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

0:00So, 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, and 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

0:18up, 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 work 60-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

0:36up. 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 in Lay Checkout, who has been on the pod before, one of one of the best, most listened-to 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

1:09Lay Checkout, the holding company. And I'm excited to have you both in the room. Great to be here. Yeah, stoked. Blessed to share this fun 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 going to start with you, Theo. Uh what are some takeaways you have from 2023 uh building at building at our holding

1:44company? 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

2:23matter. Is desired outcomes, what is the goal of the person that you're speaking to, and trust. Do you 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

2:59websites, 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

3:16if 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

3:42efficiently? 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 found and I could be wrong and there's probably a fourth and a fifth and a tenth C, 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

4:10different 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 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 and early days and we just jammed on

4:42basketball 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 everyone else he was talking to. And so that was one way to kind of form the foundation for that for

5:05that 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

5:23this 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 sales person that works for you 24/7. Like we're recording this once and thousands of people are

5:52going 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

6:17you like shooting 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 framework. 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 two million dollar a 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

6:58that 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 C words right now, so

7:28I'll pull back. 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

7:54like 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 index, etc., that amp that amplifies it even further. Jordan, what have you learned? I know you've been at Late Checkout 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

8:23pulling 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 productized 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-based 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

9:10like it 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 uh toward the end of the year that I'm pumped to bring into 2024. But how do you like that sounds good, right? It 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

9:43your offering? Totally. Yeah, it's I think it's tough and it's interesting on a case-by-case 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 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,

10:16like 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 it 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 productized services are going to fall flat is they're going to be a service that of course provides some value, but I think the in an AI-generated world, like people are looking for partners, not service

10:50providers. Um because service providers are just going to be tools like ChatGPT or tools like Bard and DALL-E 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

11:18a takeaway for you in 2023. 100% collaboration, permissionless apprenticeship uh over solopreneurship and building things um with people that don't get you pumped. 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

11:57one of them. Shout out Visualized 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 Puri was on there, couple other people were on there, but I just aligned with what you were doing, and Theo didn't know you. Um you were just an 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 in November of last year, and it was how to build a company in 2023. I'm decent at

12:30design, uh 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 had started it like not long before that. And Greg said,

12:57"Who are you?" double-digit followers. I I said I had 18 followers, and I was like, "Really? Is someone I I yeah, I was sending this DM. I was like, I don't know if anyone's going to respond to this." Yeah, well, I responded. We jumped on a FaceTime immediately. I think it was like January 2nd 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, too, is just like building with

13:31people that gets 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 and of life fulfillment um to build with people that get you amped. So, what I I just just pulled up the DM with with uh Do

13:55Within. 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

14:21responded pretty instantaneously. Uh you were ready to go and, you know, it's not like you were hungover from a January uh December 31st, January 1st thing. Like you were you were 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

14:47name is not Mix. Like but it's cool. Like that is a cool the fact that you like put it 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

15:11number. 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

15:32For all of us, guys. For all of us. Don't forget me, you know? Changed my life as well. It go you know it goes to show you like send the DM. Do 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 me to stranger

15:56in 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 be 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

16:19they're watching. So, like even if your tweets get 100 impressions, that's 100 people seeing it. It's pretty crazy. If you picture 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 a follower count. I don't even think follower count matters that much other than like some some verified credibility, but yeah,

16:44send that DM, baby. Yeah. Upon reflection, 2023, what else have you learned? I'm going to build off this. You Jordan, you did a good job of building credibility and forming connection there. So, way to steal my trust formula in Jan in January before I knew it existed. Um Building off this and Jordan's kind of take on, you know, your agency and where you are today with Late Checkout is that

17:09everyone 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 AA's. 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

17:47drain them. Yeah, nice. I love that you still have AA's. Um So, I think like burnout occurs when your batteries get drained. And it doesn't mean you've worked 60-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 work with people who I'd scratch my head and didn't understand why they were feeling burnt out. I was like, you're working pretty reasonable hours. It's

18:22not 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

18:59feeling 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 yeah, figuring out what those things are

19:18and doing more of them. I like that. Yeah. I like that. I like that. I think 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

19:41the business. And it's it's a Venn 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 2020 three from prior years, for example, 2021 where we were just trying to fight to retain as much of our talents as possible. Uh not just us but all you know, startups in general, large

