Steal These 6 Startup Ideas For 2024 | Theo Tabah & Jordan Mix

so I really started the year my word was publish and I wanted to do dope things with dope people I was like what am I going to do I looked back through my bookmark tweets it was how to build a company in 2023 so whipped up a quick graphic tweeted it bing got a DM from Greg who are you building with people that get you fired up it's such a hack everyone runs on batteries so you have to figure out what charges and drains yours burnout occurs when your batteries get drained and it doesn't mean you've worked hour weeks it doesn't mean you are like burning the candle at both ends it probably means you're just doing things that don't get you fired up this is a special special pod holiday edition ideas Galore Lessons Learned in 2023 it's going to be an iconic episode we've got Theo my co-founder and lay checkout who has been on the Pod before one of one of the best most listened to two episodes of the year so he's back and then we've got Jordan who's a new face and a new partner operating partner at Le check out the holding company and I'm excited to have you both in the room great to be here yeah stoked blessed to share this uh fine room with Jordan for the first time big shoes to fill for the most downloaded episode see so let's get started uh we've got a lot to cover um and I'm G to start with you Theo uh what are some takeaways you have from 2023 uh building up building at our holding company lots of takeaways first Greg I want to say that one takeaway is I still love building businesses with you so that's a good one um Jordan you too now that you've joined the roster it's been a it's been a treat still fun to build um so one of them I wrote down when building a business most things boil down to desired outcome plus trust sounds really simple maybe sounds even really obvious but man after the Reps that we've taken in selling in building teams and speaking to customers across different businesses those are really the two things that matter is desired outcomes what is the goal of the person that you're speaking to and Trust do they trust you to get them there to achieve those goals to achieve those desired outcomes and many people have spoken about this many people have talked about this but really when you're able to understand what people want and then have them trust in you that you will get them there especially in sales where you have a narrow window to be able to do that if you can master that everything else is gravy so if you use that framework that has really helped me at least think through writing copy on websites and going into sales calls and speaking to prospects and even building the team and speaking to folks we have uh on the team and figuring out what they want and how we can build trust and maintain that trust to help them achieve their goals so that's been a big one I have a lot more to say on that um if you want me to keep going yeah I mean trust I mean I could listen to that and be like yeah like that's obvious like the more someone trusts me the more likely they are to buy my services uh or join my team or you know do whatever I want them to do but how do you go about actually building trust and yeah what have you learned about how you can do that efficiently yeah so I call it the three C's of trust credibility competency and connection those are the three things that you're trying to get to as quickly as possible and in the most effective way that I've found and I could be wrong and there's probably a fourth and a fifth and a tenth but for me those three C's matter a lot so right off the bat I try and form some level of connection um and that to me can be across a lot of different threads um but give you an example in a sales call the other day is someone came in and they were building a sports media Empire and right away I figured out what this person's favorite sport was which happened to be basketball I don't know if you guys know this or not but I took a brief run at the NBA it ended early when I was 15 but you know I went for it um and so right away I was able to call back to some basketball talk that brought me back to my childhood in early days and we just jammed on basketball for a while and then we talked about the NBA for a while and then we talked about sports in general and playing sports and before even talking about what their goals were their desired outcomes were I wanted to as quickly as I could form a connection with this person that separated me from from everyone else he was talking to and so that was one way to kind of form the foundation for that for that call and I do this time and time again is I always look for a tether a thread where I can form connection and then after that how do I demonstrate competency and credibility in that call so understanding their goal ask a lot of questions and then use some examples that showcase credibility we've done this before Greg is the CEO etc etc and then competency is just jamming on potential solutions that could solve their problem and talking through their product or their problem and typically that seems to be a winning formula I also think that there's so much you can do with building internet audiences to build trust like content is the sale salesperson that works for you 247 like we're recording this once and thousands of people are going to listen to this and a bunch of people are going to be like whoa I like what these guys are saying I want to hire these people to innovate my Fortune 500 company or design this crazy website or build a new app or whatever it is and we might be sleeping we literally might be sleeping or we might be on the beach or we might be you might be you know shooting Hoops Theo I know how much you uh you like your hoops from Beyond The Arc just every time brick brick brick yeah yeah so I think building trust is is definitely huge and I do I like that framew work and but I I do think that you know investing in content is such a efficient way to to gain internet trust so that if you are if you're you Theo and you're you're having a meeting with you know the CMO of Adidas and you're trying to sell them a million or $2 million dollar year contract to help them build their business you want to have that first meeting that they know who you are and they know the work that you've done so you're not just like coming in blind absolutely and I think that that ties back to the credibility that competency and that connection and that's where content can be a huge level up for all of that because in a sea of sameness where a lot of people can compete on competency and credibility potentially if you're in that type of Market where there's a lot of people playing in the same space connection might be your best bet to stand out and if you've put out content consistently I know I'm saying a lot of CW right now so I'll pull back um um you might be able to build connection over time which you Greg have done masterfully and Jordan has started to do and our brands are starting to do is how do we speak to people in a way that they're connected to the brand and then demonstrate