How to Start a Tuition Negotiation Business + More College Ideas. Holdco Bros Discuss! Ep. #107

Did you know that you can negotiate your college tuition? What percentage of people do it? You charge $0 to the families or the students. You take a percentage of whatever you save. What do you have to lose? You're going to pay us $500 a year, and we're just going to be one phone call away.

I have a close friend of mine. He decided he was going to launch a business with a relative. He ended up investing over $200,000 into this. This family member said, actually, this isn't for me. I'm out.

He knew someone high up. They're like, don't go to an urgent care. Go to a hospital because the urgent care is required to report. Did you know that you can negotiate your college tuition? Did you know that, Anyone? Yes, it's negotiable. What percentage of people do it?

It's got to be less than 5%.

I don't have the answer. So whatever you say, I'll believe. We're going to say 4%. Perfect.

4%.

Let's call it 4. That's a fact. 4% of people try to negotiate their. Their tuition. What percentage of people even know it's possible? Give me a number. I'll believe it immediately.

In the same percentage? Ballpark, 5%.

Yeah. I didn't know it until about a month ago when I heard it on another podcast, which I won't mention.

Don't say the name. Does it rhyme with Fiser Squillion?

No, not at all, actually. Was that believable?

So funny.

All right, so I've done some research. I did some homework here. I don't know of any company doing tuition negotiations as a service. Why not? Why would we not do this? It's an alignment of incentives. You charge $0 to the families or the students. You take a percentage of whatever you save. What do you have to lose? Poke holes in it. What are we doing?

I think it's very analogous to insurance. More people know about this. Did you know you can. You can negotiate the bill from your insurance company? Medical health insurance.

Right.

I'm not talking about the premium. I'm talking about when you get a bill from the hospital. It's like, oh, I had my kidneys removed. Kidneys. Anyways, who does that? Appendectomy. You can negotiate with them. Now, most people don't negotiate with them, but you can negotiate with them. And I think that there are some businesses around negotiation as a service, but that's also not very popular. The reason I think that it's not more popular and the reason I brought up insurance is because there are so many different insurance companies that you have to talk to the decision maker and there's many different potential decision makers at each insurance company. And the same feels true to me for universities is like, you can't just group, oh, okay, These are the 10 universities I applied to and I got into. I'm going to group negotiate with them. Or at least from the outside that that would be. My reasoning is it'd be very hard to build individual relationships at scale that allow you to then negotiate.

Well, it all goes to the admissions office.

I'm just saying there's a lot of people in the admissions offices and there is a potentially a significant amount of turnover. And so you'd have to build individual relationships with individual universities that doesn't necessarily scale. You could start it at like, like, I went to usc.

Cool.

I'm the USC tuition negotiator. I could see that being like a good standalone business.

Well, from what I understand, I read some Reddit posts from parents that have done this so successfully for their kids and you don't really need a long standing relationship.

It's kind of like, Chris, did Lori Laughlin post this?

I don't know who that is and I'm too afraid to ask at this point.

She's, she's the aunt from Full House who paid. Remember the whole, the whole celebrity. It would get people on the row team. It's like, this is how they got them into college. All right, sorry. Keep going, keep going.

Like, I, I see what you mean, but I don't think, I don't think that's how you frame yourself. When you make this call, you're like, hey, I'm, I'm working with Susie. You know, she really wants to get into usc. It's her top choice. But our budget for tuition is only X and you guys are at Y. What can you do? Like, that's how the conversation goes. You just need to talk to the admissions office and preferably right before they're about to close admissions, because these guys have quotas and goals that they want to hit. And historically, over the last few years, tuition keeps going up and enrollment is going down, which means they're more desperate. You think that those things wouldn't both be happening at the same time, Right? I don't. Who would have thought that a university doesn't know how supply and demand works?

Who would have thought that?

So I don't see it. And you could be right in that this how it would be in reality. But I don't See it as a. Something that's very relationship driven. Like, hey, it's me again. Hey, I've got this student. Hey, it's me again. It's just like, hey, I represent so and so. She really wants in, but we need a break. And the. The savings might be like 8,000 a semester instead of nine, but over eight semesters. And if you take 30% of that, that's very tangible. And people don't like to negotiate. We know that negotiations as a service is a thing. Andrew Wilkins had a company that did it very successfully. They sold. And he's publicly said, I'm launching that again. I want to do that again, because it was an amazing business. So it's basically that framework applied to universities. And the alignment of incentives is what I like, because it's something that no one has to pay for. I only eat when you eat.

