8 Businesses I'm Bullish On

What's up everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Founder's Journal, my personal diary made public for the world. I'm your host, Alex Lieberman, co-founder and executive chairman of Morning Brew. Today I am sharing 8 business ideas that I could be convinced to build. I will share each idea, the problem that needs to be solved, the business model, and why I am interested. And what I love about this episode is it starts a conversation with you. If you want to start one of these businesses, shoot me an email to alex@morningbrew.com. If you have ideas for any of the businesses or you have a completely different business idea, shoot me an email. If you hate one of the businesses and you want to stick it to me and give me harsh feedback, shoot me an email. That is why I love business ideas. They are a jumping off point, a launchpad. They're an opportunity to both be creative and start conversations. So let's hop into it. Business idea number 1, a supercharged workflow agency that combines automation, offshoring, and AI. The product is simple. We define an ideal customer profile. I'm just going to throw out a random one. Maybe it's a 10-plus-year-old non-venture-backed business that's doing at least $10 million a year in revenue. We go into that business and we find any manual processes that humans are doing, from data entry to running reports to writing memos. And there are processes that they shouldn't be doing because humans don't have to do it. And then we leverage a combination of automation tools like Zapier or Make, offshore talent in the Philippines or Sri Lanka or Indonesia, and AI tools like ChatGPT to create automated workflows. And this allows clients to operate at higher margins since fewer employees are needed to accomplish the same tasks. That's the product. The problem that we're solving is that businesses are spending too much on talent or not using their talent to their highest ability because repeatable tasks are being done by people versus technology. And the business model is a monthly retainer with upsells as you find more manual processes to automate, or you can even bundle in training workshops to teach employees at the company how to set up these automated processes themselves. And you can actually even help staff these companies with the right full-time operations people that will own the responsibility of taking manual processes and turning them automated. The reason that I'm interested in this business is I've experienced this problem myself at my ghostwriting agency StoryYard. Our CS or content strategist is awesome at what she does, but 50% of her time has been bogged down by tasks that could be automated or delegated if the right workflows were set up. On top of that, this type of business is capital efficient, as in you don't need any money day one because your first customer pays for the cost of whatever talent you're using to set up your automations. It's, you know, that's the beauty of an agency business. And this business bets on 2 10-year trends, which are the advancement of AI and the continued globalization of our workforce. So that's idea number 1. Idea number 2, sales as a service, or said differently, a better SDR agency. The product would be hiring college students or offshore talent as part-time SDRs or sales development representatives. And pairing them with ghostwriters who craft sales emails or outreach with amazing sales copy. The problem is that managing a sales org is wildly expensive, and SDRs are a relatively commoditized resource. But then if you want to outsource your lead generation to an agency, the quality is typically horrible. Outreach emails are generic, wrong names are used, pipeline lists are incorrect or inaccurate. So with this business, you get quality SDR talent who who's looking for part-time income, as in college students who are well-educated, speak the native language. And then you're getting outreach emails that stand out because they're being written by people who are trained in capturing your attention. The business model I could see being some combination of base retainer and performance bonus. So something like you pay us $5,000 a month for your sales development needs and then X dollars per scheduled sales call that we get you. I'm interested in this business because I just like businesses that allow you to attach to revenue or revenue orgs because it becomes highly objective if the investment in your business is worth it from your client or not. Like they can very easily tell whether you're worth the money or not. Now, the counter to that point is that it's a known benefit of this type of business. So there's a ton of competition in the world of sales enablement agencies, softwares, etc. That's idea number 2. Idea 3, a public speaking school for founders or executives. I think of it as a Toastmasters 2.0. The product is a 4-week bootcamp focused on turning great entrepreneurs or execs into great storytellers. The problem is sales is literally the most important skill for non-technical founders. And honestly, I would say sales is the most important skill for executives in general. And when I say sales, I also mean storytelling. So selling investors, selling employees, selling potential customers, It's so important, yet most founders and executives are poor storytellers. The business model is $2,000 to $3,000 for the bootcamp, and then for clients who are interested, there can be continuing education or one-on-one coaching. And I am so