consequence of that. And so I think it was another reminder in 2023 that, like, I can come up with all the excuses I want, but, you know, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. What matters is what happens. And that doesn't always mean work harder. It could mean work smarter. But it just means results actually matter.

People have said this 100 different ways. But 2023 was another, you know, reminder, another tap on the shoulder to say, hey, Leo, remember, no one cares. So let's get into the business ideas. And by the way, Jordan and Greg are going to be 10x better at this. And I have better ideas than I will. You're just a humble Canadian. So that's why you. I have a humble Canadian.

Yeah. These are going to be straight fire. Let's go. So the way I think about this a little bit with my overly analytical operational brain is which way is the pendulum swinging and then go where the pendulum isn't? Or go counterculture. Go against the grain. And so one kind of macro trend is, and I think, Jordan, you'll touch on this a little bit.

And we jammed on this a couple of times is, you know, mass connection, social networks, everything to everyone, super crowded, not very focused, not very niche. AI is taking off, you know, what is human, what is AI generated, do people even care? And then because of this influx of all this content and all of these images and all of this everything, your trusted spaces are crowded, your inbox, your messaging, you know, pick the next surface that you hang out on. on or spend your time on is super crowded and noisy with content that is everything to everyone from things that you don't even know if it's machine or man or woman for that matter.

So I think more intimate apps, which Greg, you've been beating this drum for a while, on a new surface is really interesting for those folks who know Lockett. Lockett kind of blew up last year. It was originally created by this guy named Matt to help him feel closer to his girlfriend. when they were in a long-distance relationship. And what it does is allows you to share photos. And it's a widget on your home screen. So you will see, you know, the photo that was shared by whoever you have in your locket on your home screen, in big, on your phone.

And you look at your phone home screen about 80 times a day. Maybe more in some cases and definitely more for some people, maybe a little less for others. And so I'm wondering from an intimacy perspective how you own that surface of your home screen or a new surface and how you you create intimacy around that when everything else is so noisy? And what would Lockett look like in other verticals? So not just for your friends and family, but for other people who need deeper connections with their fans or customers or whoever else. So I like Lockett for X, which is, you know, what does a Locket app look like for creators and influencers? How do you show up not only in an Instagram feed, but on actual home screens? What about for athletes, you're super fans,

how are they seeing you and staying up to date with that? Musicians. Ultimately, these are all super fan experiences or kind of true fan experiences that could offer up so much more and have direct access to your fans. You could sell them things, but you can also provide behind the scenes content, et cetera, et cetera, in this new locket for X mind frame or mindshare. So that to me feels like a really interesting one. I don't know where it will go and how you maybe white label it or create a native

app, but how creators do this and how other folks do this or how other, you know, call it record labels or big music apps or kind of institutions or associations do this for their athletes. I think there's a really interesting opportunity here to supercharge intimacy and own a new surface. Yeah. So Instagram tried to do something and they're pushing it right now, which is Instagram broadcasts. And I've been playing with a few. And it's, I guess, I've, can see the look on Jordan's face. It's not it. I don't love it. And the reason I don't love it is this for the reason that you brought out the, which is people are already underwater when it comes to their inboxes. So basically the way broadcast works is it's a DM from a creator in your

message box and oftentimes you can react to that particular piece of content and it's like a it's not that useful because like what's the difference between that and posting a feed or posting a story and b get out my inbox like you know like that space is already how dare you it's exactly in your head it's already reserved for your friends and family exactly so that's so so i like Lockett for X. And I also think that it's worthwhile to pay attention to how platforms are changing. So Lockett was able to take advantage of iOS 14's widget introduction a couple of years ago. And a lot of people saw widgets and were like, cool, that's like, looks cute, but, you know, I'm not going to develop something. And kudos to Matt and team for actually being like,

how can we push the limits on something like this with a really refined use case him and his girlfriend and stuff like that so yeah i agree i think there's going to be not only more locket for xes but just in general widgets are really interesting and there's not just just widgets on your iPhone but also you know widgets on your mac and other places Yeah, such a valuable billboard. It's insane. Exactly. When you're looking at that and you're, again, your headspace when you're opening that phone, it's just, it's hitting you so often and you don't even realize it. And we've jammed with the team on this. The team we have is brilliant, comes up with ideas like this all the time. And I think one of the frameworks, just before we move on to some of the fire ideas from Jordan and Greg, you know, some of the one of the frameworks that we came up with Greg in 2020, if you still use today and is still fire.