competency and credibility Jordan anything to add yeah I think like that equation is it credibility plus competency and then connection is almost like the the multiplier on top of that so you can do connection on the internet through content and that's like a micro amplifier but then when you make those connections behind closed doors or in decks Etc that amp that amplifies it even further Jordan what have you learned I know you've been at lay Cheo now for under a year but what have you what have been a what's a really big takeaway that you learned in 23 that you're you're pulling into 24 totally I think uh it's around this idea of productized Partnerships and really becoming a trusted advisor and partner for people um I think productize Services were a big buzzword in 2023 and somehow that became an outbound marketing strategy uh when it's really for internal use only uh to help run the machine more smoothly but really changing a productized service which is more of a transactional task base um deliverable which is somewhat of a commodity and turning that into a trusted partnership which with a productized partnership getting on the same side of the table as the client and really providing a becoming a trusted advisor and that's really where like novelty lies um so like responding and providing strategic demand instead of just um creating demand based on tasks I think is a has been a really big takeaway toward the end of the year that I'm pumped to bring into 2024 but how do you like that sounds good right sounds like yeah of course be on you know if be on the same side of the table but how do you actually if you're building an agency or building a service-based business how do you actually Implement that into your offering totally yeah it's I think it's tough and it's interesting on a caseby casee basis but I think going back to the connection piece of it it's like slowing down to speed up like what are you actually offering the client what are you trying trying to provide them and like actually aligning with their goals instead of trying to make your mrr go up or you know just close the next deal and move on I think really aligning with where they're trying to go where they've been um and pairing that with an offering like slow down to speed up painfully uh um obvious but yeah I think that I think that's really that's how I think about it at least is like actually being a partner right yeah you can't just can't just be words on a website you have to structure your offering so that it really means that and I think that's where a lot of productize services are going to fall flat is they're going to be a service that of course Pro provides some value but I think that in an AI generated world like people are looking for partners not service providers um because service providers are just going to be tools like chat BBT or tools like Bard and D and stuff like that uh where the value really is is in the advisory and the partnership and I think people are willing to pay for that um Jordan I feel like we would be doing people a disservice if we didn't tell people the story of how we met and I'm curious if that was a takeaway for you in 2023 100% collaboration permissionless apprenticeship uh over solopreneurship and Building Things um with people that don't get you pump so I started the year working uh on an agency that I had built it was going great the p&l looked amazing you know profitable everything but I just wasn't fulfilled at all um so I really started the year my word was publish and I wanted to do dope things with dope people I made a little list and Greg you were on that I don't even know if I told you about this list um but it had like some five people on it Jack butcher was one of them shout out visualiz value of course um he's he's created uh a business that he runs seamlessly and doesn't need me uh respectfully um like Sean pory was on there a couple other people were on there but I just aligned with what you were doing and Theo I didn't know you um you were just amazing sprinkles on top of this cake but I was like what am I going to do I looked back through my bookmark tweets saw a tweet that Greg had posted I think it was like November of last year it was how to build a company in 201 23 I'm decent at design a self-taught designer so I was like how can I add value to Greg he has this 50 character tweet it's a banger but people don't aren't really going to resonate with just words so whipped up a quick uh graphic tweeted it bing got a DM from Greg who are you and this was from like a little do within account my little like side brand and it was like literally zero followers I started it like not long before that and Greg said it had double digit followers I I I had 18 followers and I was like really is someone yeah I was sending this DM I was like I don't know if anyone's gonna respond to this yeah well I responded we jumped on a FaceTime immediately I think it was like January 2 or something um just get gearing up for the year and we just started jamming and I wound out of that agency and was more than excited to take the opportunity to come join and build with you guys and I think that's like one of the biggest takeaways this year to is just like building with people that get you fired up that you can align with is so much better than doing it either as a solopreneur or even with a team that doesn't necessarily align with the way you think it's such a hack of Life fulfillment um to build with people that get you amped so well I I just just pulled up the DM with with uh do within and January 2nd right January 2nd 2023 I I send a message and we'll put this if you're listening to this on Spotify or apple get to YouTube subscribe and and watch it on YouTube to see it um to see the visual but I go love the image at 4:01 p.m you go thanks Greg too good not to visualize at 4:03 so you like responded pretty instantaneously uh you were ready to go and you know it's not like you were hung over from January uh December 31st January 1 thing like you were you're ready to hit this year with a bang so I go what's your name and then you send me Jordan mix as your Twitter and then you write your name Jordan mix which is intriguing just by like I know your last name is not mix like but it's cool like that is a cool the fact that you like put essentially a nickname like I'm interested say say more then all I do is give you my phone number curious to learn more about you FaceTime me 4:22 p.m. 4:25 p.m. word will be a 901 number so in less than 30 minutes we get on a call and I was basically like we got to find a way to work together and your life changed 100% it was dope it was dope it was dope so everybody for both of us like in my life changed too you know what I mean like for all of us guys all of us don't forget me you know it changed my life as well it you know it goes to show you like send the DM you know put stuff out on the internet Get Loud on the internet and uh if you're not afraid of rejection and you're not afraid of like meeting strangers on the internet uh that's the beauty about the internet right like it's weird to meet a