20:08tech companies. And it's moved now from employee to a little more in the camp of em- 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,

20:30working 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 of 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 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

21:16curriculum 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 teach, teach, teach and they don't really enable people to do. When everyone wants a dream outcome, they're trying to do something. They don't really care about learning to do

21:36the thing. They want to do the thing. And learning is usually the byproduct. So, I think flipping that and really making education like a core across all of the Hold Co Prop Hold Co properties 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

22:05products. 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 rap. And And I get that. But I think that the way to reframe it is

22:23educate. You know, people do want education. 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 100 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

23:04help 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

23:35free startup ideas for the listeners. Uh things that you're 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 and takeaways from 2023. So, you're not going to get off the hook that easy. And

24:03I mean, I'll I'll go. I'll I'll say it. Uh 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 boringmarketing.com is really the best like the the the tools that they've built like the AI tools to build SEO-optimized pages is

24:33like best-in-class. And it's a big it's getting to be a big business, but like how how could we have doubled down even more? Um Dispatch, meetdispatch.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

25:02looking 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 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

25:53time in 2023, we're reading the news. People are cutting, you know, we 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? It 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,

26:15man. Trust your gut. Can I build off that with one more learning? It'll be a quick one. Sure. 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

26:49oh this person just left the business, and oh but we're still here and there and we'll 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

27:23bank 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 re-shift 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

27:49it doesn't matter. Like what matters is what happens. It's the output, it's the results, it's what you deliver, it's what is the consequence of that. And so I think it was a 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, could mean work smarter but

28:12it 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 the uh business ideas and by the way Jordan and Greg are going to be 10x better at this

28:33and have better ideas than I will. a humble Canadian so that's why you Canadian uh who These These are going to be straight fire. Let's go. So the way I think about this a a 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

28:56grain. 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

29:18even 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

29:45machine 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 Locket, Locket 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

30:12and 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

30:40else is so noisy. And what would Locket 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 does a Locket app look like for creators and influencers? How do you show up not only in an Instagram feed, but on actual

31:04home screens? What about for athletes? Your super fans. How are they seeing you and staying up to date with that? Musicians. Ultimately, there's 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 Locket 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

31:41this or how other you know, call it 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 that. 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

32:24their inboxes. So, basically, the way broadcast works is it's a DM from a creator in your message box. And often times, you can react to that particular piece of content. And it's like A, it's not that useful cuz like what's the difference between that and posting a feed or posting a story? And B, get out my inbox. Like, you know? Like

32:52That space is already reserved. Yeah. Exactly. In your head it's already reserved for your friends and family. Exactly. So that's where you want space is, yeah. So I like Locket for X's and I also think that it's worthwhile to pay attention to how platforms are changing. So Locket was able to take advantage of iOS 14's widget

33:16introduction a couple of years ago. And a lot of people saw widgets and were like, cool. That's like looks cute, but you know, I'm not going to 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

33:49are 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 you're 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

34:17all the time. And I think one of the frameworks just before we move on to some of the fire ideas from Jordan Brick, you know, some of the one of the frameworks that we came up with Greg in 2020 that we still use today that is still fire is the fun framework for how to build new social minded products and

34:36fun is format utility and niche. And I love that framework and it's still is burned into my brain on you know, how do you own a new format? You know, tweets or X posts were new format, Instagram's new format, etc. Lockit 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

35:03specific niche to be serving. That though that triangle is really really powerful and that framework has been really powerful for us to think about new products. Jay Max, you got any 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 going to I'm going to I'll rate all

35:22these. What about in What about in Canada? What about in Canada? Is it still a 10 on 10? Well, well, it's it's 10. It's 10 on 10 US, so it's really 13 on 10. 6 on 10. Yeah. Perfect. Oh, it's converting. Insane. Yeah. How does that uh convert to the Quebec dollar though? Uh Or is it not

35:47Shouldn't say bud. Yeah, I don't know. Okay. Jaren, what you got? Yeah, so I think about a lot about like maximizing spaces 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 of the day, most of the week, sporting events all off season. So I've seen a couple really interesting things. This uh one thing called Upperdeck Golfing. They let you basically do Topgolf 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

36:33a really it's really interesting trend. It's 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

36:57Vision 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

37:28I heard some stories. It's still 180K. Yeah, it is. Chalk 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

37:54necessarily about the AVPs. It's about It's about the social experience of like meeting other people when you're going to the bars. 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'd 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,

38:29buy 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'll 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 AVPs. We're going next level

39:07subconscious 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

39:33well. 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 a video game 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

39:57that. 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 table? well, we could 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

40:17Wait, no sevens. No sevens. Seven's a cop out at cop out 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 6 on 10. Or or lower.

