BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Masterworks for Wacthes ⌚

Time is money

Available Domain: Timepiecely.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: People love buying watches. Not just for their style, but many people buy watches as an investment, which can get pretty expensive pretty quickly.

This is a huge problem. High end watches, ones which really hold their value, are too expensive for most of us to buy. And even if we could investing in a single watch is a pretty risky approach to investing. So let’s create a platform to solve this problem.

Market Size: The global watch market size was valued at $97bn in 2022

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A platform for watch aficionados to fractionally invest in luxury watches

How it Works:

• The business researches the watch market and goes out and buys timepieces which are likely to retain their value

• Once these sets are purchased they are securitized through filing an offering circular with the SEC so anyone can buy shares in the watches on the platform. These shares can also be sold on the market. This could be a share in a single watch or a fund of different watches, like a Rolex only fund for example.

• The watches are held for 5 - 10 years and once they are sold the proceeds are distributed pro rata to whoever has invested in the different sets

Go-to-market: Go deep into forums in the watch community,

Business Model: Charge a % of any assets under management

Startup Costs: You’ll need some investment capital to get this started. I’d suggest partnering with a watch fan with deep pockets to get this going

Competitors: Some businesses, like Morpher, offer this as an additional service but no-one’s cracked this market with a dedicated product just yet

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Exit to a large investment platform, like Acorns

Exit Multiple: Use comps for pulicly traded investment platforms like Schwab or Robinhood

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Personal Shopper App

Clothes shopping is pretty tough these days. We’re all too busy to go out to stores and buy in person. And while online shopping is convenient, it’s hard to buy clothes which fit right.

Well not anymore. With our new app get matched with someone who’s the same proportions who will go out and shop in your place.

Coming soon to an app store near you.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Wide Toe Box Shoes are Here to Stay

Wide toe box shoes have exploded in popularity recently. These shoes which are wider towards the front are better for your feet and people are starting to catch on.

Business Ideas:

• Children's wide toe box shoes business

• Custom wide toe box shoe design business

• Highly specific wide toe box shoe brand e.g. wide toe box weightlifting shoes

THE MONEYSHOT

From 2 YC Rejections to a $500m Business

Eight Sleep was founded in 2014 by Matteo Franceschetti (CEO), Massimo Bassi (CTO), and Alexandra Zatarain (VP of Brand & Marketing). 

Francheschetti came up with the idea of Eight Sleep when he realized that although he spent a third of his life sleeping, there had been no recent innovation to better sleep with mattresses.

So the team set out and created a mattress cover that tracked your sleep, warmed your bed, and connected to other smart products to better track your sleep.

After its initial launch, Eight Sleep raised $100K and sold more than 8K units of its first product in pre-orders through a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo in 2015.

The founders were rejected twice for Y Combinator before applying one final time. For their in-person interview, they built a bedroom in the office, showed the Y Combinator team their mattress, and were accepted into the summer 2015 cohort.

Since then they’ve innovated on and improved their products hugely, where today Eight Sleep is like the Tesla of sleep products. High tech, a major status symbol and really expensive.

To date, they’ve raised over $150 million from top investors and have a valuation of $500 million.