pov: brainstorming $1M+ startup ideas with Daniel Dalen

0:00dude oh my God I can't tell you how excited I am for this podcast Daniel dalan if you're on YouTube and you're into startups and Entrepreneurship you know him he doesn't do podcasts like this so thank you thank you Daniel for taking some time now thank you for having me gr it's uh funny enough been the podcast that has actually been requested most I've had so many people in Twitter DM me and be like dude please hop on with Greg because I know you guys would hit it off so well I'm so sure that with YouTube you're only scratching the service and to get someone who's you

0:35know as raw and as as you know straight to the point as Greg of just you know sitting down and and and talking about cool things you know um I'm I'm super excited to be here so thank you for having [Music] me so today we're doing startup ideas with Daniel dalen and we're going to go through these three startup ideas I have and just jam and my hope is basically to get inside your brain to just to yeah just a glimpse inside your brain of how you think about flashing out some of these businesses we're going to give away these ideas and talk about how we'd

1:18actually build them um and you can tell me if you hate these ideas by the way and I want you to be real with us yeah yeah so I went in uh had some dental work done yesterday and I walked into the uh the waiting room and the dentist well the receptionist says hey did you see our new best dentist in America plaque for 2023 or or or actually no it's 2024 and I was like no but that's amazing like this is amazing she was so proud of it it got me thinking that there's an opportunity to build uh like best product of the year or you know best e-commerce brand of the

2:03Year business where you actually uh create these plaques and it's not too dissimilar to have you ever seen like the Better Business Bureau uh image have you seen this on some websites no I haven't so it's just like a little image that you can put on your website that says that you're like legit um look a plus rating and they're like Better Business Bureau makes millions of dollars a year basically selling this image so that's the Insight the Insight is what what plaque or what um image could you create and sell that to whenever you go to a website so it shows that it's you know credible it's a

2:54credible website what do you think about that are we talking like are we just taking the concept of a dentist or just like any business any business so like um you know on one of my recent pods I talked about this app called granola right so it's like wow this is a really cool app the AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings and it's like every every product every Indie hacker every founder is trying to add credibility here so they all have this trusted at individuals at this and I don't know about you but I started to like gloss over over these credibility slides now if it said like top product

3:35of the year in an image over here I might be more willing to try this because there's a thousand AI not notepad apps and I think that granola would be willing to pay $200 a year for some sticker over here as well as a physical plaque that they can get similar to like the YouTube 100 plaque that they can go and create content be like wow we're so happy that you know we got the you know top startup of the Year by you know Dalin Institute yeah yeah exactly so I think like especially for those kind of um like ultimately it comes down to acknowledgement of of that

4:17being a good product right so there's there's two sides to that we've got the supply as in the product and then the demand for the product so I think with with like a a concept like this um figuring out first of all again like I always try and especially when Building Product or thinking if something makes sense it's like how could we make this work you know because if there is a need for credibility that's something that in my opinion is is is there you know like like you said even like splashing logos on your side or even having testimonials like all those things are there so

4:54having a product that essentially within a specific niche gathers and and kind of Aggregates that supply and demand and almost to like a sort of like a public listing um you know it's reminds me a little bit of product hunt where there's people that can vote and obviously you can apply product hunt also allows these these plaques to be to be created and to be put on the website which is which is quite similar so that's kind of like the first kind of set of thoughts that that come to mind um yeah I think the most similar thing is the product you know product of the day I I do see this on

5:35people's websites uh yeah you see it yeah especially within the Indie hacking Community it's like a it's it's a big thing you know like if you go training on product hunt if you if you know you're even featured on product hunt it's just you know it's just something that again going back to that credibility there's relatability of something that they've seen on other platforms as well you know so if you're trending on on on that one thing so just I think like this product and and with most of these products you can make it work I would say like the main thing where you can make a big difference which is also

6:11something that stands very close to me and also very close to you is making noise because making the noise is going to get the eyeballs which is basically the supply and then all you have to do is to just close the demand on a $300 a year plan in order for you to have them display on the website and then what you know in terms of making the noise which can be done through the you know startup ideas podcast with Daniel for example or whatever you may come up with um to really start making that noise and having that traffic funnel to that specific page which then again builds