stranger in person sometimes for safety reasons but if Jordan was weird and we were on a FaceTime I could have just hit that end call button and feel like that was a weird way to spend January 2nd but uh the upside is high and the downside is low yeah 100% you got to do it like they might not be liking but they're watching so like even if your tweets get a 100 Impressions that's 100 people seeing it it's pretty crazy if you pick picture of 100 people in a room that's wild so I think more people should just publish more stuff and there's a lot of benefits other than just follower count I don't even think follower count matters that much uh other than like some some uh verified credibility but yeah send that DM baby Theo upon reflection 2023 what else have you learned I want to build off this you uh Jordan did a good job of building credibility and forming connection there so way to steal my trust formula in J in January before I knew it existed um building off this uh and Jordan's kind of take on you know your agency and where you are today with late checkout is that everyone runs on batteries so you have to figure out what charges and drains yours um that is I guess it wasn't a learning in 2023 but a a real big reminder um that you know people projects problems to solve what you do outside of work they all have an impact on your batteries and you have a finite number and some people are running on a cybertruck battery and some people are running on ablea so you know know how much you got in the tank but at the end of the day things drain and things charge your batteries and do more things that charge your batteries and way less that train them yeah nice I love that you still have doublea's um so I think like burnout occurs when your batteries get drained and it doesn't mean you've worked 60h hour weeks it doesn't mean you are like burning the candle at both ends it probably means you're just doing things that don't get you fired up and or with people who kind of grind your gears or taking energy away from you instead of building you up and charging your batteries so you know we've worked with people who I'd scratched my head and didn't understand why they were feeling burnt out I was like you're working pretty reasonable hours it's not like you're even capping 40 hours a week the project seems exciting but I just had them in a role that they weren't thriving in so I had them trying to ship content or ideate on a new product when really they were best at program management and or you know internal operations and so when you figure out getting people in the right place and allowing them to provide value and succeed that gets people really fired up they see momentum that gets people even more fired up that charges their batteries so seemingly putting people in situations where from your perspective might be like why are they not performing or why are they feeling this way just ask yourself are they in a situation where their batteries are getting drained and I think yeah continue to move everyone towards that charging area and you're going to see incredible productivity and just a lot of Happiness a lot of fun so that was another fun reminder this year of uh yeah figuring out what those things are and doing more of them I like that yeah I like that I like that I think uh it's tough though it's like you want people to do enable them to do their best work at the same time sometimes like at a at a startup or in any business like you just have like work that needs to get done so it needs to also align with the needs of the business and it's it's a vend diagram and you hope that overlap is like you know 100% but sometimes it isn't and I think it's also we've seen a shift in in 2023 from prior years for example 2021 where we were just trying to fight to retain as much of our talent as possible uh not just us but all you know startups in general large tech companies and it's moved now from employee to a little more in the camp of employer and I think it's a probably a better balance I think it should be a balance between what employees want to do what teammates want to do and what actually needs to get done and working you know working together to to make it happen but that's a really good one Jordan you have something we've talked about in the past um you know scalable this concept is scalable Consulting um and and you learned that in 2023 could you talk more about it yeah for sure like courses and education is scalable Consulting um after developing email-based courses and courses um throughout the year I think there's a real opportunity to use education as the initial connection building and nurture sequences um but thinking about it what is the dream outcome like alluding to what Theo was saying earlier like what are they trying to achieve and then using that curriculum as scalable Consulting to get them to that that outcome so I think a lot of people are doing courses and writing curriculums that are all about teaching teach teach and they don't really enable people to do uh when everyone wants a dream outcome they're trying to do something they don't really care about learning to do the thing they want to do the thing and learning is usually the byproduct so I think flipping that um and really making education like a core across all of the hold code prop hold Cod properties um has been like a core learning this year and I think we're going to do way more of it in 2024 um and make it multi-dimensional so I think thinking about it as scalable Consulting as that first touch point also helps Downstream effects when you actually offer services or other products so a lot of people probably listen to that and were like no I don't want to do courses I'm too good for courses and because you know it's the c-word it has a it has a has a bad rep and and I get that but I think that the way to reframe it is educate you know people do want education and and I was just at the Apple store the other day and there was like a how to do finger painting on the iPad session and it was packed you know there was probably a hundred people uh doing it and people want to learn right and then they learn about how to finger paint on the iPad and before you know it they're buying an iPad Pro and I guarantee you that apple is investing in that for a reason they know that some of these educational you know they're kind of like courses or educational experiences build trust and Trust will help you sell more and um so I think yeah you're right 2023 we learned that uh the power of education and how education builds trust and how it does allow for scalable Consulting if if if you want um if you want it to be so huge learning um but guys I think we got to get to the meat the meat of this episode which is free startup ideas for the listeners uh things that your are top of mind so maybe let's start with Theo what are some startup ideas that you have that uh people can steal and and get them thinking well off the bat I'll say that uh Greg I still want to hear your biggest learning or one of your biggest learnings or takeaways from 2023 so you're not going to get off the hook