40:42Or 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 going to give it a 5.5.

41:025.5? And the reason I'm going to give it a 5.5 is you have to it's capital intensive. Mhm. So I don't like that. And I think the the people who 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 Locket and how

41:28there's so much opportunity there. There's so many so much opportunity to build cool interesting spatial 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 de facto dating app? What's going to be the de facto social network? What's going to be the de facto you know, first-person shooter and just like thinking about and then what are and this is probably the most important question which is what it is the most non-obvious experiences that people aren't thinking about that you should you could be creating

42:12within 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

42:41share. 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 Thea. That's kind and sweet of you. Okay, let's keep riding. Um, okay, this one's a little it's still a it's still a work in progress, but as more info floods the market, as everyone is an expert on everything, it's hard to know what {quote} "healthy" or "right" or "good" looks like. Unless let's use the

43:11word "healthy". What does it mean to be healthy and what's the best kind of 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,

43:38professionally, creatively, socially. What does 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, so I think fitness for X products, it's another for X, but I love that framework that you put in I think community

44:03college, you know, 2020. But X for Y, right? What does a fitness product for X look like around these different um industries or these different kind of head spaces. 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

44:42their 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 worked 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 in mid to senior positions,

45:07get 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? And so, I think there's a massive opportunity to figure out what the next area of fitness is and how to build an

45:25experience around it. 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 gamification. Like, look at Duolingo. 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

46:06that. Uh it's got all the makings of a great business cuz you've 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 wired to to go and jump hoops through. So, I like this trend even though it's not

46:31like one idea. And man, I like it. Jordan, what do you think? I love the trend. Yeah, do you guys remember Stepn Yes. the Web3 days? They like I mean it went crazy cuz 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'd be um yeah, there's just a million ways you could take it. Um who are you talking to recently, Greg, that had the retreat, the creativity

47:06wellness retreat? So, a buddy of mine has this really good idea which is basically he's been So, he's a 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 is retreat centers for if you're into yoga or now there's retreat centers for like psychedelics, that's

47:44like a big thing. And although those things exist or or there's spiritual really uh retreat centers, like go to an ashram in India. There actually doesn't really exist a place where it's a focus 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 Rubin

48:25but 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 post-COVID are really in the mood for. So I think I I I like that idea and I think uh branding himself around art wellness is a really interesting approach to it. I'll give you two. He should stand up a uh like old western saloon in the middle of

48:54the farm. Call it writer's 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 it people are designing things in real time on the internet and IRL and you community and you put it 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

49:37online and inspirational content and then you start amassing that community, 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 uh you're you're also starting to see just so much demand for places like Soho

49:59House. Um, I was at Soho House the other day and there was like I was talking to someone I was telling you on another I 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 Soho House. And then I was reading that they actually stopped like you join a New York or LA or you know, Soho House anymore like there there's no more waitlist or anything like that. Like they're at peak

50:28capacity. Why do you think that is? Well, I think a lot of pent-up demand post COVID. I also think that people are looking for more community-based experiences. Like they want to feel like they're a 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

50:48and like be with other people. So Soho House I think is going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of WeWork's 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 in New York in Brooklyn and have probably now expanded beyond it. So pretty bullish on Soho House if they are able to maintain quality which is a whole other can of worms which I don't

51:21know if they're able to. Yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity like a blend a middle ground between WeWork and Soho House. Yeah, Soho House's rules are crazy. You know, you you take a phone call in there and they immediately tackle you. Um, so it's it's uh I think there's like a real opportunity for these like neighborhood work clubs. One opened up here in Nashville. It's called Switchyards and it's really like bare-bones co-working, free coffee, 24/7

51:50access, 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 2 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,