We had a similar idea around having virtual assistants kind of negotiate car prices. Remember, this was like, a couple months ago that we talked about this. So I think negotiation as a service is a really, really good idea. You're framing it more as like, all right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm the advocate on behalf of the student and the parents calling the university. I think that could work. Yeah. Why would that not work? If the student wasn't in a position of leverage, it wouldn't work.

That's basically what they're paying for, is you don't want to be like, hey, I got 20 universities on top. Which. Which, who's the cheapest? Like, that's not how you play this game. You're like, this is our first choice. We're admitted into four. This is our first choice. But you're just. You're too expensive. We really want to go there. Like, what can you do to help us get into your school? Could you do 8,000 a semester?

Okay, so to our distribution question. How would you go about acquiring customers for this? Like, where would you go? How. How would you find people to represent in order to negotiate for their tuition to be cheaper?

This plays into one of the frameworks that I talked about recently. It's kind of like I just did an episode with a line striping business owner. And he acquires customers quite easily because he drives around Waco, Texas, sees a parking lot with faded lines, and he knows for a fact that guy needs him. He might not be ready today, but it's not a cold knock. It's a very warm knock. Because it's like, you're going to be paying someone to do this might as well be me. And he said none of his competitors are door knocking. And so I like this because everyone knows who all the high school seniors are. They're listed on the website. They're right there. They're at the football games. And so this is something that. It's like a barbell strategy. You either start hyper local or you start on Instagram and nothing in between. Go to your friends and families that have high school seniors and say, hey, I'm just testing this out. I'm not even going to take a percentage. I just want to learn my skills, hone my skills. Will you give me a testimonial? If I'm. If I even save you a dollar, what do you have to lose? Nothing. You've already been accepted. You have nothing to lose. Okay, now you get some testimonials, throw them up on a website. Now you start charging 10 to 30% to locals to keep doing the same thing. Or. This is a very similar idea to a guy I know on Instagram that does cold emailing as a service for parents that want their kid to get a scholarship, an athletic scholarship. And he only does it through Instagram. He makes a lot of money, and he just posts content about how to get scholarships, how to reach out to coaches. You were smiling.

Oh, because I. It made me think of the Lori Laughlin situation again, where they were paying people for, you know, scholarships to the road team.

I would.

I think I love this framework that we came up with. I mean, obviously it's an existing framework, but something that was a light bulb moment for us. A couple months ago. I would look at the piggybacking. It's like, okay, who's already working with these individuals? So it could be the test prep companies, it could be the admissions prep companies. Cause they're, you know, there are companies that help you write your personal statement that gets your. They just do an audit of, like.

Well, what do your extracurriculars look like?

And how is your application going to be? And I would probably target a specific. I'm going to. I'm going to use USC as an example. I went to usc. I would see if there's anybody in my network who works at usc, first of all. And I would contact the admissions office and see if I. If they could give me a recommendation for the companies that they've seen students work with most likely to get a scholarship at usc. I know that's like a very specific question, but I think USC would know, like, oh, man, Kaplan does a really good job preparing Students for the admission process. And we've seen their students come through here or whoever it is. Right. Those admission departments are going to have relationships with these companies because that is very relational as well. It's like, oh, I talked to Laura at Cascade Test Prep. She's helping you. Oh, she, she's great. She's going to do a really good job of prepping, you know, whatever your application. So I asked them who they work with. And then I would go to those companies and say, hey, look, free service, I eat what I kill. But I want to negotiate on behalf of these families because they're already a qualified student, they've gotten in, they're paying something. So now there's a negotiation process. I think that's probably where I would start, is by piggybacking off of those.

I like that. Because like university admission coaching, that's like a well established industry. How to get into Harvard, how to get into the school, or how to get scholarships. That industry's been around forever. Right? We'll help you apply for scholarships. We'll help you with your essay writing, we'll develop your skills. We'll help you with your SAT or your ACT score. That's been around. So just piggyback on one of those guys and say, hey, you're not doing negotiations. As a service, I'm really, really good at this. You don't pay me anything. But for every, every person you refer to me, I'll give you a third of my cut. What do you have to lose? Now?