6:48that credibility because people will start to recognize it um which which is yeah like I think I think the most crucial part here would be um to to make so much noise in the right way with the right Authority for people to start you know really looking at that uh with the credibility that you would need for the companies to Value it as much to pay a certain amount of money for it quick break in the Pod to tell you a little bit about startup Empire so startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me like you who want to build out their startup

7:28ideas now they're looking for content to help accelerate that they're looking for potential co-founders they're looking for uh tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them how do you do email marketing how do you build an audience how do you go viral on Twitter all these different things that's exactly what startup Empire is and it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas or it's for people who have a startup but just they're not seeing the traction uh that they need so you can check out the link to Startup empire.co in the description 100% yeah I think what I

8:06like about this business is I you know the inside I guess is like what are businesses where you can make 99% margin on and if you're selling a badge like you're selling um it's like Warren Buffett says why does he like Insurance businesses so much he likes Insurance businesses and spends billions of dollars on insurance businesses because like Geico because you know you sell something for $10,000 on day one you know it's just like pure margin especially in the beginning now eventually there could be a hurricane in Florida and then you have to make it up but yeah that's why I like businesses like this so that's one kind

8:46of insight um I built something for fun called offer button and the reason I bring it up is because I'm starting to be really obsessed with business businesses that are embeddable so the way offer button works is I was like wouldn't it be cool if you can just put a little button on your on anyone's website and if you wanted to buy the website you can just make an offer to the owner and it's free it's totally free um and it's it's we already have 400 websites that have embedded it like we're on 400 people's websites like there's a directory of all these companies that are for sale

9:30um and you go on their website and it's like we have real estate I think that businesses like that owning real estate on other people's websites I call them embeddable businesses are going to be really big in 2025 what do what do you think about that yeah very interesting embed embeddable businesses I think it's almost it's almost like an like an e extent um within like even like the the concept of of what was the name again of the business you you started make an offer offer button.com offer button.com that's so interesting I in all honesty haven't like thought too much about um edable businesses I mean if you really think

10:14about it like some of the things that we use a lot or especially when wanting to quickly validate stuff or you know think of think of things as a type form or whatever like those are all things that you can embed for it to you know like look pretty native uh with very very very minimal effort um embeddable business in all honesty I haven't I haven't thought about that much I um like mainly within within the businesses that we're building right now it's like a lot of layered Solutions so we build on top of existing very boring traditional infrastructure and try and innovate as much as we can there um so I

10:51actually haven't um haven't really thought much about um embedded Solutions uh or like embedded businesses as you as how you called it but it's it's it's a it's a really interesting one like even product it's like almost embedded you know business yeah it's true yeah I think I think the reason why I'm interested in it is as you know it's so hard to get you know it's so hard to get traffic in a consistent manner sometimes it's easy for people like us to like launch something get a bunch of traffic in the beginning but then it like tapers off and what's cool about an embeddable business is you're you own real estate

11:34on an app on a website that people are going to every single day yeah yeah one one thing that I also really like about that is something that um is also uh very recognizable so it's automatically doing marketing for itself like another good example is let's take um zero like an invoicing software as an example like at the bottom you'll always see that you know the the invoice is sent with with zero you know so even though even though um you know like you can pay premium to remove The Branding but 99% of customers won't do it so everyone who receives an invoice has automatically kind of you

12:18know a seed planted as in like hey you know like they've they they've used zero so even when when you make beehive does the does the same thing um like always at every single bottom of the of the email they they always do a little bit of marketing right so um I feel like when when having that digital real estate on someone else's you know property that's also automatically marketing for you on their website which comes with authority so if you're a big fan of let's say beehive and then a lot of a sudden you see that button on there it's it's you know it's really good

12:52marketing that's uh that's actually how Gmail I don't know if you know the story of how Gmail got popular uh in 2005 I think 2004 so they they had they made an invite only it's like Google's making an invite only email very cool I want to be on it they got like a few thousand people on it people were selling invites on eBay for so much money to get into Gmail and at the bottom of it it said like sent with Gmail you know who does this now also is superum sent with super yeah yep that's so funny yeah yeah I think that's a big thing with embedded

13:32businesses as well you like automatically lift on the authority of of whoever us as your product you know even with superum you know like if if you and I were to send an email and and you'd see it at the bottom I actually only found out about superum doing this after like months of using it I was like man just been promoting you guys' product for free that's awesome yeah yeah you know uh people call this people call products like superhuman luxury software because it's more expensive it looks a bit luxury it's a whole new category um and I think having things like a status play