that easy and I mean I I'll go I'll I'll say it let's let's hear it I'll say my regret from 2023 flip it on its head let's do it invert it my biggest regret was not doubling down even more like we've got real product Market fit with a lot of our businesses like boring marketing.com is really the best like the the tools that they've built like the AI tools to build SEO optimized pages is like best at class and it's a big it's getting to be a big business but like H how how could we have doubled down even more um dispatch meet dispatch.com how could we have doubled down on that design subscription even more 2023 2024 is a very unique time in technology there's going to be an increased amount of startups that are going to die an incredible influx of talent that is looking for work and opportunities to acquire these businesses for pennies on the dollar and I think our specialty which is knowing how to build internet audiences knowing how to convert those audiences into communities and then knowing how to come up with product ideas and build those product ideas is couldn't be more relevant today and I wish that we took a few more risky bets on Pro on on hires and Acquisitions in 2023 so uh my regret is not being my I guess my my my lesson is don't lead with fear right you should never lead a business with fear um you know at the time in 2023 we're reading the news people are cutting you know we work with some of the largest tech companies in the world on our services business it's like you know they're they're cutting 50% of their staff are they going to retain us and turns out they did we when I look you know they did we shouldn't have even thought about hey maybe we should go grow slower this year so got to trust your intuition man trust your gut can I build off that with one more learning it'll be a quick one um and then let's get into the meat to your to your point it's not a perfect saying and I'm stealing it from somewhere else but I think it goes something like nobody cares work harder uh I think this was from you know someone I heard on another podcast and what I mean by that is like this was a real thing that I was telling myself at one point where I was like oh man like I was I had covid last week and you know Greg's on his honeymoon and oh this person just left the business and oh but we're still here and there and we we'll get back at it and in my head I was justifying or kind of adding this circular logic or this logic to what we could do when and how it would all be fine and that everything would end up how it was going to end up and that there were valid reasons for us being in the situation we were in maybe we were a little bit behind on Revenue targets maybe we didn't make as much one month maybe we lost a person on the team but at the end of the day when I look at my bank account or our business bank account or the client who just left or the person who just left it doesn't matter all of your excuses or reasoning or logic it there are things that are definitely valid reasons to pull back from something and to reshift your focus I'm not discounting that that's that's very true and that happens but I'm saying the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter like what matters is what happens is the output is the results is what you deliver is what is the consequence of that and so I think it was another reminder in 2023 that like I can come up with all the excuses I want but you know at the end of the day it doesn't matter what matters is what happens and that doesn't always mean work harder it could mean work smarter but it just means results actually matter um people have said this a hundred different ways but 2023 was another uh you know reminder another tap on the shoulder to say hey Theo remember no one cares um so let's get into to the uh business ideas and by the way Jordan and Greg are going to be 10x better at this and have better ideas than I will you're just a humble Canadian so that's why humble Canadian who these are going to be straight fire let's go so the way I think about this a little bit um with my overly analytical operational brain is which way is the pendulum swinging and then go where the pendulum isn't or go counterculture go against the grain and so one kind of macro trend is and I think Jordan you'll touch on this a little bit and we jammed on this a couple times is you know Mass connection social networks everything to everyone super crowded not very focused not very Niche AI is taking off you know what is human what is AI generated do people even care and then because of this influx of all this content and all of these images and all of this everything your trusted spaces are crowded your inbox your messaging you know pick the next surface that you hang out on or spend your time on is super crowded and noisy with content that is everything to everyone from things that you don't even know if it's machine or man or woman for that matter so I think more intimate apps which Greg you've been beating this drum for a while on a new Surface is really interesting for those folks who know lockit lockit kind of blew up last year it was you know originally created by this guy named Matt to help him feel closer to his girlfriend when they were in a long-distance relationship and what it does is allows you to share photos and it's a widget on your home screen so you will see you know the photo that was shared by whoever you have in your locket on your home screen in big on your phone and you look at your phone home screen about 80 times a day maybe more in some cases and definitely more for some people maybe a little less for others and so I'm wondering from an intimacy perspective how you own that surface of your home screen or a new Surface and how you create intimacy around that when everything else is so noisy and what would lock it look like in other verticals so not just for your friends and family but for other people who need deeper connections with their fans or customers or whoever else so I like locket for X which is you know what is walket app look like for creators and influencers how do you show up not only in an Instagram feed but on actual home screens what about for athletes your super fans how are they seeing you and staying up to date with that musicians ultimately there these are all Super Fan experiences or or kind of true fan experiences that could offer up so much more and have direct access to your fans you could sell them things but you can also provide behind the scenes content etc etc in this new ET for X mind frame or mind share um so that to me feels like a really interesting one um I don't know where it will go and how you maybe white label it or create a native app but how creators do this and how other folks do this or how other you know call record labels or big music apps or kind of Institutions or associations do this for their athletes I think there's a really interesting opportunity here to supercharge intimacy and own a new Surface yeah so Instagram tried to do something and they're pushing it right now which is Instagram broadcasts and I've been playing with a