interested in this business, not only because I think sales and storytelling is so important, but I think it can start as a one-time school but be turned into a brand built around public speaking. And that brand can include everything from courses to membership to content to B2B workshops where you go into companies. And if you just look at kind of the analog version of this, Toastmasters is a nonprofit, but it was founded in 1924, has 270,000 members across 14,200 clubs and 147 countries. And I believe it is severely undermonetized. Yet I saw that in 2022 it did over $30 million in revenue. So that's idea number 3. Idea number 4, AA for tech addiction. The product. So if I'm being honest, I'm least clear on the specific product here of all of the ideas that I'm gonna share on this episode. But my general thought would be a combination of accountability group, goal setting, and calendar timeboxing, as well as a tool that disables apps that cause unwanted distractions. The problem that an Alcoholics Anonymous for tech addiction would solve is very simply our phones and our social media are a drug. 47% of Americans are addicted to their phones and it has an impact on their happiness, their relationships, and how they want to spend their time. The business model would be a monthly subscription. And I am so interested in this idea even though I'm so unclear about the product because of all of the ideas that I'm sharing today. This is the product that I need most, that when I was in the height of my phone and technology addiction over the last 2 years, I would've paid any amount of money for it, and I still went after I using it, I would've ended up being like, I would've paid multiples of that amount of money because it would've given me my life back. I could also see this idea not just being a for-profit business like the other ideas. I could see it being a nonprofit as well, which would be equally as exciting. Now let's hop into idea number 5, but first, a quick word from our partners. Idea number 5, Drybar for dogs. The product is a dog groomer that exclusively does Baths, brush, blowouts, nail trims, ear cleaning, and teeth clean. So basically everything around hygiene, looking good, and smelling good. The problem is that keeping your dog clean and hygienic is super important, but it's an absolute pain in the ass to do at your house. I can't tell you how excruciating it is every time I have to bring my 55-pound dog into the shower and try to finagle him around as he hates being in there. I have to lift him in different positions to both get the soap on him and then get it off with the water. It is horrible, and I would absolutely pay someone to help me with it. The business model would be à la carte or monthly packages. And what's fascinating to me about this business, and more specifically the, the dog industry, is there are very few national brands. So if you look at dog groomers around the US, it's all or mostly mom and pop. So it's highly fragmented. People will pay anything for their dogs, and many dog owners don't have a groomer they can trust. Like, I look at, you know, where we live. in Hoboken, and everyone we have spoken to, it is dog and baby central where we live. And there is not a single dog owner of the hundreds of dog owners we've spoken to that like their groomer in this area. There have been more horror stories about dog groomers that have basically shaved hair off of their dogs, leaving the owners traumatized and looking for another groomer. And I'm interested in the idea of adding haircuts. Um, but the issue is finding great groomers is really, really difficult. Like I just gave you these horror stories. Yeah, it's like you find one good groomer for 10 horror stories of bad groomers. And the issue is, is because great groomers are really hard to find, there's a huge bottleneck to ultimately scaling this business. So, you know, you could figure it out with finding a great groomer and doing this idea that I'm talking about of Drybar for dogs, really well branded. You know, it's very Instagrammable where you could set up this place where you get hilarious images of dogs in different parts of the bath and the blowout process. But as you try to scale from one retail location to many, scaling great grooming talent is incredibly difficult. So perhaps a middle ground is doing grooms that are more standardized. So maybe it's like you can do like shortcut, middle cut, and long cut, and that allows you to train a wider array of employees so it becomes less of a bottleneck. Idea number 6 is ClassPass for experiences specifically focused on adults. The product is a monthly membership where you can sign up for weekly, biweekly, or monthly curated activities in your area, in your city that you can choose from. And these range from anything from Off-Broadway shows to cooking classes to indoor archery. The problem it solves is that adults want to be playful and they want to experience new things and they want to meet new people. But it is not easy to do that. The business model is a tiered monthly membership based on frequency of activities, based on if you want to do a weekly activity, a biweekly one, or a monthly one. As well as how premium the activities are, right? So maybe at the base level, their activities, like, you know, like I said, indoor archery, but at the most premium level, maybe it's like cigar and whiskey tastings. And the reason I'm interested in this business is I would be the most passionate customer of this service. I am a