Startups & Ventures

On demand stores Mobile stores that change their locations every day/week.

Character-based Advertising Advertising today is disjointed: the stories are separate from one another. Some of the biggest ad campaigns in the world (GEICO, #LikeAGirl, The Most Interesting Man in the World, Got Milk, etc.) are character-based: the use individuals as the focal point of their messaging and develop a sense of interest and allure for that reason. GEICO used a Gecko, Always used athletic girls, Don Equis used an actor, and Got Milk made a mustache the star. Would it be possible to create a whole business focused on building character-based media content that could eventually become advertisements (or vice versa?) Perhaps the best example of this is Disney: a media company that now has become a marketing and advertising powerhouse (and cash cow) purely because people love its characters. The business would innovate by attempting to create cohesive marketing that inspires individuals to buy products or take an action based on affinity rather than necessity.

Website Live-chat Visiting website is a very individualistic endeavor. There is no sense of camaraderie or community as I browse the web. Solution: A platform that allows website viewers to live-chat as they browse a website with people who are also looking at the same website and the same webpage at that time. It would essentially be HTML-based chatrooms. One competitor in this space is Intercom. However, Intercom is a chat platform between users and the business. Looking a bit deeper into this field, it’s clear that there is no chat platform to build community between website browsers by allowing website users to chat with each other. Some positives for such a system would be: - A stickier user experience - A more engaging experience for users - A way to feel less along online, especially now during COVID-19 quarantines This feature would not be new, in fact it is one that TaoBao launched in the early 2000s while AliBaba and eBay were fighting their now infamous war over control of China’s B2B e-commerce industry. According to a variety of sources, the live-chat market is booming. WhosOn reports the following 5 statistics: - The global live chat software market was valued at $590 million in 2016 - By 2023, it is projected to reach $997 million - The market will grow at a CAGR of 7.5% from 2017 to 2023 - A typical business now handles 978 chats per month (a number rising year-on-year) - 56% of organisations adopt live chat with less than 100 customers In September 2020, MarketWatch presented updated numbers; writing that “the global Live Chat Software market size is projected to reach USD $839.2 million by 2026, from USD $591.6 million in 2020.” In short, based on WhosOn and MarketWatch, while bullish about the opportunity growth has been stagnant between 2016 and 2020. Perhaps a live-chat business like this could break the curse.

On creating a product or an appendage If I'm going to start a SaaS business, what type of product should I make? Should it be an appendage or an independent product? By appendage, I mean a product that is built on top of another product. For instance, a browser extension for Medium to enhance the reading experience, a tool to schedule Instagram posts, a tool to extend or enhance the Shopify experience. By an independent product, I mean a product that is valuable by itself. Shopify, Instagram, Facebook, etc. On the first hand, choosing a self-sustained product means you're not dependent on other APIs/services. You don't need to adjust the functionality/features to the new release. That is the opposite of appendages. The customers pay for a product because it has value without other services or additional hustles. Again, that is also the opposite of appendages. It seems the right way to start a SaaS venture is to create a product, not to build something over something. Is it? What about the competition? Sure, we can build a great product. We miss the point that it's hard to market the product after release. It depends on a niche though. By choosing a small niche, we can be sure there are fewer competitors. Building on top of another product gives us privilege. We know, there is a market for the product we build over. We know, there are problems with the product we can solve, that's why we decided to build our tool.

Key takeaways of the YC’s Essential Startup Advice article. - Launch as soon as possible. The earlier you understand customers needs, the better. - Don't think about scaling yet. Do things that don't scale. - Build only core features that do 90% of the work. - Don't get distracted. The main things you should be doing in an early-stage company is to talk to users and write code. - Do less, but do that better. Focus on acute problems the customers have. - Don't try to solve all the problems your company has at the beginning. Every company has it, even those with $1B valuation. The points is: it's OK to have problems. Solve the important ones. - Don't worry about competition yet. - Stay sane and take breaks.

Applicable notes A platform that allows students to share notes, essays, videos, and other student-created content for free (or at a small fee) with other students at different schools who may be looking for a new way to learn the same content. To avoid plagiarism, the platform could ensure that it only allows graduate-level or PhD-level students to post on it. Examples: - Student's notes from Harvard - A lot of Cambridge notes

Find a roommate An online platform to simplify searching a roommate, something similar to a specialized social network. It would be easier to have such a service than looking for the people on local forums or asking friends.