14:17like a status symbol like sent with superhuman built within the product is really important with luxury businesses and you know a lot I feel like you know a lot about that sort of stuff um um before we move on to our next one I think I feel like uh it makes sense right because like if you you know if you spend $7,000 on a Louis vuon bag like you're wearing the bag not because it's great leather you want other people to see you yeah I think I think it goes kind of hand inand with the thing that we touched on earlier it's kind of the The credibility

14:55it's the authority you know it's like what do I want to be associated with that's that's I think something that uh I mean I I for example like why would I why wouldn't I mind the people know that I'm superum or that I use superum for example um I think it's a great tool you know I think it's actually something that really helps me I think it's it looks nice and I I mean like when when I do my emails it's just it's just nice you know and and and the way it allows me to organize it some of the AI features and all of that so um just have

15:29having those those you know having a good experience and then also allowing that you know marketing to happen on its own behalf because of using the product is something um you know I think I think a lot of people would you know be okay with but with those kinds of products like take again superhumans as an example it's there's a lot of interaction so just as how you said with um the the what was it called again the button um offer button.com offer button.com it's it's again you know like anyone who uses it um you know automatically promotes your product because they're probably think hey that's a pretty cool

16:08product you know my business is for sale um and it's almost as if you know um you have like one of those for sale boards in front of your house but then on your business exactly that was that was the Insight is like how do you put a and I I do that often as I go into the real world people ask me how do you come up with startup ideas right before this I showed show you my like long list of startup ideas and it's often just going into the real world seeing something and insight about human beings because human beings don't change we are who we are

16:41and thinking okay how could I create software to make this you know to apply this way of thinking to a particular Niche I just want I want to say one quick thing I want to get your opinion on this I I just I just thought about this is I feel like luxury software is old and the new wave is going to be aesthetic software yeah yeah you use superum not just not just because it's luxury because you you said I think you even might have used the word aesthetic or design like you might subconsciously want people to know that you're you're someone who takes design seriously I

17:19think I think just um and I don't know it may just be the designer in me I mean I I grew up uh my dad's an architect so I grew up with him working in the office like we had a super small little home office and he was doing nothing else but drawing you know so I've always been super fascinated by just design and and you know Aesthetics from a very very young age so I feel like I don't know even simple tools like raycast it's just nice you know like it just looks smooth it works smooth and um yeah I mean it's it's it's kind of like almost a of a a

18:05thing that I adopt even throughout um you know the way I um you like the visuals we use when announcing um new features um the way we design websites the way we design products the way I use the products and even if I shoot content like if you look at my content um you know the the the the kind of aesthetic you know not only uh is displayed in the work that we do but I also throughout my storytelling value you know like a good aesthetic a lot because I just think that it just contributes so much to the perceived value of of you know um of

18:44what it is that you're trying to get across and that I I I mean that also applies to product you know ultimately we're doing emails you know it's it's the way you do it is different um so there's a luxury experience there's a convenient experience there may be a a very convenient and luxury experience um and all of those come obviously at like a different price range and I'm sure that there's going to be people listening who would happily pay 99 bucks a month for like a super aesthetically looking efficient email client or there's going to be people that say you know I'm never ever in my entire life

19:16GNA pay 99 bucks and I'll just use Gmail you know totally I was I was actually shocked have you heard of Zoho I have yeah man I that was my first email provider so I went in a deep Rabbit Hole of Zoho and learned about them I didn't realize how big they were yeah they're massive they've got all these different branches of product like Soo payments invoicing yeah yeah so they've got 15,000 employees wow it's massive crazy and Zoho is the Costco of software it's the Kirkland of software like I'm wearing a Kirkland t-shirt under my lacost sweater you know what I'm saying I I it works I love it but exactly you

20:03know um I think uh there's an opportunity you know when you're creating a startup you have to ask yourself am I Zoho am I trying to be the Costco or am I superhuman am I trying to be the Louis Vuitton or am I um Daniel dalan am I trying to go after Aesthetics I think those are the three that's the Spectrum um and maybe we can draw this out some um where yeah what do you think about that I think I mean I think the Aesthetics just help um because in all honesty like the the I I've taken one year of computer science just because I

20:42wanted to figure out how to build stuff myself um I did that when I was I think I was like 16 or 17 it was my last year before I dropped out um but that made me realize that um I would always have so much higher perceived value of everyone around me building like really nice looking products with a terrible backend but just because it look so nice and just because it made so much sense um because I think you know like when when when talking about Aesthetics and especially when product like the way I the way I think of Aesthetics Within products is it just