You better be good at negotiations. I would not do this business because I would be like, oh, you're charging 80,000. Well, you better give me it for 60. And they're like, I mean, final offer is 79. Nine, nine, nine. Okay, fine, I'll take it. I'll take it. It's a win. I just wouldn't be good. I just wouldn't be good at negotiating with the universities. But, but if you're like a hardline negotiator, you go for it. You should. Like, this would be something really cool to launch.

Yeah. And I bet it's, it's an easier negotiation than car dealerships, right? Because that's all those guys do all day. You're up against some. Yeah, but with this, you're up against Susan in the front office. That is like, you know, and less, less than 5.

I mean, right. Minority of people negotiate anyways, so they're probably not used to negotiating. I like it. Let's get one. So I have a close friend of mine, I'M not going to say who he is because it would immediately out him. But he's, he's successful. He has a really successful business, Big business, does really, really well. And he's a very generous guy, smart guy. People love him, really well known in his community. And about a year ago, he decided he was going to launch a business with a relative. And this relative came to him and pitched him the idea. And this friend of mine is, is very wealthy. And so he's like, yeah, I'll put some money behind it. I want to invest in you. I want to see you be successful. And so they launch an apparel brand. I shouldn't say launch. They had the idea to launch an apparel blend brand. And this friend of mine, when he goes in, he goes all in. He's.

They launched a wire over to China.

Yes, yes. It was funny because he like, started really getting into the world of sourcing. And he's like, so I'm on WhatsApp now and I'm sending them payments and I'm. I'm trying to work with these contractors. I'm paying them over wise, but I don't like wise. Like, it's just funny to hear these conversations from someone other than you. Anyways, he ended up investing over $200,000 into this. And this family member said, actually, this isn't for me, I'm out. So we backed out. And so, so my friend, My friend now has $200,000 worth of inventory. Not that he valued. I post about this on Twitter and people were like, first of all, it's not worth $200,000. Like, yeah, I know that. But 200,000 that he spent on inventory, so retail value. So I.

Million bucks. I mean, potentially.

I don't know. I don't know. Right? I'm just, I'm just saying he's into it for 200, 000. Probably retailing between 800 and a million dollars, just based on what I know about apparel retail. And he's got $200,000 worth of merchandise sitting in his garage. And like, these are. It's not just a shirt, $200,000 worth of a shirt. It's shirts, sweatshirts, socks, sunglasses. I mean, anything you can think of from an apparel standpoint. So I, when I found out about this, couldn't wait to talk to you about it. Because I'm like, there's gotta be something here. He's just gonna write it off. He's like, ah, it's not worth it to me. It's not worth my time to like figure it out. I'll get the tax write off. And he's successful enough. I know it sounds crazy, but he's successful enough where it's like $200,000 sucks. It's a speed bump, you know, it's not anything crazy. But I'm sitting here, I'm like, dude, could we do something with it? Like, is there something that could be done here? So knowing what you know, what would you do if you were either in his situation or my situation, or if you were an entrepreneur that you're like, you knew that this was an opportunity. He's got all this merchandise. How would you take advantage of this? Like, there has to be something you could do to actually recoup some of the cost.

Let me start with a framework. Can I zoom out first?

Absolutely.

We talk about this all the time. Whenever you start a business, the natural progression is to start with the things that you can wrap your arms around. I'm going to design a logo. I'm going to buy a domain name. I'm going to file an llc. Those are the easier things. And I don't blame people. I've been there, too. It's the thing you're like, I'm making progress. And at least you are making progress. Right. Even if you just buy a domain name, you're doing more than just thinking about it. It's like, I'm going to talk to people, I'm going to get feedback. And that's usually a train wreck because the people you're talking to aren't your target customer or their bias or they love you. So whatever you're hearing is just. Is not good feedback most of the time. Anytime you want to start a business, you want to start with the hardest thing. And the hardest thing is getting revenue, getting customers. If you start with the hardest thing and you fail, then you failed before you really spent a dollar, or if you start with the hardest thing and you succeeded, then everything kind of gets easier from there. Right? But when you're starting an apparel brand, the easiest thing is to buy apparel. That's not. That's like, not the easiest. It's one of the easier things to do.

And it's the fun thing.

