#78 - 10 Startup Ideas I Had This Year

This episode is brought to you by SuperSide. They're an always on design company that delivers great design at scale, fast, affordably, and within 24 hours. go to super side dot com slash M FM, M F M as in my first million. So superside.com slash MFM to check'em out. What's up guys, Sean here.

Uh Sam is driving for some memorial day weekend thing. So it's just me flying solo today. But got some good stuff to talk about. First, it's been almost exactly a year since I had this idea for the podcast. So

Uh I'm looking at my messages right now to Sam. So five thirteen twenty nineteen. So this is May 13th. A year ago. I messaged him, Yo, I got a proposition for you. Says yes.

I said, I'm starting a podcast. It's like how I built this. Good quality, good guests. And I sent him a list of guests that I had in mind. I said, I want the hustle to be the publisher. I'll do all the work you include it in the email when there's a new episode.

If we start monetizing, let's share the economics. Sam says. Okay. Deal. I said cool, I'll send you the first episode to preview at the end of this week. And then we go back and forth a little bit.

And then um and then we started. Uh you know, I you know, the first thing I did was I went and found somebody who could edit a podcast. uh by going on Twitter and writing podcast editor in the search and then looking for people who wrote that in their bio. And then I found uh Ishaan, who is an editor for other people's podcasts. We made a cover art, we made we figured out a name. It's funny, I'm looking at the messages here. The original name that I was thinking was because I was basing it off of how I built this. So the name was How I Got Rich.

Um Which I decided was way too uh, you know I don't know, crude or something? It could've been a good name. Um

It's at least sort of. I don't know, gets your attention. But uh but I knew I'd have trouble getting guests on with that name. And in fact, my first million also had trouble getting guests on because a lot of people who are successful don't want to come talk about money and they don't want to s seem like a rich asshole. But It worked out anyways. My first millions got off the ground.

We shifted off of interviews and started doing uh more casual brainstorm type episodes. And that's what people resonated with. They liked listening to something where Um, you know, it gets the wheels turning in your head. It gets you to learn about a new space or a new business model or a new product that you hadn't heard of. And um people like to hear two people scheming and thinking up, you know, new ideas and dreaming about what what could be.

'Cause there's not very many podcasts that do that. And so that's what I learned along the way. I'm looking at our stats now. We have reached Uh over two million downloads. We did about a million downloads. in the first six months and a little more than that in the l in the let uh the second half And um dude I could have never

imagined that we would hit two million downloads in year one. Um that's kind of amazing. Uh, I'm like in shock even right now, just sort of looking at it.'Cause I don't really check Yeah, I don't really pay too much attention to it. Because I'm not doing this really for The listeners. In fact, when I started this, I told Sam

I said He asked me why are you doing this? And I said, Well Our company's getting acquired. We're it's we're in the due diligence phase right now, and it's a lot of either lawyers or security people looking at our code, things like that. I was like, it's really boring. I want to do something. I can't start a company. But I can start a podcast uh during this time. And so I need I had the itch to start something. And this was my something.

And I'd always wanted to do a podcast. 'Cause I like to talk. And I figured This would just be a great

Little networking hack. Yeah, but when I actually started the podcast, I didn't think anybody would listen to it. My plan was There's all these interesting people here in San Francisco. I wanna meet'em. Instead of just saying, Hey, my name's Sean, I'm a founder of this company, c you want to get some coffee

Which is annoying. I hate when people ask me, Hey, can I have some of your time? Do you want to get a coffee? Do you want to do a call? Would love to chat. I'm like w what's in it for me? This is this is awful. I don't wanna I don't even drink coffee. So fuck that. But If somebody invites me on a podcast or invites me to speak at a conference, I'm like, okay, cool, tell me more.

And I usually say yes. And it's weird, uh, because it doesn't even matter how many people are listening to the podcast, or it could be an event that has a hundred people. But still it feels good to sort of beyond stage. And I knew that other people like that too. So my my goal was This is a great way.

to meet interesting people. And uh have an excuse to connect with them. And I thought nobody will listen to this except for my mom, but I'll build a cool network of people through the podcast. That was my my evil plan. And then I got greedy once.