is the fun framework for how to build new social-minded products. And fun is format, utility, and niche. And I love that framework, and it still is burned into my brain on, you know, how do you own a new format, you know, tweets or ex posts for a new format, Instagram's new format, et cetera, locket is a new format. Utility, are you providing utility? If you're not, you better be providing a great new format for a new niche. and if you are providing utility,

maybe formats less important, but you should have a specific niche to be serving. That triangle is really, really powerful, and that framework has been really powerful for us to think about new products. JMEX. Are you going ideas? Yeah, what you got?

Let's go. It's a hard, that's a tough act to follow. That was 10 on 10. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'll rate all these. What about in Canada? What about in Canada? Is it still a 10 on 10? Well, it's,

It's 10 on 10 U.S., so it's really 13 on 10. Yeah. Perfect. Always converting. Yeah. How does that convert to the Quebec dollar, though? Or is it not? Genesee, yeah.

Okay. Jordan, what you got? Yeah. So I think about a lot about like maximizing spaces or like putting underutilized spaces to use. So like churches, for example, sit empty six days a week. Bars and nightclubs are empty

all day. Venues are empty. Most of the day, most of the week, sporting events all off season. So I've seen a couple really interesting things. This one thing called Upper Debt Golfing. They let you basically do top golf for venues. So like

Nissan Stadium, Gillette Stadium. They're basically doing a tour of all of these these different venues. So that just gives me like a really, it's a really interesting trend. And when you think about what's coming up in the future, the Apple Vision Pro is coming up.

So how could you leverage the Applevision Pro and these underutilized spaces? And we're going back to the throwback days of the internet cafes. We want Apple Vision Pro bars. What are we doing? We're buying 10 Apple Vision Pros. We're going to outlay 35K.

Everyone's going to want to try it. So you got it baked in. You rent it for 50 bucks an hour, 12 hours a day. You got 10 of them. So you're doing 6K a day. What's that a month? 180K a month in revenue. Thank me later.

Applevision Pro bars. But is this one of those ideas that works for a year and then doesn't work after a year? I heard some stories. Still 180K. Shock it up. Yeah, but then what do you do with all those ABPs? Sell them, baby, or use them?

Rent them. I like the, I mean, to me, what's cool about that is you're giving people access to something that they wouldn't have access otherwise. And it's not necessarily about the AVPs. it's about it's about the social experience of like meeting other people when you're going to the bars so

like i used to go to like an internet cafe where people could play like play video games and that used to be quite popular actually like in the early 2000s and i'd show up and i'd rent a computer play a video game and i had the video game at home but it was just more about like I'd go with my friends and we'd meet other people there, buy some food and stuff like that. So there's definitely like a social club that you can attach to it, which could be interesting. And that could be, could add some longevity to this one month business. I'll tell you what you do. You throw on a native experience that you've built in all of the vision pros that are a lead magnet or a trust building mechanism for whatever business that you are running.

services business, community, etc. And it's just a great way to get in front of people's eyes and in their brains through the AVPs. We're going next level, subconscious marketing here. And yeah, you use that as a great tool to not only give people a new inaccessible experience, making that accessible, but then also offering them a really cool game or utility or even just wallpaper background kind of design that showcases your capabilities to upsell, cross-sell, offer other things. I don't know who the target market would be, but there's an interesting play there as well. I mean, it's an interesting play for, like, if you did create these bars, and then you went to like a social app or a video, like, you know, epic games and you're like,

hey, you want access to these 20,000 people in these bars. Well, like, it's pre-installed with this game. we are going to promote it and host game nights and stuff like that. So that's an interesting monetization model for something like this. Stack it up. Greg, you want to go next? Do a little round table, then do another, then do a round two. Well, we could, we can rate this. We can rate this one.

Theo, you want to rate, rate this bad boy? Yeah, I'll give it a, I'll give it a. Wait, no sevens, no sevens. Sevens a cop-out rating. You know the rules. no sevens. Not even with the conversion rate, no sevens. I'll do a solid 8.3 on 10.