21:19has to make sense you know and especially within a world where you're being bombarded with like so much information for stuff to just look clean and clear and just blend in and be very very very um you know just clear on what this is I feel like that's something that that is is really important so when when building products um um or at least in from my experience when when actually Building Products that's something that I always obviously try and leverage But ultimately um the most important thing to me is obviously that it makes most sense and that you can actually that you can actually you know that it has an

21:56impact because um one I would say and I'm very curious to get your take actually on this as well as someone who I don't think I know many people who buildt as much stuff as as you have done and to this day still do um the way I look at building stuff is that so many people always focus on on um on the wrong things and I have this analogy that I always use that I even talk to my team members about um I feel like building a product is like building a car and whenever someone walks into a uh dealership um they see this super nice

22:34car like it has everything all the belts and whistles it has the like a super nice color it has a a leather steering wheel it has a panorama rooftop um but the second that person gets into the car and finds out that the car doesn't drive he he doesn't care and he's not going to buy it and what I always tell my team is like let's figure out what makes the car drive like what like just may it be a bike you know like may it be a skateboard before we turn it into a car but let's figure out the core value proposition of getting from A to B now

23:12what I try and do and why you know I would say the aesthetic in some extent is important is that when we're in that phe of figuring that out we can validate if you know we get someone from A to B by just making it look nice you know because that naturally draws people's attention like even when you leverage platforms to to you know like you touched on this earlier as well not everyone is as fortunate to Just Launch a product and they get hundreds of people to sign up if not thousands of people to sign up um when it looks nice you can grab attention you know so

23:44that's something that I like really try and leverage when I build products or whenever I want to announce every anything or or or just make noise and and push traffic to whatever it may be obviously we're talking about product right now but that's why I think like the aesthetic to to to some extend is can can be like a really good parameter to play with to um to grab attention and and you know get through the first stages of building your product before we move on to the next startup idea I just have to ask on this um sometimes when I'm building a product I don't know if Aesthetics should be in

24:22the MVP or not how do you think about that I think I think spinning up a really nice uh aesthetic landing page and it doesn't even have to be you know like I mean the fine aesthetic right I think you can just you know pick a nice font um you know bump up the font size uh get one nice you know good looking header just make a simple logo and a and a you know a well you know a good rounded with some Shadow uh email sign up you know like I think I think that already gets you somewhere um but then in terms of the product itself yeah that

25:01I would argue unless it's going to take you a lot of time to make it look aesthetic just just run with it like I I do firmly firmly always refer back to that analogy that I used you know getting someone from A to B is is is the is the main thing that we have to figure out you know and are we going to do it in style probably not you know but are we going to do it in style later yes but um you know a very nice looking car without the ability to drive doesn't make sense you know so I think if it's like not too much

25:33effort yes the product can you know like have its design features and and you know spend and you can tell that you know the team spent some time thinking through the design just to make it look nice but I would say just make the front end look as nice as possible to grab attention if you're not as you know in a position to be easily creating traffic just to grab that attention and clearly communicate what it is that you know like what makes your car drive and then the product itself I mean it could be it could be just like a tye form with some Zapp ear behind it you know whatever you

26:06can whatever the product may be quick ad break let me tell you about a business I invested in it's called boring marketing.com so a few years ago I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world they were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google and the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition so for my own businesses I wanted that I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses I wanted to rank high in

26:45Google that's why I like SEO and that's why I use boring marketing.com and that's why I invested in it they're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day Sprint with 100% money back guarantee who does that nowadays so check it out highly recommend boring marketing.com yeah I think that I think that's right like even with um with offer button I used initially vzer like by the way this is not a beautiful landing page by any you know this this took like a few hours type thing but I think I recommend people put animations um because I think the animations just like help people and and

27:30these aren't like this could be better but again I wanted to get something up within a day so set that constraint on yourself I want to get something up in a day use platforms like vzer framer AI platforms like that to get like the basics done and then iterate from there either on your own ideally you know some Co excuse me code but otherwise you can still you can still do some like light animations that um or honestly go to like go to Upward get someone to do some animations I think they will go a long way yeah I agree and I would argue this is like a good this is like the perfect