It started growing and now it's N now I kicked off all the guests and now it's just me and Sam talking, but Yeah, my my perspective changed. I think that's a good lesson too in general. So I I had one decisive reason to do it. Which was

This will be a great way to meet other cool people. I got that out of it. I I did you know. Thirty episodes with Different guests who had built awesome companies? And then you know, I discovered a different opportunity as I was doing it, which was hey, a lot of people are actually listening to this. Okay, instead of making this about meeting the guests.

What if I made this about giving the audience Content that they like. Um and being you know being somebody that they listen to on a regular basis and I've you know sort of pivoted pivoted from there. But anyways, it's been amazing. One year one year since having the idea. And that's that's pretty bizarre. I think I'll probably be podcasting for like ten years. That's my guess. Because I like this a lot. And

Uh and it's been cool. There's all these different things that have come from it. And I think You know, if you're somebody out there who doesn't create content today. It is where I would start if I was somebody who wants to have a non traditional career. If you don't want to just have a job. Or hell, even if you want a job, but you just want a better job. This is what I would do.

right off the bat. I would start creating content about a topic I like. Either interviewing guests and networking that way. or talking about a subject, researching and talking about a subject that you're interested in l learning more about. And just publishing. And just publishing regularly because You'd be surprised who listens.

pretty badass people listen to this podcast and then they reach out and then opportunities come my way or Investments come my way, or whatever. It builds trust in people. And the beauty of it is that it's low effort, right? I record once for one hour. But it each episode gets listened to for thousands and thousands of hours by other people. So you know, my one hour yields Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of listened hours.

And that's amazing leverage, right? I'm getting a multiplier of let's call it a hundred thousand to one. on my effort and time, which is kind of amazing. That's why I would produce content. And I would and it also forces you to think about um content as a product, right? So you gotta make content that people want, you gotta figure out how to distribute it to them, you gotta figure out how to monetize it. So it's a great little mini business in and of itself. Without any cost really. You just gotta you know. By a microphone. That's that's kinda the the extent of it.

It's not much more beyond that. Anyways, w I wanted to because I'm flying solo today. I wanted to actually look back and look at some of the different ideas that we've brainstormed and I want to give you my top ten. half baked business ideas that we've talked about on the podcast. So as we've been riffing and brainstorming and just kind of shooting the shit. These are my 10 favorite ideas that we've talked about.

on the podcast. I don't know if they're the best ten ideas. They're my favorites, which means I find them interesting. Um either because I think they would work. Or I think there's a nugget of something interesting there, and if somebody really kind of remixed it or riffed on it or sort of built it up, fleshed it out. they could build a great business around it. So I'll I'll give you my top ten and this will be kind of a recap episode. Uh we'll keep it short. All right. So

Number one. Or actually start with number ten. Uh number ten. First it did. Okay, what's first dips. Okay, so uh this is when we were looking at auction houses. We were breaking down uh

I think heritage auctions, which did eight hundred fifty million dollars last year in auctions, which just shocked me, right? People selling collectible coins, movie posters, comic books. I had no idea collectibles and auctions are are as popular as they were. I knew they were a thing, but I didn't realize how much money was really flowing through that system. And so any time I observe something that surprises me

I'm I wanna know more and I see that as an opportunity. I used to see something odd and be like, that's weird. Move in the other direction. And now when I see something that I'm like that's weird. Tell me everything there is to know about this. And I'll give you an example. I remember when I was in college, this guy who lived on our hole, Tofiq, uh probably the m strangest guy I've ever met.

I walked into his room, uh his dorm room, and he was looking at his computer. And he was uh look like he was playing a video game. And I was like, Oh, what are you playing? And he turned and he looked at me. And the game kept going, like he his character kept moving. And I was like, Whoa you're not even touching the mouse. How's this happening? He's like, Oh, I'm not playing, I'm watching. So you're watching a video game.