Meet local campus singles It's a website that allows students to meet other singles. It would be much appreciated than using Tinder and so on. The another idea for this is to encourage networking in college to make new friends while not attending some hobby classes.

Pay directly to artists A platform where people buy music, but pay directly to artists, not to the platform. It has a fee though to make a profit.

Common reasons why startups fail by Failory.com: - Marketing mistakes were by far the most common, and they were generally speaking the most deadly with 69% of all mentioned marketing mistakes being fatal. In fact, the fatal marketing mistakes were more numerous than all other fatal mistakes combined (56% vs 44%), as can be seen in the pie chart below. By far the most common reason for shutdown was lack of product-market-fit which constituted more than half of the marketing mistakes, but more on that below. - Team problems – friction, lack of experience, lack of motivation, etc., were the second most common. They were some of the least-deadly percentage-wise (only 39% of all mentioned team problems being fatal), but because they are abundant they were still the second most common reason for shutdown. - Financial problems and mistakes were the third most common. That said, bearing in mind more than 50% of the projects didn’t have any budget to begin with and more than 75% of the projects were self-funded, it’s a surprise that only 16% of the projects point at financial problems as the major reason for failure. - Tech problems were extremely rare, which is surprising considering almost all projects in the data have a technical side to them. The most common remark was that too much time and effort was spent on tech that proved to be useless in the long run. The most common answer to “a thing you would do differently next time” by far was “I’d talk to customers and validate my assumptions before writing a single line of code”. That said, a big % of tech problems were fatal: e.g. relying on a 3rd party API that changes can ruin a business overnight. - Operational problems were quite rare and not that deadly, but it’s important to mention that most interviewees ran software projects, so operational problems (e.g. suppliers, distribution) are not as common as in brick-and-mortar and physical product projects by definition. - Legal problems were rarest, mentioned only four times, but two of those four proved to be lethal. For most early-stage startups the legal side is a non-factor. Yet, there are still industries where you can’t afford to ignore it (food, finance, etc.).

Trend: Backyard office A backyard office is outdoor space adapted into an area suited to working from home. The backyard office trend started pre-pandemic. But interest in making or purchasing prefabricated backyard offices exploded once millions started working from home for the first time. (In fact, one LA-based manufacturer reports that sales for their prefab backyard offices have increased by 250% since mid-April.) Depending on features (like plumbing), a typical prefab backyard office costs anywhere between $10k-$30k. What's next: Backyard offices are part of the WFH Equipment meta trend. 4 out of 10 Americans now work from home, according to Stanford University. Which has led to booming interest in office-grade equipment that can be used at home. Other examples of this trend include blue light glasses, ergonomic chairs, laptop stands and noise-cancelling headphones.

3D printing as a service Order 3D parts to print and pay for the time you use the service, and maybe for materials.

The exact song An app where a random song would play that matches the amount of time it will take for me to get home.

An IMDB for startups A platform to provide the ability to search for a startup idea and see if it’s been done before and if it was a success or a failure. Features such as team size, sales, insights are included etc. The problem with it is a popularity and content: people should know about the platform and contribute eassily.

Find me a parking garage An app that helps you find an available parking lot or garage. It's useful especially if you're going to a mall, and want to understand whether it's a good time, what's the situation with parking lots, etc.

Releases tracker A tool that helps me to track when my favorite series, shows, movies will be released. Also, it'd be great to track recent news that mention those movies/series. Automated AI lead generation

Watch together with different audio A problem I have sometimes is I want to watch movies in other than my native language audio, maybe with subtitles. While people I'm watching with want to watch in their native language. It'll be great to have an app that provides the same features as other "watch together" platforms, but with an ability to pick different audio tracks and subtitles while still watching together synchronously.

How to make it to automated lead generation Everyone can find potential clients. As for hyper-targeted leads that need your services and products right now – that's what only Artificial Intelligence is capable of. Signum.ai – the US-based startup has developed an AI-powered tool for lead generation automation. LeadMachine, that's how the platform is called, monitors 1,5B social media accounts and 200M companies' profiles in real-time building the database of B2B leads prospects highly likely to be interested in your product. LeadMachine tracks new publications in social media, new vacancies posted, staff reshuffling, and other trigger events, and then creates lists of decision makers with detailed contact info. For example, LeadMachine can find all CMOs hired to Boston SaaS companies last week. Don't waste your time and money searching for new leads and guessing whether they are interested in your offer. Target the right people straight away and close more deals easily.