28:05lender you know it's just like clear what is the what is the the main thing that we're trying to do here is displaying a button on your website showing that you know this business can be bought you know and that's that's what it does and then again like you said I mean you've also done uh the like small animation or like the small graphic at the bottom um like even the the all the way in the bottom one yeah that one but this is like really sufficient and and I mean this this can be set up in in in like something like framer like you said

28:35in in like an hour you know yeah totally it's funny though because as like a product person I look at this and I'm like this is the worst website I've ever seen yeah yeah but it does the job you know like I I I and I I know like even if you if you go to whatever like the the lay checkout uh website which is such a cool website you know you can tell you guys you know have thought that through it's like it's so cool you know but on the other hand it's it's you know like even the the other one it it it does the job you know and and um it's

29:09it's you know it's it's going to get to a point where there's enough validation for you to justify spending so much time effort and energy into potentially making offer button you know that cool of a website you know it's like it's I'm sure the late checkout website didn't look like that when you started it no not at all dude yeah like I love going to uh do you ever go to archive.org no the way back machine so you can go and check what a website looked like in the past no way that's so cool yeah so like when we launched it in 2020 let's see see if this comes up now

29:51it doesn't pull in all the animations but it'll give you an idea of a snapshot of what a website will look like and uh dude let's put it this way as as it's loading it was uh it was a landing page it was a landing page but you got to get something out there right exactly yeah oh oh you know what it was with late checkout.com that's what it was checkout.com [Music] well even goes back one more day one more year yeah I haven't checked this since since then so this is uh this is fun yeah it's like it's like REM it's like reminiscing about you know an old girl

30:48you used to date or something like that yeah yeah exactly yeah it's funny that when you think of um like this specific time frame 2020 that this probably would have been something you know like Worth showing worth talking about um but that the standard now of of like such a simple website is one so easy to create and two it's also you know it's also pretty you know you can so easily make something look so nice yeah I mean I agree I think there's a landing page should be aesthetic for your MVP you know everything else you can layer on Aesthetics um okay this is not pulling

31:33up but maybe it'll be Lo loading it'll load and uh let's let's go to our next startup idea and then we'll see if it's loaded by the end so I actually want to start with this I'm not even going to call it a startup idea it's like a germ of an Insight that I want to get your opinion on so I've noticed recently uh where you know know a local coffee shop I go to um if you share your a picture of your coffee on social they'll give you a free cup of coffee so I've noticed that there's starting to be like incentivization for sharing on

32:13social uh and if you do if you do that you'll get you know a future credits status or even free product it got me thinking that you know let's go to singleman stable let's say and if we go to their shop if Daniel dalan comes to this website wouldn't it be cool if he could press a button that says log in with influencer you press that button embeddable business and then he was able to see different products and different price points maybe lower price points um and you had to like connect you had to connect your YouTube let's say and you have hundreds of thousands of of Subs wouldn't it be cool if you

33:00can do that it's it's good for um Sean stable because you might buy more of their product or more exclusive stuff too and it's and it's good for you because you know you get cool product and they would indirectly get exposure as well by exactly because you kind of use the social status as a measure of you know wearing that exactly yeah yeah I think it's it's it's I mean I'm I'm like whenever someone tells me an idea I I always directly start to think about okay like how would this work and it's like kind of similar to um which I mean like it it applies to

33:46like 99.9% of products right there's like supply and demand um and now it also comes with that that little piece of of credibility and also verification um so when I I I think that should be actually something that would be within uh um because I feel like when especially when when like you know working with Ecom Brands like myself within our business is um you want to avoid also giving too much options um because uh you know like it could your conversion rate could drop like especially for Ecom Brands they run loads of traffic well this traffic is paid and then giving someone the option to log in as an as in

34:35you know um you know with their social profile to kind of measure what benefits they may be eligible to um is something that could um you know significantly impact uh or like could impact conversion um because maybe someone logs in and they're like oh man like I'm not even you know I canot even get any benefits um so maybe just maybe even um when um there's any traffic that you know through cookies or whatever you can measure they come from socials that you then can like trigger those kind of functions maybe be able to just like be a bit more specific about who you who you show this to

35:17um but I think I think I think it would be I think maybe integrating this within like the the checkout that could be something like see if you're eligible to to you know some benefits you know by by um by connecting your socials you know like by understanding you know who it is that's going to wear or use these products I think that would be something that's pretty cool the only thing that I that I you know it would it would really be for marketing purposes because I would say that you wouldn't want to necessarily roll that out to the masses because how many of let's say you know