Yeah. You know, back in two thousand and um What two thousand six. Uh the seven, something like that. And he's like, Yeah, um

Yeah, this is a a replay of a Starcraft you know, tournament that happened yesterday. Ouais. I was like, you watch other people play video games? And he's like, Yeah, uh it's great. I'm like And it wasn't even live, it was a recording.

uh of a Korean match that some guy had commentated over, recorded and post on the internet and he was catching up first thing in the morning he woke up and he was watching this and I was like, This is so weird. You're so weird, dude. I moved on with my life. Now, fast forward, you know, 10, 15 years later, I sell my company to Twitch, which is the largest live game streaming, you know, place to go watch other people video games. You know, who knew? Uh, but he knew and he knew it was awesome. And if at that time I had been like, Whoa this is interesting, why do you do this? I could have learned a lot more. I could have started Twitch had I really

uh sniffed out that opportunity. And instead, you know, now I work at Twitch and you know, they've they've created a multi billion dollar company out of it. So that's the kind of a learning for me. Anyways, back to first dibs. So As I was looking at these auction uh auction houses, you know, of course you have eBay, which is the auction site for everything.

Uh, but then I saw all these niche ones. There's goat for sneakers. Uh, you know, for sneakerheads. Uh Bring a Trailer is a auction site for vintage cars. And it seems like, you know, on the surface that there's every every niche is covered. There's an auction site for everything. Um so what do you do when there's no

Inventory left. There's nothing else. Th there's no there's no niche left. You gotta make a new niche. You gotta make something make new inventory that doesn't even exist yet. So the idea for first dibs is it's an auction house for things that don't exist yet. Now what does that mean? You would partner with musicians, artists, movie studios, athletes And you would auction off their first

Whatever, you know. These are the first hundred Of this new line line of LeBron sneakers that are coming out. Uh so it's the same sneaker that's gonna go for sale, but auctioning off the first hundred to be made. The first hundred Tesla model threes, the first hundred t shirts, the first hundred of uh copies of this album from your favorite musician.

I I think people would pay a premium. uh maybe even a super premium for f getting first dibs from the creators that they love, musicians, athletes, artists, movie studios, et cetera. And it's like a cool kids version of Kickstarter, right? If you're a famous musician, you're not gonna do a Kickstarter. It's sort of beneath you. Uh, but this is like a cool version of doing the same thing. You're gonna say, Hey, we're gonna make an album. If you wanna have one of the first hundred copies or you wanna be the first thousand people to listen to the single.

You can pay me right now. You know. uh five hundred dollars piece to to get that. And you would end up raising you know, potentially half a million dollars. Uh up front to fund your project just through selling first dibs to your superfans. Alright. That's that idea.

Uh number nine. Drone light shows. So fireworks big industry. But there's all kinds of problems. Sound pollution, air pollution, danger.

Um So th this is a new way of doing fireworks. You do it with uh a fleet of drones that are all synchronized and all have lights on top of them. Uh so you've probably seen this. You know, Intel is doing a bunch of these demos uh for New Year's some people do this.

But I think there's an opportunity to do this at a franchise level. on on a local in local markets. So Fireworks, you know, pretty big business, two two billion dollars a year, you know, last year. Um I think you can do that with drones.

I think you can basically say, Hey, you know, pay a thousand dollars, you're gonna have a drone light show at your corporate retreat, at your birthday party, at your um cities, you know, festival or whatever it is. And so um It's a business in a box. And if somebody was to create a drone light show franchise, I bet you could have franchise

in you know, a hundred cities in the next two years, if you if you've made it easy for them to push a button and have their own drum drone light show business. Um All right, number where are we at? Eight. Um just talking. This is one of my favorite ideas.

I was talking to my uncle who was divorced, he's you know, sixty years old. And he's lonely, you know, like and he's not lonely in a depressed way, but like that's just the reality situation. How would you feel if you were sixty years old and you're divorced and your kids have grown up and they moved out of the house? And a lot of people tell'em, you know, you should get out there, you should go and do also do online dating, but You know, that's normal for millennials, but for somebody like my uncle That's kind of intimidating. He doesn't necessarily want to go put himself out there and he doesn't even necessarily want to r you know start dating and remarry somebody. That's not his goal.