52:13but 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 Soho House could be interesting, for sure. I also saw my friend uh Mike Karn, he posted, did you see a tweet of his where he talked about like someone should build a Soho House,

52:36but for family-friendly? Like somewhere where you can bring your kids. Did you see that tweet? Mhm. 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 Fitness. Like, bro, this is Lifetime Fitness, but Lifetime Fitness is super suburban and

53:02only 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

53:21A, 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 want in 2024. So, anyways, that was a side rant about people who uh

53:42Snarky comments. Pre-rant. Snarky. yeah. Yeah. Um Gabe, rate my burn the startup idea so we can get a taste of Jordan's although I think we just did which is these localized co-working spots, but Got a hint. What do you got Jordan? What's your rating on this? On my cop out answer of a category, not

54:02a specific idea. Hmm. Don't be shy. it. Thick skin. That's not That's not what I like it on 10. Yeah. I approve this message. Um No, I'm going to go I'm going to go nine. Wow. I'm feeling it. As a category, as an idea, less than one. Zero, yeah. No idea. Yeah, exactly. Fair enough. But the category I like a lot. I really

54:28like it. Yeah, I agree. I'll give it a nine as well. I know category zero, on idea. Here. 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

55:02have some fun. Nextdoor is terrible. There's a bunch of Karens on there. It's become Facebook is just gossipy and really just like fear-mongering like, "Did you see the break-in on 8th Avenue?" etc. So we are unbundling or re- re-wiring Nextdoor. It went public I think in a SPAC at like $4 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

55:42picked 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 space that I was just mentioning. Um, we 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 in um, Instagram influencers. Like every city these days I feel like has like a city guide that's or 10 of them that are

56:19viral on Instagram. Um, so I'd 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 Yeah. I know. My head is exploding from way up here in

56:44Canada. This is incredible. Cup of sugar. It's incredible. I love it. So, the way to do this idea is you buy Nextdoor though. So, you acquire Nextdoor, and you rebrand it. So, Nextdoor 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 you have to look into, they also have about 500 million dollars of

57:14cash. So, enterprise value's 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. TVT. Um go If if you buy that business for a billion dollars, you're basically buying it for 500 million dollars. Um but you get this huge user base. Like if they've

57:50got How many users do they have? It's a It's one in three households in America. Woah. That's way bigger than I thought. So that's 100 million people if you're just going to slash it. It's a 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

58:22think 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 SPACs 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. Uh I'll get I'll give it a a strong nine point

58:53nine a 9.2. What did I give last time? An 8.3? I'm going to repeat the 8.3. I'll go 8.3 again. I like it. Cool. I like it. Yeah. And how about we do one last idea from both of you? Okay. I'll make this one a 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

59:24businesses. 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 7 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've mentioned earlier, is a lot of these single player businesses or kind of solo businesses, solopreneurships, a lot of these creators that are hitting a scale or starting to scale, sorry. You need a right hand. You can't keep doing it all

1:00:08alone 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. Technology and people. And I was on a

1:00:26call 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 count. 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 six-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

1:01:01doing 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 so the business itself can move forward as a business,

1:01:23not as an individual. And so, call it right hand, it could be uh 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

1:01:46generalist." Stop, please. From someone who's interviewed hundreds of people in the last year, it's not doing you any service. 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 superpower number twos or operating partners or kind of influencer partners. They can work with

1:02:22three at once. They can 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's 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

1:02:48to 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. Trend guy. Uh yeah, I'm a trend guy. Uh 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

1:03:06Jordan's. J Max? 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 love I love I love love the space. 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 cuz I'm

1:03:39doing it. Yeah, there you go. It's too good. It's off the charts. Uh no, I like it. Like I think 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 and in plain English. And I think a lot of them are going to be looking for help. So, and they're looking for help. So, 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,

1:04:12I 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 too No sevens. No sevens. 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 be, you know, this is this is cool. This is like what we do off camera, so it's cool to

1:04:47be 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. J R D N M I X on Twitter. You can find me Theo 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, uh, yeah, these are jelly jams. As Greg mentioned, we have these uh, we call jelly jams. You know, whenever we can, usually once a month, maybe once every couple weeks and getting a taste of them

1:05:28now. 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.

1:05:54Thanks, Jordan. Thanks, Greg.