35:56any brand their customers are you know eligible to to get any benefits right so if if if if we were to take a 100,000 people I dare to bet it's probably going to be like a 100 people that a brand would actually be like oh you know like I would definitely give you some um some some benefits because of because of your Social Status um so that means that there's going to be um you know so much percentage like almost 999.9 percentage of people that are distracted with uh something that they're not even eligible for because I'm sure as a brand you would only want to give that to people that you feel are

36:40worthy of of of being able to give that so I think there's got to be some some sort of a filtering system for you to to figure out or or or maybe like even turn it into a marketing tool you know and then just just reverse it where you get to scrape a bunch of of social profiles within specific niches and then blast out um you know an email or a message or whatever for them to be exposed to these benefits kind of like um you know around having to like physic like uh publicly display some sort of a call to action for people to to check if they're

37:19eligible for benefits yeah I think uh I think there's something to this idea I am a bit worried wor about like does it create like a dual class system for for e-commerce you know what I mean like have or Have Nots I mean the real yeah I'm curious your your POV on that yeah I think I think it's kind of you know like in all hon I feel like it would kind of suck you know like you would get on a website and you like oh man I can get discount of I'm cool and you find out you're not cool enough you know it's like um

37:55so I think if if if if for this tool to like really um to live I feel like it should be the other way around right you should kind of see if you can get access to the cool people and automatically um you know expose them to these benefits so let's take um you know let's let's take our personal Brands as an example and and someone would would you know reach out to us and be like hey listen there's there there zero catch um were a um we're a product and we gather you know people with with with like a following and we put you in a database

38:35and and Brands get to you know just just give you benefits they get to give you discounts free items you name it um and that's it you know um and for those Brands to then kind of like select and and on the back end decide to you know give those to you I think that that could be something that would make more sense because I think publicly facing yeah you would really just just yeah you know like differentiate those two while um the the percentage is only so small yeah and I'm H I'm happy that this is a bad idea because that it's a it's a good

39:12Insight with a bad idea you know what I mean yeah and that's that's that's the idea maze the idea maze is helping you take that insight into a product that is has a high probability of working I always even when I look at some of the things that I still go through through this day um a lot of people don't realize that there's often way more failure to be found in things that are bad than that are things that are right because um you would never even you like the odds of something not being the first like the right idea straight away is way higher than you're just hitting jackpot

39:49the first goal you know so having like a streak of of things that just simply didn't work out or bad ideas or you know going to take you one step closer to that one thing that sticks that's like what I always notice where you know just just just focus on what information do I get from and you you can even go to extensive testing it you know like that's that's also something that um you know because who says what's good and what's bad you know um perhaps you know us putting that on that website and and everyone starts to go crazy about hey am I cool enough and everyone starts using

40:23it you know like we never know so even even figuring and finding those things out and to some extent use common sense and maybe even speak to people um which I think you know like Greg you're a living example of of just putting it out there in the wild and literally spin up a visual and be like hey would you use this on my Ecom website if you and just check if you're eligible for benefits if you have social status whatever you know and then get that feedback there and then you also have your answer um but it's uh yeah I mean I guess I guess the

40:56the the the the startup idea podcast you know would be impossible to have you know only good ideas 100% I mean if we're lucky if we get 75% good insights you know yeah um do you do you think a lot about or or how much do you think about the Shopify app ecosystem you know do you think there's a lot of opportunity there for people to create businesses there yeah so I actually invested in a company they're called in in.so um and it's it's it's like an instant page builder um and what I see a lot within Shopify and even when I look at some of the things that we are

41:38building um we for example um yeah those guys yeah exactly so instant is a tool that allows you to and and I'm I'm also launching a product myself because my audience has been asking it so much and um they have also um like OB like we run a fulfillment business in China right so even the Fulfillment itself for Ecom Brands it's just a beautiful case study so I'm going to launch these glasses the ones that I always wear um and I've used instant to build the entire website um now I gave this to uh one of our designers who basically span up epic looking store in as quick as I think it

42:22was I think it was like 2 to three hours um now the the cool thing is that they've run um or they've ran so many different split tests on all of the different designs that they're also C optimized so you have all of these different templates that really allow you to just plug and play um and launch super quickly um so it's it's it's one of these tools that is built on top of the Shopify ecosystem using and and you know having build tools that automatically using AI generate liquid the or or liquid components which is the the native um code language for Shopify uh themes and and in the page builder