And so I think you can create something that is Just talking. It's a way for people to connect. It's for way for sort of single people to connect, but not for dating. And so it gives, you know, the baby boomer generation A way to go online and just chat in a safe place.

It's sort of like you know, you've seen all these Netflix shows. Love is blind. Or the circle. And you know, I think they're they're tapping into something, which is that You could form a pretty strong bond with somebody just by talking. And I think you could build a subscription business around

Giving Seniors and baby boomers. A place where they can go push a button. And have somebody to talk to. All right, this episode is brought to you by Super Side. All right, so here's the deal. I'm incredibly impatient, like horribly, horribly impatient.

And if I get an idea at midnight, by eight a.m. the next day, I want it done. Um, you know, but that's really hard because if something needs to be designed, where am I gonna find a designer at midnight to try to make this thing bring it to life? Um so you know, I don't think I'm alone. Other startups, even huge companies need design help fast. And they just don't have the internal resources or expertise to get it done. So

How do you get reliable design done? Without dealing with expensive agencies and lots of freelancers. You use Super Side. That's our sponsor for this week. Just go to superside.com slash MFM. And tell them what you want. They have a team of designers that can get it done fast.

You know, they are twenty times faster than hiring a designer and fifty percent more affordable than a traditional agency. So If you need high quality design done fast, try SuperSide. Lots of fast growing teams that are stretched are using them already. Check them out. Super side.com slash MFM. I've used them before. I love them. Check it out. Right.

Number seven is Y C content. Okay, so um first you gotta know what Y C is Uh Y C is Y Combinator. It's the sort of best startup accelerator that's ever been built. They Um incubator or not incubator really, but the accelerated Companies like Airbnb.

Dropbox, et cetera, et cetera. Bunch of billion dollar companies. So they're super successful. What they did was they said, Hey, we can take two people with an idea. And we can in three months give them a a a clear focus, which says, Hey, at the end of these three months, you're gonna be on stage in front of a a group of investors who wanna invest in you. And you gotta have a great product. And you're gonna have traction.

Um, you gotta have something to show for yourself, something you've done in these three months that will give them the confidence to invest in your your company. And um through office hours and whatnot, they they made that happen. And so they helped create a whole bunch more startups that otherwise wouldn't have been created. They helped get them funded. So I believe we're in the biggest

boom ever for content. Content is king in a way that it hasn't been before. You have Netflix. Disney Plus. Hulu, HBO, Apple TV Plus, Quibi. You have all these companies that are spending billions, that's a capital B, billions. into original content. These are platforms that are hungry for content.

They're walking into a Benihana's, they're looking for sizzling content on the grill. So I think you can create Y combinator for content. It's an accelerator where you take talented people who are either directors, show runners, uh producers, whatever. And they create a pitch for the show and at the end you have a demo day where they're gonna invest in funding your pilot. And so you can create a sizzle reel, which is like a two minute trailer essentially for your show.

Um that's what you create during the three months. And you come in and you say, Hey, here's the concept. It's a group of friends that get lost on this island. But then they discover You know, mysteries that um that start, you know, when they when they dig up this hole and it's like, Oh yeah, wait, is that lost? Yeah, it's kinda like lost, but it's the new age lost.

So anyways. You get the idea. Why combinator for content? I think somebody should go to LA, start this now. If you're willing to do this, I would love to be involved. Okay, I'm gonna zip through a few more quickly. So Boy Scouts without the religion and sexual harassment. So this happened when me and Sam brainstormed about Boy Scouts.

Uh big business, two million members, two hundred million dollars plus in revenue. But uh they recently announced they're claiming bankruptcy due to all the lawsuits they that they've been slapped with. So I think that the fundamental need here is still gonna get solved. People want to have a A sort of r right of passage style program.

Where you learn life and nature skills. Um, and parents want a place to put their kids, you know, uh a sort of a a glorified, you know, daycare where Okay, I don't have to watch my kid and they're gonna learn something, they're gonna come back. Um you know, sort of. Enriched in some way.