few and it's I can see the look on Jordan's face it's not it I don't love it I don't love it and the reason I don't love it is this for the reason that you brought up Theo which is people are uh already underwater when it comes to their inboxes so basically the way broadcast works is it's a DM from a Creator in your message box and oftentimes you can react to that particular piece of content and it's like a it's not that useful because like what's the difference between that and posting a feed or posting a story and B get out of my inbox like you know like that space is already reserved it's exactly in your head it's already reserved for your your friends and family exactly so that's where your space is yeah so I like locket for x and I also think that it's worthwhile to pay attention to how platforms are changing so lockit was able to take advantage of iOS 14's widget introduction a couple years ago and a lot of people saw widgets and were like cool that's like looks cute but I you know I'm not gonna develop something and kudos to Matt and team for actually being like what can we how can we push the limits on something like this with a really refined use case um him and his girlfriend and stuff like that so yeah I agree I think there's going to be not only more locket for X's but just in general widgets are really interesting and there's not just widgets on your iPhone but also you know widgets on your Mac and other places yeah such a valuable billboard it's insane exactly when you're looking at that and your again your head space when you're opening that phone it's just it's hitting you so often and you don't even realize it and we've jammed with the team on this the team we have is brilliant comes up with ideas like this all the time and I think one of the Frameworks just before we move on to some of the fire ideas from Jordan and GRE you know some of the one of the Frameworks that we came with Greg in 2020 which you still use today and is still fire is the fun framework for how to build new social minded products and fun is format utility and Niche and I love that framework and it still is burned into my brain on you know how do you own a new format you know tweets or X posts for a new format Instagram's new format Etc locket is a new format utility are you providing utility if you're not you better be providing a great new format for a new Niche and if you are providing utility maybe format's less important but you should have a specific Niche to be serving that that triangle is really really powerful and that framework has been really powerful for us to think about new products jmx we going ideas yeah what you got let's go that's a hard that's a tough act to follow that's that that was 10 on 10 I'm gonna I'm gonna I'll rate all these what about in Canada what about in Canada is still a 10 on 10 well it's 10 it's 10 on 10 us so it's really 13 13 on 10 yeah perfect oh it's converting insane yeah how does that convert to the Quebec dollar though uh or is it not yeah I don't know Jordan what you got yeah so I think about a lot about like maximizing space or uh like putting underutilized spaces to use so like churches for example sit empty 6 days a week bars and nightclubs are empty all day venues are empty most the day most the week sporting events all offseason so I've seen a couple really interesting things this uh one thing called Upper Deck golfing they let you basically do top golf for venues so like Nissan Stadium um Gillette Stadium they're basically doing a tour of all of these these different venues so um that just gives me like a really it's a really interesting trend is um and when you think about what's coming up in the future the Apple Vision Pro is coming up so how could you leverage the Apple Vision Pro and these underutilized spaces and we're going back to the throwback days of the internet cafes going Apple Vision Pro bars what are we doing we're buying 10 Apple Vision Pros we're going to outlay 35k everyone's going to want to try it so you got it baked in you rent it for 50 bucks an hour 12 hours a day you got 10 of them so you're doing 6K a day what's that a month 180k a month in Revenue Thank Me Later Apple Vision Pro bars but is this one of those ideas that works for a year and then doesn't work after a year like I heard some stories still 180k yeah chock it up yeah but then what do you do with all those avps sell them baby or use them rent them I like the I mean to me what's cool about that is you're giving people access to something that they wouldn't have access otherwise and it's not necessarily about the AV P it's about it's about the social experience of like meeting other people when you're going to the bar so like I used to go to like a internet cafe where people could play like play video games and uh that used to be quite popular actually like in the early 2000s and i' I'd show up and I'd rent a computer play a video game and I had the video game at home but it was just more about like I'd go with my friends and we'd meet other people there buy some food and stuff like that so there's definitely like a social club that you can attach to it which could be interesting and that could be could add some longevity to this one month business I tell you what you do you throw on a native experience that you've built in all of the vision Pros that are a lead Magnet or a trust building mechanism for whatever business that you are running Services business Community Etc and it's just a great way to get in front of people's eyes and in their brains through the aps we're going next level subconscious marketing here um and yeah you use that as a great tool to not only give people a new inaccessible experience making that accessible but then also offering them a really cool game or utility or even just wallpaper background kind of design that showcases your capabilities to upsell cross sell offer other things I don't know who the target market would be but there's an interesting play there as well I mean it's an interesting play for like if you did create These Bars and then you went to like a social app or video G like you know epic games and you're like hey you want access to these 20,000 people in these bars well like it's pre-installed with this game and we like are going to promote it and host game nights and stuff like that so that's an interesting monetization model for something like this stack it up Greg you want to go next do a little round table then do another do a round two well well we could uh we can rate this we can rate this one Theo you want to rate rate this bad boy yeah I'll give it a I'll give it a wait no sevens no sevens sevens a cop addent top rating you know the rules no sevens not even with the conversion rate no sevens uh I'll do a solid 8.3 on 10 what yeah wow 180k he wants it for for q1 2024 Q2 it drops to a six on 10 or or lower or lower I mean do I do I have to be honest of course I don't want to hurt your feelings you won't are you just saying that no this is for someone who wants to make 180k and sit on the beach for the rest of the year I'm gonna give it a five5 five five and the