What? Yeah. 180K. He wants it. For Q1, 2024. Q2 and drops to a 6 on 10. Or lower. Or lower.

I mean, do I have to be honest? Of course. I don't want to hurt your feelings. You won't. Are you just saying that? No. This is for someone who wants to make 180K and sit on the beach for the rest of the year. I'm going to give it a 5-5.

5. And the reason I'm going to give it a 5-5 is you have to, it's capital intensive. So I don't like that. And I think the people are going to get the upside of the people who are going to be developing the experiences on the on the platform. So just like how we talked about iOS 14 and Lockett and how there's so much opportunity

there, there's so much opportunity to build cool, interesting spatial experiences within the ecosystem. That's where I would be putting the majority of my cycles is thinking about

if Apple Vision Pro takes off what's going to be the de facto dating app what's going to be the de facto social network what's going to be the de facto you know first person shooter and just like thinking about and then what are and this is probably the most important question which is what is what is the most non-obvious experiences

that people aren't thinking about that you should you could be creating within this ecosystem what does an ad network look like for apple vision pro how do you think about buying up all the billboards within Apple Vision Pro and selling it. Things like that,

which are non-obvious, but probably pretty valuable if it works out. Okay. I've got another one. Or Greg, you want to go? Like I said, before coming on, I was like, I don't have any ideas that I want to share. I just want to hear your ideas.

You guys are brilliant, billion folks. And people want to hear from you. They want to hear from Jordan and Theo. That's kind. It's sweet of you. Okay, let's keep rocking. Okay, this one's a little, it's still work in progress. But as more info floods the market, as everyone is an expert on everything, it's hard to know what, quote, unquote, healthy or right or good looks like.

And let's use the word healthy. What does it mean to be healthy and what's the best going to diet? What does it mean to be this across many different industries? And so technologies are evolving super rapidly. Businesses are operating differently. I think people don't know what the playbook looks like anymore to be healthy. And I don't mean healthy only physically. I mean mentally, spiritually, emotionally, financially,

professionally, creatively, creatively, socially. What does it look like to be healthy in this new world with all of these new opportunities and everyone feeding you information of what the right approach is with no real credentials, including me. So don't listen to me if I'm telling you how to be healthy. I don't know. So I think fitness for X products, it's another for X, but I love that framework that you put in, I think, community college, you know, 2020.

But X for Y, right? What does a fitness product for X look like around these different industries or these different kind of head spaces? So financial fitness, professional fitness. fitness, creative fitness, spiritual fitness. And how do you build these apps that are part gamification, part behavior change, part social, part content? And it doesn't have to start with an app. It can really just start with a niche and start with understanding the people, start with the community, building content in the space about helping people figure out what that means, and then building a

product or an experience for them to help change their behavior and put them on a path to fitness. You know, we work with Nike, we've worked with Weight Watchers, we've worked with now beyond barriers, which is professional fitness, especially for women in mid to senior level positions. They sell these massive contracts to big companies on how to help employees there, specifically women in mid to senior positions, get professionally fit in a way, right? Is how do they achieve their professional goals? what is the curriculum, who's the community they're going to do it with, what's the content, and then what are the other offers they can use to help them get there. And so I think there's a massive opportunity to figure out what the next area of fitness is and how to build an experience around it.

Yeah, and the cool thing about, so I love this trend and I think it's only getting started. I think the beauty about it is digital products actually lend themselves really well to gamification. Like look at Duolingo. It's like a multi-billion-dollar company teaching people how to learn a language. And that's like language fitness. You know, I think there's so much opportunity here that if you actually create a tight digital product with utility and then you layer on like a game-like experience in a niche

that's purpose built for that, it's got all the makings of a great business because you've got the moat because it's purpose built so other companies won't come after you there and you're also getting the retention engagement because you've you've got this like built in leveling system that uh human beings are basically wired to to go and jump hoops through so i like this trend even though it's not like one idea and man i like it jor what do you think i love the trend yeah do you you guys remember stepping in the web three days they like i mean it went crazy because it was like walk to earn but i think there's something there with with this as well it's just like not necessarily fitness but just gamification and earning um on some curriculum of the um yeah there's just a million