It's the fun thing. It's exciting. We're like, oh, here it is. Here it is. Oh, look at it. I'm going to wear it around. I'm going to talk to people about it. But that's not the hard thing. The hard thing to do is be apparel brand number 8,752,000. Because that's like one of the most competitive categories there is because it's a huge tam and everyone wears clothes. But, like, I would think. I've never started an apparel brand. It scares me because it's so crowded. It's got to be really hard to break through the noise with an apparel brand, right? So if you could actually successfully sell a hundred shirts, even at a zero dollar margin, then you feel a lot better buying $200,000 worth of shirts, right?

Look, I agree with you. I'm just saying it's the situation he's in, and he has these assets that he's branded and they're sitting in his garage. And, you know, you've got send eats or Texas snacks. Excuse me.

Where you.

Where you resell Bucky's products? I mean, you have experience with selling this stuff. Here are some of the ideas that people gave me on Twitter. Call a liquidator, because apparently companies, just liquidators will take these and resell them because they have their own distribution networks. And I did ask, and I'm like, do I just Google, like, liquidators? Like, how do I find liquidators? I have no idea. Never done anything like that before. So that, that was kind of interesting. One of the ideas that I really liked was find a couple of influencers and just pay them to wear your apparel. And then I got an idea for them. Maybe you'll get some sales coming in. So that was. I'm gonna. I'm gonna say a couple other ideas and then I'll keep going. Riff. So I thought that was kind of an interesting one. One that I thought was really cool was like, just use it as a marketing expense. Say, hey, I want to take five people. And whoever has the best, whoever sells the most merchandise wins. And so it's like you create this competition around this sort of dead inventory. And, you know, for like, for somebody like us, it would be a really cool way to grow a brand or build an audience because you're, you know, people are competing, Sylvia. So I thought that was a really, really cool idea. Anyways, those are three really, I thought, pretty cool ideas that you could do with it.

I like it. All right, if you are watching this clip right now, you are watching this on YouTube. And if you are a fan of podcasts, please check out my podcast while you're at it. Because sometimes I have podcasts that aren't on YouTube and sometimes I have YouTubes that aren't on podcast. Podcast. So check out the Kerner office on any podcast platform. Or you can go to tkopod.com also, my newsletter will throw that in there. There are no ads. It's weekly. It's different content than my podcast and YouTube newsletter.chrisj kerner.com you'll see the link and we'll see you there. The problem with the liquidator is he's probably going to pay, like, 10 grand for all of this. It's better than nothing, but, like, nothing. We're going to see a bunch of kids in Kenya running around with these shirts in a year or two. Right. Right next to the. Right next to The Utah Jazz. 1998 national championship shirts.

NBA championship.

Yeah, I'm an idiot.

National championship. Oh, gosh. 2017. The Alabama 2017 Super bowl champions.

Keep their name out your mouth. Okay?

All right, Keep going.

I have an idea that's creative, but it only works if these shirts look okay. Can you. Can I see as I talk about this, as I ideate, can you send me a picture? Just a logo, anything?

These are their socks.

Can you hold it up closer?

I have other logos. I just. I just don't have any pictures of them.

It's an M. Okay.

It's an M. Yeah. I'll tell you offline what the name of it is. It's. It's also not a great name, but, I mean, it has meaning behind the name, but it's not like an easily marketable name.

Do the shirts just kind of look like that logo? Is it just like an M, or is there something written on the shirt?

I know it has the name. Has the name, but they're. They're pretty. I would say they're pretty tame shirts. I don't know how else to say. It's like. It's like I have this Nike sweater on, right? And you can see the Nike logo, but it's. It's. It's understated.

That's.

I guess that's the word I'm looking for. It's not flashing.

I want you to Google God is dope. Tell me what you see. Okay.

God doesn't do drugs, but I'll take a look. God is dope. God's favorite band.

Now look at their T shirts and find the one that just has the big. The big block letters on the front, white background that just says, God is dope.

Okay.