reason I'm give it to five5 is you have to it's Capital intensive so I don't like that and I think the the people are going to get the upside are the people who are going to be developing the experiences on the on the platform so just like how we talked about iOS 14 and lock it and how there's so much opportunity there there's so many so much opportunity to build cool interesting spal experiences um within uh the ecosystem like that's where I would be putting the majority of my Cycles is thinking about if Apple Vision Pro takes off what what's going to be the deao dating app what's going to be the DEA facto social network what's going to be the deao you know firsters shooter and just like thinking about and then what are and this is probably the most important question which is what is the most nonobvious experiences that people aren't thinking about that you should you could be creating within this ecosystem what does an ad Network look like for Apple Vision Pro how do you think about buying up all the Billboards within Apple Vision Pro and selling it uh things like that which are non obvious but uh probably pretty valuable if it works out okay I've got another one or Greg you want to go you I'm I like I said before coming on I was like I'm I don't have any ideas that I want to share I just want to hear your ideas you guys are brilliant brilliant folks and people want to hear from you they want to hear from Jordan and Theo that's kind sweet of you okay let's keep rocking um okay this one's a little it's still it's still work in progress but as more info floods the market as everyone is an expert on everything it's hard to know what quote unquote healthy or right or good looks like and let's let's use the word healthy what does it mean to be healthy and what's the best going to diet what does it mean to be this across many different different Industries and so Technologies are evolving super rapidly businesses are operating differently I think people don't know what the Playbook looks like anymore to be healthy and I don't mean healthy only physically I mean mentally spiritually emotionally financially professionally creatively socially what is it look like to be healthy in this new world with all of these new opportunities and everyone feeding you information of what the right approach is with no real credentials including me so don't listen to me if I'm telling you how to be healthy I don't know um um so I think Fitness for X products it's another for X but I love that framework that you put in I think Community College you know 2020 but X for y right what does a fitness product for X look like around these different um Industries with these different kind of headspaces so Financial Fitness professional Fitness Creative Fitness uh spiritual Fitness and how do you build these apps that are part gamification part Behavior change part social part content and it doesn't have to start with an app it can really just start with a niche and start with understanding the people start with a community building content in the space about helping people figure out what that means and then building a product or an experience for them to help change their behavior and on put them on a path to Fitness you know we've worked with Nike we've worked with Weight Watchers we've work with now Beyond barriers which is professional Fitness especially for women in mid to senior level positions they sell these massive contracts to big companies on how to help employees there specifically women admit to senior positions get professionally fit in a way right is how do they achieve their professional goals what is the curriculum who's the community they're going to do it with what's the content and then what are the other offers they can use to help them get there so I think there's a massive opportunity to figure out what the next area of Fitness is and how to build an experience around yeah and the cool thing about so I love this trend and I think it's only getting started I think uh the beauty about it is digital products actually lend themselves really well to gameification like look at dualingo it's like a multi-billion dollar company uh teaching people how to learn a language and that's like language fitness you know I think there's so much opportunity here that if you actually create a tight digital product with utility and then you layer on like a game like experience um in a niche that's purpose built for that uh it's got all the makings of a great business because You' got the moat because it's purpose built so other companies won't come after you there and you're also getting the retention engagement because you've you've got this like built-in leveling system that uh human beings are basically ired to to go and jump hoops through so I like this trend even though it's not like one idea and man I like it Jordan what do you think I love the trend yeah do you guys remember steep in in the web three days they like I mean it went crazy because it was like walk to earn but I think there's something there with with this as well it's just like not necessarily Fitness but just gamification and earning um on some curriculum it' be um yeah there's just a million ways you could take it um who were you talking to recently Greg that had the retreat the creativity Wellness Retreat so a buddy of mine has this really good idea which is basically he's been so he's an artist and he's been or he wants to basically be the creative Wellness guy so his whole thesis is that creatives like other professionals get burnt out and they need places where they can go to actually like come back really fulfilled and although there's Retreat centers for if you're into yoga or now there's Retreat centers for like psychedelics that's like a big thing and although those things exist or or there spiritual uh Retreat centers like go to an ashram in India there actually doesn't really exist a place where where it's focused on taking say a painter and getting them to paint you know paint more or or be more inspired or even a graphic designer like having programming uh so the idea is basically he's building this retreat center and sort of like a farm a farm area where he's hosting like think of like he's kind of like trying to be like the Rick Ruben but for art therapy and I think that's a really interesting play it also plays on the trend around IRL like in-person experiences that people postco are really in the mood for so I think I I like that idea and I think uh branding himself around art Wellness is a really interesting approach to it I it too he should stand up a uh like old western Saloon in the middle of the farm call it writer block right totally well I think I think it's a big opportunity and uh it's one of those ideas that's like hidden in plain sight it's like you have to like take some of these trends like Fitness like that you said you know Fitness and now there's more creatives than ever because people are designing things in real time on the internet and IRL and you community and you put together and you're like wow like there's an opportunity here and the beauty about that