IDEA #1 | STARTUP

Corporate Box Marketplace 🎟️

The best seats in the house

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

Let’s face it, big companies like to flex.

Private jets. Fancy offices. Extravagant parties. Companies love spending money on everything and anything, except on salaries.

And nothing screams waste than corporate boxes in stadiums. Big companies sign lease agreements for a year or multiple years for corporate boxes or suites in major stadiums in the NBA, NHL, Premier League and so on, giving them the ability to attend the biggest games or concerts of the year.

Here’s the problem though…they don’t always use them.

How often are you watching a game and the camera pans to the corporate boxes which are largely empty?

Companies don’t always have people interested in going to events, meaning some of the best seats in the house are going to waste.

Let’s solve that problem.

2. Solution ✅

Here’s the idea…create a marketplace which allows companies to sublease corporate boxes to other people or companies when they’re not being used.

Companies list the suite they own or lease on the platform and can select dates or events that they won’t be using their box. Other companies can then come in and bid to use the box for a particular event or date, with the highest bidder winning the right to use it.

There would be a revenue sharing arrangement where the proceeds would be spilt between the company and the stadium owner, after the platform take a transaction fee of course. Gotta pay the bills somehow. .

3. Business Model 🏦

Go-to-market: Sell to stadiums in the first instance as a revenue generating tool for them, they’ll then provide you with your leads who you can then go after

Monetisation: charge a transaction fee on each booking

Startup Costs: Relatively low, just need to build a relatively simple booking platform to get this off the ground

4. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

This could lead to a moderate to large sized exit. Marketplaces at scale are usually valued at 1x annualized GMV (6x - 8x revenue) so focus on growing topline as much as possible to maximise your exit

IDEA #2 | STARTUP

Duolingo for Dancing 🕺

Duolingo meets Dua Lipa

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

Question: has anyone in history learned to speak a language well using Duolingo?

We don’t think so, despite some interesting tactics from Duo to incentivise users to keep their streaks going.

Learning a new language is a really difficult process, something you need to immerse yourself in to really thrive at, which is why we’re skeptical about Duolingo’s gamified, bite-sized approach to language learning.

Having said that we believe their learning model could be used in a different vertical…dancing.

The rise of viral tiktok dances means a whole new generation of young people’s social status is derived from how well they can dance, so let’s build an app to help them maximise their ability to boogie.

2. Solution ✅

Here’s the idea…create a Duolingo style product to help people to learn the latest trending dances.

Users sign up to the app and select what dances they want to learn from tiktok or other popular media. These lessons would then be provided in Duolingo like short bites that users can jump into in small 5 min/day increments.

A user would record themselves dancing and image recognition software would score how well they’re doing the dance and give live feedback and tips for them to improve their movement.

The app would also incorporate streaks and other gamification features just like Duolingo to ensure people keep using the platform on a regular basis

3. Business Model 🏦

Go-to-market: start by offering the software solution to dance classes in order to perfect the software, then push to a more mainstream audience

Monetisation: go with a freemium model where users can learn certain dances for free but pay for a premium version with a larger library of dances and more features

Startup Costs: you’ll need to build a sophisticated app here so will need to raise some investment to get it off the ground

4. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

This is fundamentally an interactive education platform so you could exit to a large business in the education space all going well.

JUST THE TIP

Hustling isn’t Everything

The likes of Gary Vee have been promoting hustle culture for years where success is all about grinding and working every waking hour so you can finally make it.

But the world has changed.

This idea that, in order to make good money and build a great life for you and your family, you need to run yourself into the ground simply isn’t true any more.

Let’s take the story of Brett Williams. Brett runs his own 1 man design subscription agency and here’s part of his 2023 recap:

That’s right, Brett managed to earn $2m in one year working less than 30 hours per week. Now Brett worked incredibly hard over the years to hone his craft and get himself into this position, but he proves that you don’t need to keep grinding and hustling forever to build a great life for yourself.

Now if your dream is to run a billion dollar business and be the next Elon Musk, then you’ll have to keep working your ass off, let’s be real.

But maybe you don’t want that. Maybe you want to live like Brett.

It all comes down to deciding what you want and moving in that direction.