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Business Ideas #275: Matchmaking, Temp Mail...

Plus How Two Founders Bootstrapped to a $1.65bn Exit

Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up business ideas as hotly anticipated as Djokovic playing Alcaraz in the Australian Open đŸŽž 

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

  1. Business Idea💡: A matchmaking idea, but in a more literal way

  2. Drunk Business Idea 🍻: Shedding light on a genius idea

  3. Just The Tip 📈: An email trend that’s not going away

  4. The Moneyshot 🤑: How two founders bootstrapped to a $1.65bn exit

P.S: If you want to read any previous editions of Half Baked you can on our website and if you were forwarded this email you can subscribe here.

P.P.S: Half Baked is free. Half Baked will always be free. That’s thanks to the support of our sponsors. We’d love if you could take a moment to check them out.

Let’s get into it.

BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Pickup Sports Matchmaking 🏀 

Power to the players

Available Domain: Gamepoints.io

💡 TLDR: A mobile app that connects individuals interested in playing casual sports with people or teams looking for players

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: From water cooler discussions to family gatherings, sports create a common language we all speak. In fact sports are so important that people who have no interest in sport will feign interest just to fit in…

But while watching sports is great, playing it is exponentially better. But organising casual games of football, basketball, pickleball (whatever floats your boat) can be tricky. Games are normally organised in group chats and there’s always a few last minute dropouts leading to cancelled games. So why not build a platform to stop this from happening? Here’s what we have in mind.

Market Size: The global sports technology market was valued at $14.7 billion in 2023

2. Solution âœ…

The Idea: A mobile app that connects individuals interested in playing pickup sports with people looking for players

How it Works:

  • A user signs up for the platform and selects what sports they’re looking to play. They also select their skill level, location, availability and so-on

  • Players can then organise games where they can invite specific friends to them or get matched with others looking to play in case they’re short numbers and they meet at the agreed place at an agreed time

  • Once a game is over (if relevant) players can split the cost of renting the pitch or court

Go-to-market: Target team sports initially since you’ll acquire more users more quickly and better leverage network effects to help early growth

Business Model: In-app advertising and venues pay to get listed on the platform

Startup Costs: You may need to do a small raise here to get this off the ground, unless you can find a technical co-founder to do the heavy lifting on the dev side

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Sell to a large platform like Classpass so they can expand beyond just fitness classes to a related market

Exit Multiple: Sports tech companies typically exit at 5-10x revenue

TOGETHER WITH NAME.COM

Find your .io Domain Name Today

You’re a Half Baked subscriber, which means a few things. You’re smart. You’re attractive. And of course you’re drowning in business ideas.

And if you’re anything like us you like to collect domain names the same way Thanos collects infinity stones. But how do you set yourself apart from competitors who own .com domains? It’s simple.

You buy a .io domain from name.com.

.io is a trendy and fast-growing domain in the startup world. Tech companies, startups and even personal websites are using this extension more and more frequently.

Here are some .io domains you can buy today:

♣️ Cardcademy.io - for a mobile app which accelerates and gamifies the process of learning poker

💻 Citenation.io - for a platform for academic papers that combines discovery, discussion, and tracking functionality specifically designed for academic papers

🧠 Arguearena.io - for a platform which matches together users who can debate a topic with AI analytics to determine who won

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Reverse Flashlight

Back in 1899 the first flashlight was invented by Brit David Misell. But since then the flashlight market has barely seen any innovation…until now.

Introducing the Reverse Flashlight™️. Rather than illuminating what’s in the darkness, this flashlight darkens whatever you point it at. Light coming through your curtains in the morning? Reverse Flashlight™️. Walk in on your wife cheating on you? Reverse Flashlight™️.

The use cases are endless.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Temp Mail

We’ve all been there. We spot a free trial, discount or content we want but refuse to give up our precious primary email address, so we all have a few spam email addresses we’ve set up for these exact circumstances. Well temporary email addresses, often referred to as temp mail, are a solution to this problem. These are email addresses that are created for short-term use, similar to disposable virtual cards in banking apps. This is a growing space and we think there are some cool business ideas you could build by hopping on this trend.