kid at heart. I'm always looking for new experiences and activities. And right now I have to do a ton of research to find a great experience. Such that it only happens every few months. And on top of that, I'm always looking to meet new people. Like, I definitely have space for, let's call it, 1 to 3 new good friends in my life. And to me, I think a great way to potentially meet 1 to 3 really good friends is find someone who's equally as passionate in new experiences and activities as I am. And so that's why I'm interested in the idea. Next up is idea number 7, Uber for language. The product is a paid membership where you have access to a foreign language curriculum as well well as— and this is the key part— a text group with a host who's a native speaker in the language you're trying to learn. And then in that text group as well are 10 other customers who are similar skill level to you. The problem is that traditional language education has low compliance and completion, so people just give up after a period of time or they can't build the habit. And oftentimes you learn things in different language classes that aren't actually used in everyday conversation. They're more academic than colloquial and practical. The business model is a $19.99 monthly subscription, and I believe this idea gives you the best of all worlds for language learning. There's a paced curriculum, a safe space for everyday conversation using words that natives actually use on a day-to-day basis, and there is accountability by the group to make learning a language a daily habit. Plus, and this is the really cool part for me, and this is why I call it Uber for language. It allows people, anyone, to monetize their native tongue as hosts of these text groups as long as they complete training provided by the company. And by the way, the way that I thought of this idea is my wife and I are currently in a Spanish class and we have weekly homework, and then we have a weekly 2-hour Zoom call with— it's 3 students and 1 teacher. But what feels like is missing is the daily habit of practicing what we learn in our class and the curriculum. So what I decided to do is I started a text group with my wife, myself, and then my nanny who I grew up with. So growing up, I had a nanny who lived with us, and she's basically a second mom to me, and she's from Colombia. And I started a text group with her. As well as her sister. And so now it's my wife, myself, Janita, and Nancy having a daily text in Spanish. And I was thinking to myself, how cool would it be if Janita, who her full-time job is, she's an 18-wheeler driver, if on the side she can make supplemental income simply by having conversations in her native tongue and making corrections when people are saying things improperly for people who are paying for this service. And so that's how I came up with the idea. And then the 8th and final business idea that I'm gonna share with you all is what I call paid nerd journeys. They are expert-led learning groups around passion topics. So the product is, as I said, a paid learning group that combines expert-led host, curated curriculum, and live/asynchronous conversations with other people who are in your learning group. The problem it solves is that learning about a new subject is a lonely journey. There is a ton of noise, so you don't know what books or websites or podcasts are good to consume, and you're oftentimes left with more questions than answers as you start your journey of learning about a topic and consuming resources. The business model is a one-time fee for a specific learning journey or a membership if you want ongoing access to journeys as they go live. And I'm interested in this for a number of reasons. One is because it's a journey with other people. First of all, you get to connect with people who are passionate in similar things to you. There also should be better completion around learning about the topic because you have accountability created from being a part of this group. And it allows experts to monetize their knowledge by being kind of the curators of the curriculum and answering people's questions. But it's less work than like teaching a course where you literally have to create a curriculum from scratch. So I'll just give you an example I was thinking about is like, if I want to learn about psychedelics and the— what psychedelics do for the future of medicine, right? This, you know, these long stigmatized compounds that actually are showing a ton of benefit as it relates to treatment for people with PTSD and depression. I want to learn more about that topic. And so what would be really cool is, say, someone who's getting their PhD and doing a dissertation in the application of psychedelics in medicine, they are able to monetize themselves in an interesting and different way now simply by curating some of the best research papers books, YouTube talks, et cetera, for a group of people, and then answering people's questions along this journey. And then I get to be on a journey with other people who are equally as passionate about this topic. So those are my 8 business ideas that you should feel free to steal, start, or let me know what your thoughts are, whether you love it or you hate it. I promise I won't take offense to anything. So shoot me an email to alex@morningbrew.com, and I'd love to have a convo with you about any of these businesses or any other business ideas that you wanna riff about. As always, thank you so much for listening, and I'll catch you next episode.