Welcome to Fully Baked, our Sunday newsletter serving up startup ideas as validated as your Dad's claim he's “just resting his eyes” on the sofa 😴
In today’s edition:
💡 Capitalizing on the great "unretirement" movement
🔬 The steps we took to validate this idea
🚀 The go-to-market playbook to start and scale this business
🤑 The unit economics of this idea
⚔️ Are there competitors in this market?
❓ The verdict on this idea (go or no-go)
Let’s goooo 🚀
💸 The Baked44 Challenge: We've teamed up with Base44 this month to give away $5K to one founder who ships their product. More details here.
Good luck!
🧓 Retiree Consulting Platform
Old pros
Available domain: Tenured.com
The Problem: We all dream of retiring. No more Monday morning commuting or pointless meetings, just time to do whatever we want. It sounds like bliss. But here's the thing - when people actually retire they often have a very different experience. Take Tom Brady…that guy’s retired from football more times than I’ve had hot dinners. That’s because many retirees struggle to find meaning in their lives after leaving work, with 1 in 8 retired seniors saying they're likely to return to work in 2026. These highly experienced professionals are eager to share the knowledge they've built over decades, just not in a full-time capacity. It’s time to unlock all of that talent. Here's what we're thinking.
The Solution:
💡 The Idea: A marketplace where businesses can hire retired professionals as consultants on a one-time or ongoing basis
🛠️ Product:
Retired professionals sign up, enter their details, previous experience and areas of expertise - either manually or by linking their LinkedIn profiles. A former CFO might list "financial modeling, M&A due diligence, board presentation prep" with 30 years at Fortune 500 companies.
Businesses browse the platform for consultants with expertise they don't have in-house. Need someone who's navigated three recessions and knows exactly how to cut costs without killing morale? Filter by industry, seniority, and availability.
The platform handles scheduling, payments, and project scoping - making it dead simple for retirees who want to work 10 hours a week, not 60.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Check out the demo (built on Base44) | Get the demo prompt
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🔬 Validation
🔍 Desktop Research (a few hours of Googling, LinkedIn lurking and reading retirement forums)
The expert network industry hit $2.5B in 2024 with 16% compound annual growth over the last decade. GLG alone has 1M+ consultants including 20,000+ former C-suite executives. The demand for experienced advisors is clearly there.
57% of retirees want to continue working in some form, according to T. Rowe Price. The "unretirement" rate hit a 5-year high with 13.2% of baby boomers exiting retirement last year. These people actively want to work, they just want flexibility.
📋 Survey (75 responses via Pollfish, $2/response, ~$150 total)
55% of the retired professionals we polled said they'd be interested in part-time consulting work if it was easy to find and manage.
The key word being "easy" - they don't want to hustle for gigs.
📣 LinkedIn Outbound (50 messages to retired executives and HR leaders over 2 weeks)
Got 12 responses from 50 outreaches - a 24% response rate, which is strong for cold LinkedIn outreach.
4 retired executives said they'd "definitely sign up" to a platform like this once they could price fairly.
3 HR leaders showed interest but raised concerns about vetting and compliance. Cost was not rated as a big issue for businesses.
🚀 Go-to-Market
👥 Early Users
LinkedIn Outbound to Retirees: Start with supply. Target recently retired executives (filter by "former CFO/CTO/CMO" titles, 60+ age signals). The pitch: "You're getting calls from old colleagues anyway. Why not get paid properly for your advice?" Focus on one industry vertical first, like finance or tech, where consulting rates are highest.
SMB Outreach: Once you have 50+ consultants, cold email SMBs and startups with specific pain points. "Need a CFO's perspective but can't afford one full-time? We have 3 retired Fortune 500 CFOs who charge $300/hour for 5-hour projects."
📈 Scaling Acquisition
Content Marketing: Build a blog and LinkedIn presence around "wisdom economy" content - interview your consultants about career lessons, create case studies of successful engagements. This positions you as the authority and drives organic signups.
Enterprise Expansion: Once you hit 500+ successful engagements, approach larger companies and consulting firms. Pitch: "We're an overflow resource for your bench. When you need a specialist for a 2-week project, tap our network instead of hiring."
🤑 Business Model
🏷️ Pricing
Free for consultants: No fees to join or list services - you want maximum supply.
Commission on engagements (15-20%): Businesses pay the fee, similar to recruiters. A $300/hour consultant generates $45-60/hour for the platform.
🧮 Unit Economics
Target CAC (cost to acquire a customer/user): $50-100 for businesses (via LinkedIn ads, content marketing). Consultants should be near-zero via referrals and partnerships.
Target LTV (lifetime value of a user): $2,000-5,000 per business (assuming 3-5 engagements at $500-1,000 platform revenue each).
Path to $1M ARR: 200 active consultants doing 2 projects/month at $500 average platform take = $200k/month = $2.4M ARR. The math works if you can get repeat usage.
⚔️ Competitive Landscape
🏷️ Primary Competitors
GLG/Guidepoint/AlphaSights ($500-1,500/hour): The expert network giants. They already have 1M+ consultants including tons of retired executives. But they're expensive ($5k+ minimum engagements), focused on PE/consulting firms, and feel corporate. Not accessible to SMBs or startups though.
SCORE (Free): Non-profit with 10,000+ volunteer mentors for small businesses. Great mission, but it's volunteer-only - no way for consultants to earn and no quality filtering beyond self-selection.
🎯 The Gap
There's a clear middle ground between "$1,500/hour expert networks for hedge funds" and "$50/hour freelance marketplaces" - a curated platform specifically for experienced professionals charging $200-500/hour, accessible to SMBs and startups.
The incumbents haven't built this because GLG/Guidepoint are focused on enterprise clients, and Upwork/Fiverr optimize for volume and low prices, not seniority premiums.
The opportunity: a "premium Upwork" for 50+ professionals that emphasizes experience verification, curated matching, and reasonable minimums (5-10 hour projects vs. GLG's $5k+).
✅ Verdict: GO
The pain is real on both sides. 1 in 8 retirees want to return to work - not because they need to, but because retirement isn't what they expected. Boredom, lack of purpose, a desire to stay sharp. Meanwhile, SMBs are desperate for senior expertise but can't afford a full-time CFO or operations lead.
The risks? Cold start is brutal - you need consultants to attract businesses, but consultants won't join without gigs. And once you make an introduction, what's stopping both parties from taking it off-platform? You'll need to nail the value-add to keep transactions flowing through you.
But the gap is clear. The demand exists on both sides, the competitors aren't serving this market, and the economics work if you can crack distribution.
Go build it.
👋 That’s All Folks!
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