43:05itself um and this is like this is like fully living on top of Shopify um then taking it like a a bit closer to me myself what we have built with our fulfillment business which is also living on top of the Shopify ecosystem is um a tool that integrate Last Mile carriers now what does that mean when um with a fulfillment business and we'll take the us as an example is when we ship a parcel from let's let's take these glasses as an example they're like about 200 300 grams maximum including packaging um with our priority line it takes about three days three to six days

43:45to get a parcel from China to the US um and and one of the things that you know we got a lot from customers and also looking at the evolvement of of of shipping from from from China was like hey um and and again like every single store we work with uses Shopify so all our clients use Shopify um and we got the feedback it's like you know like how can we hide the China origin because obviously you know even though the products are made in China people always are like oh man you know I've received my prer from China but there's no different to importing it to a local

44:19warehouse and then getting it to the customer now what we did on top of the Shopify ecosystem was build a very simple Shopify app that allowed is to Simply only upload and fulfill uh Last Mile carrier links so for example in the US customers would only receive the USBs trkking link and we integrated that within Shopify its fulfillment status where only that link would be provided to the customer completely hid in the China origin um which is just like really enhancing the um you know the experience of the customer and in line with your question it is so um like DTC is such an incredible interesting space with so much money

45:05just flowing in every single direction for people that want to build products to save time in increased convenience uh increase conversion um to like be somewhere in between those gaps and even even if you take like like 10 cents there is so much opportunity there so to answer your question yeah I I am a massive fan of building on top of the Shopify infrastructure just because I I I I know how how how big it is and how how much it's growing if someone listens to that agrees with you um and wants to build in the shop Shopify ecosystem how do they figure out what's the pain

45:50points that they need to go and solve I think when building any product it it it's it's really about understanding the pain point right it's it's it's really diving in it's really getting your hands dirty on like hey why like if you look at anyone who starts an agency um you know like it often comes out of a place of really understanding you know it's like oh hey I've done this for myself I can probably do this for other people you know it's it's it's but it's within the part of doing it yourself by figuring it out and I think within within the kind of story that I

46:28just explained where there's there's so much happening within this entire dtoc kind of land from you know dealing with China like think like again that's all product you know like think of Alibaba you know like I I've had so many ideas and I and I probably know um and that's also something that I love about content because I always say content compounds but um I'm very very sure that there's going to be a point in my career where you know I would you know take it up up up on like an Alibaba and create the luxury version of it you know just to streamline that part in itself and that

47:03in itself is already like such a massive thing and and and to answer your question that comes out of a place of understanding the pain of dealing with Chinese manufacturers because of the language barriers because of the distance because of the cultural differences so understanding those pain points and having gone through me you know from the age of of 50 16 starting to learn Chinese mandering just so that I could solve those problems because I saw how big they were all comes out of a place of understanding so anyone who wants to build within the Shopify ecosystem pick like one specific section within that entire Niche may it be supply chain may it be

47:44dealing with China May It Be cro as in conversion rate optimization may it be email may it be after sales may it be um you know prod like building a store like the guys from instant did um there there's so many pain points and there's so many money flowing because when you and that's like the what I realized because I've always been um that I've always been big in products like I've always built products always been fascinated about products I've worked with on the Asia side with some you know like really big companies and help them just like strategize and think through product and and and build some stuff

48:21with them as well um but the the cool thing about D see is that you know like think of any SAS if we were to take whatever let's take zero as an example like you're sending invoices like it you know it gets it gets very hard to convince a customer nowadays to pay you know $250 a month or something for like a simple invoicing tool you know even though it's like super Advanced you use AI all of those things like the barrier to enter is getting is getting is getting really really uh really high you know and you have to you know you have to get low prices and deliver so much

48:58value and do so much work and put in so much so much effort to to acquire customers um and now even you know I've seen you talk about that as well with like subscription fatigue where people are like oh man I'm you know I'm I'm done but then when you think about um um D Toc There's Always Money flowing every mon like as long as the business exists there's money flowing so so to justify a49 $99 a month subscription within that like flow of money it's so easy to figure out as long as you solve a problem big enough to just to keep justifying that amount