ways you could take it um who were you talking to recently gregg that had the retreat the creativity wellness retreat? So a buddy of mine has this really good idea, which is basically he's been, so he's an artist and he's been, or he wants to basically be the creative wellness guy. So his whole thesis is that creatives, like other professionals, get burnt out and they need places where they can go to actually like come back really for, filled. And although there's retreat centers for if you're into yoga, or now there's retreat centers for like psychedelics, that's like a big thing. And although those things exist, or there's spiritual retreat centers, like go to an ashram in India, there actually doesn't really exist a place

where it's focused on taking, say, a painter and getting them to paint, you know, paint more or be more inspired or even a graphic designer like having programming. So the idea is basically he's building this retreat center and sort of like a farm, a farm area where he's hosting like think of like he's kind of like trying to be like the Rick Rubin, but for art therapy. And I think that's a really interesting play. It also plays on the trend around IRL. like in-person experiences that people post-COVID are really in the mood for.

So I think I like that idea. And I think branding himself around art wellness is a really interesting approach to it. He should stand up a like old Western saloon, middle of the farm, call it Riders Block. Right. Totally. Well, I think I think it's a big opportunity. and it's one of those ideas that's like hidden in plain sight. It's like you have to like take some of these trends like fitness, like that you said,

you know, fitness. And now there's more creative than ever because people are designing things in real time on the internet and IRL and community and you put it together and you're like, wow, like there's an opportunity here. And the beauty about that idea is like you could. start it, you can basically build demand online. You know, you build content online and inspirational content. And then you start amassing that community, build a free community on it. And then you say like, hey, you know, do you want to come to my farm? So it's kind of, it's a cool

idea. And you're, you're also starting to see just so much demand for places like Soho House. I was at So House the other day And there was like I was telling someone I was telling it on it was actually on another pod that like it was like a line to get into a line to get into a line to get into a line to get into the Miami Soho House And then I was reading that they actually stopped like you can't like join a New York or L.A. or you know, So house anymore like there's no more wait list or anything like that like they're at peak capacity. Why do you think that is? Well, I think a lot of pent-up demand post-COVID.

I also think that people are looking for more community-based experiences. Like, they want to feel like they're a part of something. I think a lot of people work from home, so they want a place where they can just, like, open up their laptop and, like, be with other people. So-O-House, I think, is going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of WeWorks bankruptcy in a lot of ways. And in fact, they actually have a Soho House workspace business as a part, like a separate business that they, from what I remember, were trying it in Dumbo in New York and Brooklyn and have probably now expanded beyond it. So pretty bullish on Soho House if they are able to maintain quality, which is a whole other can of worms, which I don't know they're able to. Yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity, like a blend, a middle ground between weeks.

work and Soho House. Soho House's rules are crazy. You know, you take a phone call in there and they immediately tackle you. So it's, I think there's a real opportunity for these neighborhood work clubs.

One opened up here in Nashville. It's called Switchyards and it's really like bare bones co-working, free coffee, 24-7 access, etc. And it's $100 a month. And they went live with it. And they oversold memberships like something happened with the Shopify.

I don't know what, but they oversold memberships in two minutes by 800 people. And that just shows how much like demand, I think, for this like middle ground could be, where it's like co-working membership, but also eat, work, play, workout. I think there's like a huge opportunity and like making it more like a lifetime fitness and less like a solo house could be interesting for sure. I also saw my friend Mike Karn, he posted. Did you see a tweet of his where he talked about like someone should build the sow house, but for family friendly? Like somewhere where you can bring your kids.

Did you see that tweet? I think I did with like daycare services and like. Yeah, exactly. I had actually seen it too. Someone responded, I think, about lifetime fitness. like bro this is lifetime fitness but lifetime fitness is super suburban and only in america i'm pretty sure don't know people love responding to tweets with like but actually it's you know this already exists as a guy who tweets a lot about like startup ideas everyone always so many people are

are always like well that already exists and it's like yeah it might exist but like a people don't think of that brand. It's like, or be, what if you niche down more and made it for this particular audience? Or maybe that brand was created in 1980 and what people wanted in 1980 is really different than when people want in 2024. So anyways, that was a side rant about people who, uh, snarky call me. Free rant, yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, Ray, my burn the startup idea so we can get a taste some Jordans, although I think we just did, which is these localized co-working spots, but I've got a hint. What do you got, Jordan? What's your rating on this? On my cop-out answer of a category, not a specific idea. Don't be shy. I like it. I like it. I like it on 10. Yeah. I approve this message.