From top. You see that? Yeah. So the story behind this brand is really cool. This guy was in Atlanta. The first thing he sold was only that shirt with that logo. That's it. God is dope with a period. Big, bold letters. And he went around the streets of Atlanta and He gave them out for free, no questions asked, 100% free. And people started wearing them. And then people started googling it. People started going to his website. And then he did something that was also genius. He sold them for $5 on his website. He did not make money on any of them. And it went viral. It, it went organically viral because so many people were wearing them, talking about them. It was actually a really cool looking shirt that was actually affordable to everyone. And then once he had a massive email list, he started dropping new products that were a little more expensive, but still very reasonable. This guy, I'm not exaggerating this, this is a $30 million a year business. And it was started by a guy in Atlanta with no money, no skills, no talent. He could just. He designed a logo. He, he was good at making that logo. Sorry, I say no talent. He clearly has talent, but he had no background, he had no funding.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, how many guys have a shirt idea? Every other guy, right? But it's a $30 million company based on one logo.

Are you saying you would, you would try to launch the brand? Like, you would be like, all right, just launch the brand. Just give away. Think of it as marketing. You're going to give it away for free?

Yeah, I like if, if I have to choose between a liquidator giving me 10 grand or me giving them away for free, like in a defined local area to thousands or hundreds of people, somehow you go to a football game, anyone that goes to the. The Eagle football game gets a free T shirt, like, and just see if that catches fire.

Yeah, because it's, it's dead inventory anyways.

Right. The problem that he's up against, though, is the fact that I think God is dope works. I think God is dope works because it's sending a message that is polarizing, that people resonate with, they believe in fundamentally. And it's affordable and it's good design. It's like the Venn diagram. Affordable, mass market. Good design, mass market. The message, mass market. And so he just, he, he hit a trigger there and then the fourth circle of the Venn diagram. Brilliant distribution strategy. So your friend won't be able to do all of those things because the. It's already done, they're already printed. And it doesn't really send a message, it's just a logo. But he could at least try one of, or two of the Venn diagram options.

There is a message behind the logo. Like, it is a very meaningful logo. I would say it looks good. Like the stuff's good quality that they have.

Are you able to say what the message is? Like what the meaning is behind the brand?

The meaning behind it? Yeah, I don't want to just like it would give it away. I'm going to ask him if, if I'm. If he's cool with me talking about it. And I think that he is cool with me talking about it. But I don't want to say it without.

If I were him, I would get. There's these little tools that will allow you to attach a tag to a piece of clothing. Right? Like when you go buy a piece of clothes, you go buy clothes at the store. You can buy those tools for like 10 bucks on Amazon. Then you get the little plastic tags and then you print something. I were him, I would put up a website, Shopify, put a QR code to the website on the tag and put a story, like the heartfelt, meaningful story, whatever the story is behind the brand. Attach it to each T shirt, give them out for free to like the same type of demographic. Call it high schoolers.

Call it. That's a great idea.

Whatever.

That's a great idea. Well, and that was the fourth one that people recommended. They were like, find a local high school student or young hungry entrepreneur and just like, let them have it. They can list it, they can sell it, and essentially give them the starting inventory to launch the brand.

That's another good idea. Yeah, I like that.

So I. And just hearing you talk about the high school thing kind of brought that up. But I think that's a great idea. Again, it wouldn't be for him. Cause he just doesn't have the time to dedicate to it. But if somebody was like, oh, they've got all this inventory, you know, take a flyer on it. You could easily attach those QR codes. It could scan. You could tell the story, give it away for free. I like that. I really like that. That's really cool.

Is. Do you think the story behind it is meaningful enough to like really resonate with people?

Yeah. And he was smart. Like, the brand is tailored. Like he's. He's very clear on who his ICP is. It's not just like, oh, we need.

A clown shirt that looks cool.

He's very clear on who his insane clown posse is. He's very clear on who his target demographic is. And I think that works in his favor because it's not just like, oh, it has to look cool. And then people will like it. It's. It's like, oh, it's Very specific to this type of a person. And this is the meaning of the brand. So I again, I think that plays into his, into his favor. Like he thought about it the right way.

Yeah. So I like it. Cool. All right, I got one for you. This is like the college episode. This is like. Because we had the tuition idea. You had that idea, which could be for a young person. And I got one that's more college focused. Okay. So I had a call with a guy a couple months ago and he went to the University of South Carolina SEC school and he got a minor in possession charge, as in minor in possession of alcohol. As a student and as a fellow student that went to an SEC school that happened to work in a jail while I was a student, I never got a minor in possession charge. We call it MIP at the Tuscaloos County Jail.