idea is like you could start it you can basically build demand online you know you build content online and inspirational content and then you start amassing that Community you build a free community on it and then you say like hey you know do you want to come to my farm um so it's kind of it's a cool idea and you're you're also starting to see just so much demand for places like sooh house um I was at so house the other day and there was like I was telling someone I was telling on it was actually on another pod that like it was like a line to get into a line to get into a line to get into a line to get into the Miami so house and then I was reading that they actually stopped like you can't like join a New York or LA or you know SE house anymore like there's no more weight list or anything like that like they're at Peak capacity why do you think that is well I think a lot of pent up demand postco I also think that people are looking for more Community Based experiences like they want to feel like they're part of something I think a lot of people work from home so they want a place where they can just like open up their laptop and like be with other people so so house I think is going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of we Works bankruptcy in a lot of ways and in fact they actually have a Soho House workspace business as a part like a a separate business that they from what I remember were trying it in Dumbo and New York and Brooklyn and have probably now expanded Beyond it so pretty bullish on soah house if they are able to maintain quality which is a whole other can of worms which I don't know they're able to yeah I think there's a huge opportunity uh like a blend a middle ground between we work and Soho House yeah like so House's rules are crazy you know you you take a phone call in there and they immediately like tackle you um so it's it's h I think there's like a real opportunity for these like neighborhood work clubs one opened up here in Nashville it's called switch yards and it's really like Bare Bones co-working free coffee 247 access Etc um and it's $100 a month and they went live with it and they oversold memberships like something happened with the Shopify I don't know what but they oversold memberships in two minutes by 800 people and that just shows how much like demand I think for this like Middle Ground could be uh where it's like co-working membership but also eat work play work out yeah um I think there's like a huge opportunity and like making it more like a Lifetime Fitness and less like a Soo house could be interesting for sure I also saw my friend uh Mike K he posted did you see a tweet of his where he talked about like someone should build a SE house but for familyfriendly like somewhere where you can bring your kids did you see that tweet I think I did uh with like daycare services and like yeah exactly I had actually seen it too someone responded I think about lifetime fit Fitness like bro this is Lifetime Fitness but Lifetime Fitness is super suburban and only in America I'm pretty sure don't know people love responding to tweets with like but actually it's you know this already exists as a guy who tweets a lot about like like startup ideas everyone always so many people are are always like well that already exists and it's like yeah it might exist but like a people don't think of that brand it's like or B what if you Niche down more and made it for this particular audience or maybe that brand was created in 1980 and what people wanted in 1980 is really different than what people wanted in 2024 so anyways that was a side rant about people who uh snarky comk exactly yeah um okay rate my burn the startup idea so we can uh get a taste of Jordans although I think we just did which is these localized co-working spots but got a hint what do you got John what's your rating on this on my cop out answer of a category not a specific idea H don't be shy got thick skin there not that's not I like it on 10 yeah I approve this message um no I'm g go I'm g go nine wow I'm feeling it as a category as an idea less than one zero no idea yeah exactly fair enough but the category I like a lot I really yeah I agree I'll give it a nine as well nine on category zero on idea Fair yeah yeah exactly I like it that's fair cool Jordan do you have a another idea you got yeah I got a hyper another hyper local one with I think people are just interested in investing in their local communities um but I think there's an interesting like digital to physical pipeline that's happening that I'm really fascinated with um right now so this one's a little bit of a funny one but let's have some fun next door is terrible there's a bunch of carens on there it's become Facebook it's just gossipy and really just like fearmongering like did you see the Breakin on eth Avenue Etc so we are unbundling or re rewiring next door it went public I think in a spack like4 billion dollar a couple years ago so what are we doing it's called cup of sugar cup of sugar is the friendly neighborhood app where you get to meet your neighbors you can borrow a cup of sugar if you want or you can have a cookout or get someone to have packages picked up off your door um and it's a friendly place to meet people uh I had this idea because I literally met one of my neighbors on Twitter like last week and we ended up being at the same co-working SP space that I was just mentioning um we had a scheduled call but we ended up getting together in person so there's a little bit of a quip on that but I would monetize through mainly ads and um find out about like local hot deals through these um Instagram influencers like every city these days I feel like has like a city guy that's or 10 of them that are viral on Instagram um so I would partner with them to do like local events neighborhood restaurants and it's got to have an annual membership with a coupon book we got to throw back the coupon books for the neighborhoods so free cheese dip free Queso so many Southern things were dropped in that idea my head is exploding from way up here in Canada this is incredible cup sugar this is incredible I love it so the way to do this idea is you buy next door though so you acire next door and you rebranded so next door as of today is trading at a market cap of 666 million devil devil sign 666 and but what they don't tell you is that or you have to look into they also have about $500 million of cash so Enterprise values 166 million so if you bought that business for say a billion dollars or we bought that business say for a billion dollars which maybe we will uh you know don't want to lead with fear in 2024 um go if if you buy that business for a billion dollars you're basically buying it for $500 million um but you get this huge user base like if they've got how many users do they have it's in it's one in three households in America whoa that's way bigger than I thought so guess 100 million people if you're just going to slash it some back of the napkin math right there well weekly active users in terms of active users is 40 million so and that's active so I mean is it crazy to