No, I'm going to go, I'm going to go nine. Wow. I'm feeling it. As a category, as an idea, less than one. Zero. No idea. Yeah, exactly. Fair enough. But the category I like a lot. Yeah, I agree.

I'll give it a nine as well. Nine on category. Zero on idea. Fair. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I like it. That's fair. Cool.

Jordan, do you have another idea you got? Yeah, I got a hyper, another hyper local one with, I think people are just interested in investing in their local communities. but I think there's an interesting like digital to physical pipeline that's happening that I'm really fascinated with right now. So this one's a little bit of a funny one, but let's have some fun. Next door is terrible.

There's a bunch of Karens on there. It's become Facebook. It's just gossipy and really just like fear mongering. Like did you see the break in on 8th Avenue, etc? So we are unbundling or rewiring next door. It went public, I think, in a SPAC at like $4 billion a couple years ago. So what are we doing? It's called Cup of Sugar.

Cup of Sugar is the friendly neighborhood app where you get to meet your neighbors. You can borrow a cup of sugar if you want, or you can have a cookout, or get someone to have packages picked up off your door. And it's a friendly place to meet people. I had this idea because I literally met one of my neighbors on Twitter, like last week, and we ended up being at the same co-working space that I was just mentioning. We had a scheduled call, but we ended up getting together in person. So there's a little bit of a quip on that, but I would monetize through mainly ads and find out about like local hot deals through these Instagram influencers.

Like every city these days, I feel like has. like a city guy that's or 10 of them that are viral on Instagram. So I would partner with them to do like local events, neighborhood restaurants. And it's got to have an annual membership with a coupon book. We got to throw back the coupon books for the neighborhoods. So free cheese dip, free Koso. So many southern things were dropped.

Yeah. I know. My head is exploding from way up here in Canada. I love it. Sugar. I love it. So the way to do this idea is you buy Nextdoor, though. So you acquire Nextdoor and you rebrand it.

So Nextdoor, as of today, is trading at a market cap of $666,66 million. Devil, devil sign 666. But what they don't tell you is that, or you have to look into, they also have about $500 million of cash. So enterprise values 166 million. So if you bought that business for, say, a billion, or we bought that business, say, for a billion dollars, which maybe we will, you know, don't want to leave this fear in 2024. If you buy that business for a billion dollars, you're basically buying it for a billion dollars, you're basically buying it for, $500 million,

but you get this huge user raise. Like if they've got, how many users do they have? It's one in three households in America. Whoa. That's way bigger than I thought. So that's 100 million people, if you're just going to slash it.

Some back of the napkin math right there. Well, weekly active users in terms of active users is 40 million. So, and that's active. So, I mean, is it crazy to maybe we wouldn't offer a billion but is it crazy to offer you know 10 dollars a weekly active user i don't think so um you know it's 400 million so i think there's this is like a bigger idea around there's opportunities to buy some of these distressed assets in the public markets

from all the spas and stuff like that and then uh basically modernize the products and also build them with a more profitable mindset. So I like your idea. I'll give it a strong nine point nine two. What did I give last time an eight three? I'm going to repeat the eight three. I'll go eight three again. I like it. Cool. Love it. Yeah. And how about we do one last idea from both of you? Okay. I'll make this one a quick one. Call it right hand. That's what this idea is called. It's not fully fleshed out again. I'm going to cop out a bit with the category. So 99.9% of businesses in the US are small businesses. 80% of those are businesses with zero employees. That means one person. So that's one set of stats. Another set of stats is influencer, the industry, the valuation of the