And so I think you could go direct consumer through Facebook. You get to targeted ads. to parents who basically they want their kids to stop playing Fortnite and go do something outdoors. And so I think you can create a new brand. Like a boy scouts.

That's just not rooted in necessarily religion and doesn't have the sort of uh problems that boy scouts has had with sexual harassment and other other Things that got them a bunch of lawsuits. Okay, great. Um number five. Or charts.

Okay, this idea came from Daniel Gross, who was a special guest on the podcast. Daniel was great. Uh I should get him on again. Um he was like, you know. Ten ideas a minute type of guy. So he brought up that every something that I've noticed now that I'm at a bigger company, right? I'm at a company now of two thousand people. And every company has an internal org structure, right?

Does the CEO Here's their direct reports. This person's the head of marketing. Here's their direct reports. This person does content marketing. Here's their reports. And so there should be a really easy org chart builder. that um can be used inside companies. So you so I can find, hey, who who do I talk to if I'm trying to Who runs our social media?

I could find that person. And then secondly That should be made public. So you should be able to Look at other companies. Hey, I'm looking at Stripe Uh who's the head of their developer platform?

And you could crowdsource all the content by pinging employees with e automated emails that basically says, Hey, we think you're the head of this. Is that the right thing? And you can get people to fill it in, sort of Wikipedia style. And so I think you could use this and this could either be a free service that You know, eventually pivots into more of a LinkedIn type of thing. Um or it could be a SaaS tool for for companies so that they can have this. Uh

There's actually a startup that came out of stealth that that is doing this after we We talked about it. Clearly. Stole our idea. Called the org.

They raised eight million dollars from Sequoia and Founders Fund and they're it looks like they're doing exactly this. Alright, number four. Hemingway for email. Okay. Um, I believe that now more than ever, as companies are going remote

Writing is an incredibly important skill. You need to be able to communicate through email, through Slack, writing memos and Google Docs so that other people can understand your thinking and your plans. The problem is most people suck at writing and a lot of people are self conscious about it, which is why A company like Grammar League can be at a hundred million dollars in revenue just doing spell check, grammar check type of things. Hemingway is a cool little app.

that you know I discovered many years ago Which is It analyzes your writing and it helps you make it more punchy. It tells you hey this Paragraph's too wordy or Hey, why are you using this complicated word? There's a simpler one you could use.

And so I think somebody could build a Hemingway like tool. for business and write help you write better business emails. I'm very, very interested in this. I talked to the Hemingway guys and said, Hey, I'd like to buy your business because I want to do something like this. So if somebody wants to build this, I'd love to help. Uh make that happen.

Alright, number three. TRT subscription. Alright. So Sam has been taking TRT or testosterone replacement therapy. For a while. You know, so so the average testosterone in a male decreases by forty percent over the last century. That's the sort of I don't know how they're measuring that'cause I don't think In a hundred years they were measuring testosterone, but whatever, that's a stat.

It's decreased over time. Um, and when you have less testosterone, you feel more depressed, you feel weaker, you have increased chances of heart attack, blood pressure problems, et cetera, et cetera. You know, in normal sports you can't take testosterone'cause it sort of gives you an unfair advantage. But uh in real life, you know, there's no commission that's drug testing you to say, Hey, are you Taking testosterone, which helps you, you know, maintain your muscularity and

feel, you know, sort of uh greater levels of energy and whatnot. Uh I know Joe Rogan sort of popularizes. He takes uh testosterone and some other things. And so Here's the idea. Six letters. D to C T R T.