Business Ideas

  • Temp Email Detection Platform: Create an API which allows businesses to detect if temp emails are being used to sign up for their services

  • Disposable Email API: Offer an API for temporary email services that developers can integrate into their apps or websites to provide disposable email addresses for signups

TOGETHER WITH AGREE

Free E-signature for Everyone

E-signature is stuck in the past—Agree changes that. Sign and get paid in one sleek platform. Use templates or your own, edit easily, and skip the fees. No clunky workflows, just faster deals and fewer headaches. Finally, a better way.

THE MONEYSHOT

How Two Founders Bootstrapped to a $1.65bn Exit

The quintessential founder story usually involves a tech product, some VCs, a few scandals and a huge exit to a larger tech company.

Well these founders bucked the trend by bootstrapping their non-tech business to a $1.65bn exit.

This is their story.

Dan Lourenco (right) and Ryan Hughes are far from traditional founders.

Dan originally studied marketing in college but went on to become a commercial pilot and flight instructor. And during his time as a pilot Dan got really into fitness and nutrition. So Dan left piloting behind and started working for a supplements company called Nutrabolt where he quickly rose through the ranks. And as he got more and more embedded into the fitness community Dan met his future business partner…Ryan Hughes.

Just like Dan, Ryan studied marketing in college too, but ended up becoming an IFBB pro (a professional bodybuilder) and a personal trainer to celebrities and other high net worth individuals.

The two were kindred spirits so when they met they knew they had to go into business together. Since it was the market they knew best they wanted to start a supplements brand, but with a few differences from existing brands. They wanted to build a strong community around the brand, be transparent with their ingredients and create unique flavors that no other brand had even dreamt of.

So in 2016 they took the leap and launched their business.

They founded GHOSTÂŽ.

Why GHOST®? Well Daniel's previous experience working behind the scenes at his previous company inspired the name and brand's mantra "Be Seen”.

Due to budget constraints they initially launched with only two products: a pre-workout supplement and a BCAA (Branch Chain Amino Acid) product. They also didn’t have much money to spend on marketing so in order to get the business off the ground the pair initially leveraged relationships with influencers like Christian Guzman and Maxx Chewning to promote their products. The result?

The website crashed on launch day due to high demand. In fact the founders had to personally respond to every customer’s inquiry. They were clearly onto something.

But in order to take the brand to the next level the guys needed more than just influencer shout-outs. So they turned to partnerships. Flavor partnerships.

So they started partnering with huge brands like Warheads, Sour Patch Kids and Oreos in order to create unique flavors of pre-workouts and proteins. Oh and for the record the guys achieved all of this without external investors or debt, which becomes very important later in the story.

After seeing huge success in the supplements market GHOSTÂŽ decided to expand. They formed a joint venture with ZX Ventures, the venture arm of AB InBev, to launch GHOST ENERGY, their energy drinks product. This partnership provided resources and distribution capabilities to expand the brand and in 2021, GHOST ENERGY launched nationally at major chains like Kroger, 7-Eleven, and Publix, bringing the business onto the main stage.

By 2022, GHOSTÂŽ had reached over 50,000 points of distribution in their retail business. The energy drink had managed to carve out a fanbase in an already crowded market, which got the attention of one of the biggest drinks companies on earth. Dr Pepper.

Keurig Dr Pepper approached GHOSTÂŽ in 2024 with a plan to acquire the business. These were the terms: an initial 60% stake purchased for $990 million, expected to close by early 2025, and the remaining 40% to be acquired in 2028, with its valuation reflecting GHOST's financial performance in 2027. This deal valued the business at $1.65bn. And given that the business was bootstrapped (apart from the strategic partnership with ZX Ventures) you can bet the guys are due a massive payday from the acquisition. Well deserved, and not that surprising. Why?

Because in a way entrepreneurship and fitness go hand-in-hand. Both require sacrifice, discipline and take years to become successful. Which is why so many athletes tend to go on to be great founders.

So when you decide to start your business think of yourself as an athlete. Be disciplined, get better everyday and do whatever it takes to win.

1 - 1 FOUNDER FEEDBACK

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