maybe we wouldn't offer a billion but is it crazy to offer you know $10 a weekly active user I don't think so um you know it's 400 million so I think there's this is like a bigger idea around there's opportunities to buy some of these distressed Assets in the public markets from all the spcs and stuff like that and then uh basically modernize the products and also build them with a more profitable mindset so I like your idea I'll get I'll give it a a strong nine point n a 92 what did I give last last time an 83 I'm going to repeat the 83 I'll go 83 again I like it cool and then yeah and how about we do one last idea from both of you okay I'll make this one a quick one call it right hand that's what uh this idea is called um it's not fully fleshed out again I'm going to cop out a bit with the category but um so 99.9% of businesses in the US are small businesses 80% of those are businesses with zero employees that means one person so that's one set of stats another set of stats is influencer the industry the valuation of the influencer industry has 11x in the last seven years you know 2 million influencers today generate over $100,000 a year at least and then there's like a top cohort that's generating well over 500k the problem as we mentioned earlier is a lot of the is single player businesses or kind of solo businesses solo preneurship a lot of these creators that are hitting it scale or starting to scale sorry you need a right hand you can't keep doing it all alone if you really do want to scale there's two ways to scale a business technology and people and or software and people but I like technology as a better um as a better kind of bucket and maybe I'm wrong maybe there's a third and a fourth but those are the two that come to mind Tech technology and people and I was on a call with a Creator today he is going over the million follower Mark but more importantly his reach is like very unevenly distributed if you look at someone else with his follower Camp he gets way more reach because of the quality of his content therefore able to do brand deals therefore able to go after really interesting opportunities and he's growing and making a great kind of sixf figure salary let's call it but he's now at a a ceiling where he can no longer do what he wants to do as a solo Creator or influencer while still putting out content and doing what he does best I feel like there is going to be a lot of people like him and a lot of business owners who start to reach a point where they need a strategic thought partner and someone who is behind the scenes executing delivering on kind of the project management different projects to being stood up and executed so that the business itself can move forward as a business not as an individual and so call it right hand it could be a talent pool of people who are comfortable being number twos in a business and are great operationally and great and reliable from a execution perspective and I hate the term generalist and everyone who comes into a job interview or applies for a job and says I'm a generalist stop please from someone who's interviewed hundreds of people in the last year it's not doing you any service even even though that's what someone might need it's not what someone wants someone wants someone who's an expert or great at something lead with that and then you may be a generalist who can do a lot of other things and that's wonderful but please try and figure out what your your USP is what your superpowers are and lead with that I think for this how do you create a network of people who you know are these super powered number tws or operating Partners or kind of influencer Partners they could work with three at once they could work with four at the beginning and then maybe find the one that best resonates with them and how can these influencers solo businesses Etc pay to have access to this or pay a finder fee or there's a commission-based structure to get access to these people hire them and then grow with them um almost as partners to their business so I know there's been other Solutions like this in the past um for solo Founders but this to me feels like a really interesting moment in time to look into that so high level still more of a trend than it is a a unique business idea but I like it a lot yeah I'm a trend guy I like it a lot and uh yeah I think there's something here roast me and add to it and or just do a quick rating and we can jump to Jordan's J mix I adore it absolutely love it 13 out of 10 CAD whoa that's like a 9.6 us let's go yeah go ahead Jordan no I just I I love love the I think there's a ton of opportunity there um getting high quality people in a network as we know Community um will drive everything and that that specific Community is immensely valuable so no one do this because I'm doing it yeah there you go it's too good it's off the charts uh no I like it I like it I think um also creators want to be creating you know so I think exactly God bless him but you know they're looking for support and you can't do everything so I think there's a lot of opportunity to help creators like you know put it put simply in plain English and I think a lot of them are going to be looking for help so and are looking for help so I I I totally agree and we're seeing a lot of like creators hit us up uh so that we can do that for them so I think we'll we'll get more of that uh I like the idea um and for people listening uh on YouTube please feel free to comment what you thought of all these ideas and give your own rating um maybe we're too generous maybe we're to no s no sevens so that's the rule um and this has been fun this is this is what I'm talking about I knew this would you know this is this is cool this is like what we do off camera so it's cool to be on camera with you guys um where could folks follow you on the internet to get more J mix and Trend Theo trendy Theo oh gosh jrdn MX on Twitter you can find me theot taba LinkedIn Twitter uh or x uh I haven't posted a lot lately but I'll be back in 24 and uh I'll give Greg a run for his money on some ideas so yeah these are jelly jams as Greg mentioned we have these we call Jelly jams you know whenever we can't usually once a month maybe once every couple weeks and getting a taste of them now so hope you enjoyed and if you made it here to the deep end uh and you want to work with us design Innovation growth DM me on Twitter and I'll connect you with the right folks on our team uh and help you transform your business so uh thank you for listening and uh Jordan Theo I'll see you later thanks

Channel: Greg Isenberg

Views: 2,984

Keywords: Greg Isenberg, Where It Happens Podcast, Jordan Mix, Theo Tabah, Late Checkout, business ideas, business ideas for 2024, entrepreneurship, how to be an entrepreneur with no money, how to be an entrepreneur, startup ideas, how to build a business, how to start a business, apple vision pro, apple vision pro ideas, original business ideas, fitness product, solopreneur ideas, entrepreneur motivation

Id: 0TIcMZ36oI4

Length: 65min 56sec (3956 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 21 2023