Uh you can make a hundred million dollars off those six letters. And um yeah, so you a direct consumer testosterone replacement therapy solution. It's a repeat, you know, recurring business every month. I think it's very high margin, high retention. Um and potentially a big market. So I like that idea a lot. I think that could be very lucrative. Um number two, this one's clock kitchens, so

This came from Stu. Uh Stu was a guest on the podcast. And he said, Look, food delivery is booming. Grubhub, Postmates, Uber Eats, uh they have you know millions of users who open the app every day and they're trying to figure out what to eat. And so now the restaurants that are on there are just right now your local restaurants. But What they should be is

You know, there should be more diversity. There should be more special restaurants that really They get you to click when you open up postmates or Uber Eats. So cloud kitchens are on the rise, which is basically it's a central kitchen. There is no storefront, there is no in-house dining. These are kitchens designed to to produce food that gets delivered through these apps. So Uber's founder, Travis Klanick. He's raised, I don't know, hundreds of millions of dollars to f to fund his company, Cloud Kitchens, where he's buying real estate in cities. turning them into cloud kitchen. So this one

It's clout. Spelled with T at the end. Clout kitchens because it's going after influencers. So you go and you get big names in the same way that like Gordon Ramsey, Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, Jimmy Buffett, they've opened up their own branded restaurant chains. You could do the same thing, but on delivery only restaurants. So Robert Downey's Brownies. Yeah, ASAP Rocky Road.

The Kardashian Salad Company. Uh, you know, y the possibilities are endless. So you have influencers, they partner with uh a c a cloud kitchen to produce one type of cuisine and then you deliver it on the top of all these different um networks. Okay, I'll pick one more. One more good one here.

Okay, so this one's hooked for romance novels. So I didn't know this, but my friend taught me about this. Uh my friend Ramon. He he basically educated me that romance is uh one of the best selling book genres there is. I I believe it is the best book selling genre. Romance fiction um really appeals to older females and

Uh one third of all mass market fiction books are romance. And one third of all romance readers are 45 plus. You know, the average reader who reads romance novels reads five times more books. than the next uh genre book reader. So they're they're just voracious readers of romance. If you like that genre, you like these books. In fact I know because my mom used to love reading Daniel Steele. She's got this mansion here in San Francisco on Billionaires Row. That mansion was built because people love to read romance.

You know, one of the most best selling books of all time, fifty shades of gray. Romance fiction. So you get the idea. But most You know, entrepreneurs don't do this, they don't read this, so they don't see this opportunity. But there's a multi billion dollar industry

Of romance novels. And there's a group of devoted readers And they have time and money to spare Um, so I think you could deliver that same content in a new way. So what the new way would be is like hooked. Hook does this app

That's uh short form stories that you read on your phone. And they did it for ch uh you know, young adult fiction. And they raised 15 million dollars. They have over fifty million readers. I think you could replicate that that model. You could do hooked for romance novels and you could build a very you could build a cash count. You're gonna build an absolute cash count. You can get people to pay you seven bucks a month. To subscribe.

for uh this content. To have unlimited all you can eat. great romance stories delivered to you on your phone. So I think there's a big opportunity here. You can pay a bunch of writers to write Uh writers are out of work. Writers need you know Who needs who needs a paycheck more than a a you know, a struggling author.

So you could get a bunch of authors who are capable and you could say, Hey, I'll pay you whatever, a hundred bucks per story. Or per page or whatever, I don't know the rates. But basically you can get stories written for fairly cheap, and then they become your content library that you are um that you're amassing. And so I think there's a big opportunity here. But anyways, 10 ideas for you from the podcast. As you can see We are idea machines. If you're listening to this, it's because you can become an idea machine too.

Ah my goal is for more people to see the world as You know, full of possibility. When you see something that's interesting, you go and want to learn more and you try to think about how you can get involved and you can make it bigger. Or when you see a problem and you say, Wait, why isn't there an X That solves that problem. And you can come up with ideas to solve it. You're not gonna go and do all of these

But it's really great to train your brain. to see the world in this way. Most people see the world as uh just the way it is. It's like this fixed thing. And uh I see it as this completely fluid thing full of little holes where I can hook into and I can build new things. I encourage you to do that. Don't look at the world as this fixed thing. Um and be surprised every time someone invents something new. Just see the world is full of needing inventions, and maybe you or somebody you know could be the one who fills it. All right. I'm out of here.

Thank you for for listening. Um Sam will be back, I think, for the next episode. Enjoy.

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