influencer industry has 11 X'd in the last seven years. You know, know, two million influencers today generate over $100,000 a year at least. And then there's like a top cohort that's generating well over 500K. The problem, as we've mentioned earlier, is a lot of these single player businesses or kind of solo businesses, solopreneurships, a lot of these creators that are hitting at scale or starting to scale, sorry, you need a right hand. You can't keep doing it all alone if you really do want to scale. There's two ways to scale a business. Technology. in people and or software in people, but I like technology as a better, as a better kind of bucket. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's a third and fourth, but those are the two that come to

mind. Technology and people. And I was on a call with a creator today. He is going over the million follower mark, but more importantly, his reach is like very unevenly distributed if you look at someone else with his follower count. He gets way more reach because of the quality of his content, therefore able to do brand deals, therefore able to go after really interesting opportunities. And he's growing and making a great kind of six-figure salary, let's call it. But he's now at a ceiling where he can no longer do what he wants to do as a solo creator or influencer while still putting out content and doing what he does best.

I feel like there is going to be a lot of people like him and a lot of business owners who start to reach a point where they need a strategic thought partner and someone who is behind the scenes, executing, delivering on kind of the project management, different projects to being stood up and executed so that the business itself can move forward as a business, not as an individual. And so call it right hand. It could be a talent pool of people who are comfortable being number twos in a business and are great operationally and great and reliable from a execution perspective. And I hate the term generalist. and everyone who comes into a job interview or applies for a job and says, I'm a generalist,

stop, please. From someone who's interviewed hundreds of people in the last year, it's not doing you any service. Even though that's what someone might need, it's not what someone wants. Someone wants someone who's an expert or great at something. Lead with that. And then you may be a generalist who can do a lot of other things, and that's wonderful. But please try and figure out what your USP is, what your superpowers are and lead with that. I think for this, how do you create a network of people who, you know, are these super power number twos or operating partners or kind of influencer partners?

They could work with three at once. They could work with four at the beginning and then maybe find the one that best resonates with them. And how can these influencers solo businesses, etc., pay to have access to this or pay a finder's fee or there's a commission-based structure to get access to these people, hire them and then grow with them almost as partners to their business. So I know there's been other solutions like this in the past for solo founders, but this to me feels like a really interesting moment in time to look into that. So high level, still more of a trend than it is a unique business idea, but I like it a lot. Yeah, I'm a trend guy.

I like it a lot. And yeah, I think there's something here. Roast me and add to it and or just do a quick rating and we can jump to Jordans. JMEX? I adore it. Absolutely love it. 13 out of 10 CAD. Whoa.

That's like a 9.6 U.S. Let's go. Yeah. Go ahead, Jordan. No, I just love the space. I think there's a ton of opportunity there. Getting high-quality people in a network, as we know, community will drive everything. And that specific community is immensely valuable.

So no one do this because I'm doing it. Yeah. There you go. It's too good. It's off the charts. No, I like it. I like it. I think also creators want to be creating, you know?

So I think. Exactly. God bless him, but, you know, they're looking for support and you can't do everything. So I think there's a lot of opportunity to help creators, like, you know, put it, put simply in plain English. And I think a lot of them are going to be looking for help. So I totally agree. And we're saying a lot of like creators hit us up. so that we can do that for them.

So I think we'll get more of that. I like the idea. And for people listening on YouTube, please feel free to comment what you thought of all these ideas and give your own rating. Maybe we're too generous. Maybe we're too not generous. No sevens.

So that's the rule. And this has been very, fun. This is what I'm talking about. I knew this was, you know, this is, this is cool. This is like what we do off camera, so it's cool to be on camera with you guys. Where could folks follow you on the internet to get more J-M-M-X and trend-the-o, trendy-y-thio? Oh, gosh. J-R-D-N-M-I-X on Twitter. You can find me, Theo Tava, LinkedIn, Twitter, or X. I haven't posted a lot lately, but I'll be back in 24 and I'll give Greg a run for his money on some ideas. So yeah, these are jelly jams.

As Greg mentioned, we have these we call jelly jams, you know, whenever we can, usually once a month, maybe once every couple weeks. And getting a taste of them now. So I hope you enjoyed. And if you made it here to the deep end and you want to work with us, design, innovation, growth, DM me on Twitter and I'll connect you with the right folks on our team and help you transform your business. So thank you for listening

and Jordan Theo. I'll see you later. Thanks, Greg.