RIP to the mip.

Hey, book them on an mip. Book them on a mip. We say that.

Oh, hey, Chris, where'd you go to school? I went to University, Alabama. What'd you major in? I majored in business with a minor in possession.

That's hilarious. I guarantee you there's a 62 year old boomer business owner that has an 84 million dollar equipment rental business that says that joke that lives in Montgomery that says that joke on a daily basis.

I had to, I had to.

So good. Anyway, and apparently he knew someone, someone high up, I don't know who it was. When he got this minor in possession charge that gave him the good advice to not go to an urgent care. I don't remember what happened if he got passed out or whatever. They're like, don't go to an urgent care. Go to a hospital because the urgent care is required to report you to the university. Or don't go to the urgent care on campus because they will report you to the university and you could get kicked out of school.

Okay.

It was just like a little nuance that changed the game for him. He didn't get kicked out of school because he knew this. And then he thought, man, this is really helpful for me to know. How could I monetize this? And this was years later when he actually had the idea of how to monetize this. But he launched this website. I wouldn't call it a business because I don't think he's promoting it yet, but it's called Dean's List. And his thesis is that these rich SEC parents want their kid to be looked out for at school. They just want, okay, they're going to go there. They're going to rush for a fraternity. They're going to be a sorority. They're not going to have immediate access to them. Maybe they're a helicopter parent. Maybe they have money. They're overbearing or whatever.

They're worried about them.

Maybe they just love their kid, right?

Yeah.

They want him to be looked out for. He had the idea to have, like, a service. It's kind of like an insurance policy where it's like, we know all the tricks of the trade. When you come in for Parents Day, we know where you can get a table for brunch where you can't. We know the bars. You should go to the bars. You shouldn't. Your kid doesn't even know their know this stuff yet because they're a freshman. But we've got an inn in Columbia, South Carolina. We know all the tricks. If they get a minor possession, take them off campus. You're going to pay us $500 a year. And we're just going to be one phone call away. We're just going to wait. We'll give you some resources, we'll send you some PDFs, but we're one phone call away. It's like an insurance policy to keep an eye on your kid. They're not answering. Maybe their phone's dead. Maybe they're kidnapped. We'll go check in on them. What do you think?

That'd be a hilarious sales pitch. You know, maybe, heaven forbid, questions.

Heaven forbid, someone questions about.

Well, it's just like throwing that in at the end. It's like, oh, you know, maybe they don't know what orientation is. Oh, that's true. Maybe they get a minor in possession.

Oh, heaven.

Oh, that would be terrible. You know, maybe they get kidnapped in sex, trafficked to Mexico and. Wait, wait, what? How common is that at this school? That's pretty common. It's pretty common. Anyways, you know, maybe they stubbed their toe. Hold on. Could we go back to the sex trafficking thing? You talk about my son, right? Oh, it's very prevalent amongst young men. Very prevalent here. Anyways, is it only geared towards, like, parents to get their kids out of trouble?

No. Or is it.

Hey, welcome to campus. Here's the cool places to.

It's like a trusted third party that can just step in to help.

Like a TripAdvisor. Almost. Well, not even a TripAdvisor. It's like a TripAdvisor is just. You're reading and getting advice. This is like someone you could reach out to. Like a Concierge service to. Could you check on Timmy? I haven't heard from him in three hours.

Yeah, it could be as hands on or as hands off as you want and that you'd have to price it accordingly. So it's like, hey, we'll get you a reservation for Parents Day. It could be a weekly newsletter. We're going to tell you everything going on in the city. We're going to tell you the good places to rent a dorm, the bad places to rent a dorm. Because, sure, you know where to rent a dorm freshman year because they're required to live on campus, but sophomore year they're not. But you don't want them to be in the wrong area. Like, we will be there every step of the way. I thought it was an interesting idea.

It is a really. There has to be something else that's already existing, right? Like. Cause people just have these questions. Do they just go to Facebook right now and look, or are they, like, googling stuff? If you could get the students to recommend and rate, like, oh, this is the best bar near campus. This is the best place to, I don't know, rent your second year. This is your best place to. To live senior year. And the students are telling you that that could be really valuable. But I. I have to believe there's already existing.

I think what people are doing is they're just in, like, random Facebook groups, like parents of University of South Carolina students, and they're just kind of talking one off. But I think there's a whole business around taking Facebook groups off of Facebook.

I was just gonna say that I like the idea of not building a group in a community. Cause like, that just takes a lot of work to get it spun up. Essentially, you're selling an info product. It's like, all right, cool, here's the PDF, you know what I mean? Just like, these are the most recommended places. And maybe you update it once a quarter, but then you don't have to worry about sourcing or, you know, users leaving comments or anything. Like, you just are the trusted source and then you give the information once a quarter. The only thing that would give me pause is like, I don't know if I want parents calling me for random. Like, call the police if you're that concerned. Because otherwise, like, what are they going to be calling you for?

Here's what I think it is. It's, you join all the Facebook groups and you aggregate the data with Zapier and you put it in a newsletter, and it's a paid newsletter, but it's paid by semester, maybe it's a hundred bucks. And every week the parents get a highlight of everything that's happening in the city that they're not going to see on Google, they're not going to find on the news. It's just going to be kind of like gossip from these local Facebook groups. Maybe it's only that or maybe it's that plus like the insurance concierge service for a higher price.

I laugh because I feel like everything comes back to newsletters. It just makes so much sense. Like it's a no brainer. It's a no brainer. I love it, though. All right, here we go. Mary. Date or kill. I'll give you my picks, you'll give me yours, and then we'll talk about them. So I would marry the reselling of inventory idea. I would date the university tripadvisor idea. And I would kill the farmer's market food idea just because I hate food products. And then in no man's land would be piggybacking off of pet companies. And the university negotiations.

I would marry the university negotiations business. I would date the, specifically the slanging authentic pizzas at a farmer's market idea after doing market research to see if it would work or not. The biggest asterisk ever. But I won't say why. And I would, I would kill the last idea that I just brought up. The university concierge parent idea.

Yeah. Let's start with the Mary idea. I said marry the inventory idea and you said marry the university negotiations. Okay. Why would you marry the negotiations?

It's got everything I love, baby. Costs zero dollars to start. You can scale it. It's a proven industry. It's a proven tactic that's not being used in this industry. But you already know that you can negotiate your tuition so we, we don't have to wonder about that.

I had it in no man's land just because of my own personal pr. Like I, I just would not enjoy that business, the negotiation part of it. So I, I agree with you though. Those are good. Those are good points. I like the inventory idea. For someone who's just like, I want to get into entrepreneurship because it's $200,000 of just inventory and he's already written it off at this point. So they could test a bunch of stuff. They could throw up an e commerce site. They could mess around with Google Ads. They could mess around with Facebook ads. They could do just a bunch of different things and learn basically on somebody else's dime. So you could acquire A really good skill set and potentially make some money at it. That's why. That's why I liked that idea. I thought it was fairly easy to launch. I really liked the university TripAdvisor idea because I think that if you are a student at a university, you could easily put this together and start selling it. And then I killed the farmer's market stuff just because I hate food. I just. I just think that's such a hard business to scale.

What did you date the pizza idea?

Why?

I'm not trying to scale everything. I'm trying to Fun man. With the pizza idea. I think you could make a thousand dollars in four hours of net profit.

Okay, so you're saying personally, it's like you like that idea enough where you're like, oh, yeah, I'd date that idea just because I think it'd be fun. Not necessarily, like, as a recommendation to someone to.

No, this is. These are just what I like personally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not that they're necessarily the.

The dude, you would have so much appeal.

I, I would.

You and my brother in law, Owen, remind me of each other in this sense because you both love food and I could see you, like, after having a big exit and you don't ever have to work again. You're just like, tinkering on like, food ideas. Like, every year around this time he sells caramel apples. I could see you just like, every year, like, oh, headed to the farmers market this weekend. And people are like, chris, what.

What are you doing?

Why are you wasting time at the farmer's market? You make like $10 each time. You're like, I just love it. I love talking to people and having them try my pizza. Like that just reminds me of you.

It'd be awesome.

That'd be rad.

All right.

What did you kill?

University concierge.

Why'd you kill it?

It's just not proven. I don't know that there's demand. That scares me. I'd rather be copying someone that's doing this.

All right, cool. All right. Mayday to kill.

I love it. All right, that's a wrap. All right, what'd you think? Please share it with a friend and we'll see you next time on the Kerner Office.