49:38within that within that already flow of cash you know and I feel like within um like a lot of other like like when you think of invoicing and especially how much competitive um you know how competitive that specific Niche is it's so hard to find those those gaps to like justify like High margin um uh products you know like high Revenue generating products one of the things I think you said which is really smart is is is once you figure out the paino niche down and I think that you can even Niche down further so I think um you know you mentioned cro you mentioned like Logistics think about

50:19like what's cro look look like for you know local websites construction workers um like go deeper um because the there's opport there's like1 to1 million ideas just in just in that alone and and there's more of a moat for people right because like I saw today even um I don't know if this is true or not but like people were saying docy sign has like 14,000 employees and it's been like going viral on Twitter and I don't know if I'm like getting trolled and and it's like a joke but um Google embed now has the ability to sign documents if you have you know Google apps so people are like oh what's

51:05going to happen to all these docy sign employees like you don't want to compete with Google you know you don't want to compete with where you know you don't want to be one of those apps that Shopify ends up like cloning and puts into the system you want to be exactly you know just quietly printing over there yeah yeah the one thing that I do think is interesting though is that I do see opportunity if you if you play your cards right and you build something that's in like a relatively short time frame making enough noise and acquiring like enough market share for someone like Shopify to buy you yeah you know

51:46that's that's that's a cart you can play but obviously that's a bit of a big bet but um it's it's you know like it's it's not impossible you like they're they're buying like crazy dude I I played that game in my 20s that's that's the game I would play which was go figure out what a company wants to buy build it get a lot of noise raise a bunch of venture and sell it to them and I did it so I can't be like don't do this it's like can't be like one of those people that is like you know don't drink alcohol as you're sipping a

52:23Chardonnay um but on the positive side these these companies will overpay for or or will like acquired some of these businesses if you're at the right place at the right time and it you know you have the opportunity to make generational wealth you have the opportunity to be a part of these bigger companies and run run that piece of the business within their division which is really cool and especially if you're in your 20s like extremely cool on the negative side you you you have to like the stars literally need to align and I just I don't want personally I don't want to be like that's like playing a slot

53:12machine versus playing poker like business for me is I I want to play poker in business I want to be like learn about how to you know how to play the odds you know what do I do over here what do I do over there look at my opponent I don't want to be like pressing a slot machine and hoping something happens yeah I think for me the biggest part in those two different types of building a business for me it's always been the freedom you know and I'm also personally just you know I mean like my whole journey as an entrepreneur has always been just figuring out my

53:50own you know and I have always operated out of a point where I understand that you know uh and again like obviously I understand the concept behind raising and getting Pro a concept and you know like having to invest a lot of money into build stuff but because I didn't have that or even I didn't even have the guts to ever think about raising money you know because I mean I come from a small town in the Netherlands English is not even my first language I've learned it through gaming you know like is never even occurred for me to like ask people for money because I was like man there's

54:24no way they're going to give this kid money in any form of shape you know they probably going to ask me to pay them money to even ask them you know so um I very naturally came from the perspective of always wanting to just have something that you know proves through itself that it can sustain and grow so having like a cash flow positive business that can grow from from itself and reinvest the capital bootstrapping it has always been something that that to me makes so much sense and the reason why I love this so much is because you know the difference between the two that you that you

54:58sketched as well is that you know like one the stars have to align two there's going to be people breathing down your neck making sure that you know like you do everything right and that you know that you know the stars are aligned you know so so all out of a sudden you're trying to control the stars as much as you can which you know you and I both know you cannot do so it comes with a lot of stress a lot of pressure as well um um and I mean like you said obviously when it works out it works out um but then on the other hand you know you can

55:27have like a much leaner business uh make a lot more money um where ultimately like when I really think about it you know like that's what it's about you know like you got to do something that makes you happy you got to do something that makes you enough money and from that point obviously you just keep you know you you can repeat and you can go bigger and you can you can grow that's kind of like how I really look at building anything do you feel like you're free yeah I am yeah I could I could if I would really want to step away any time

56:00um and live the life I you know have dreamed of I think like one of the things that I'm most proud of is is right now knowing that I have built such a strong arsenal of skills that no matter what happens I will be able to build a successful lean business myself that's going to you know allow me to make enough money to sustain a very simple life that makes me happy um and that I do with the people around me that I that I'm very proud of you know like when I look at my other half when I look at my business partner when I look at

56:38the team members that I work with it's people that I know are very very close to the values and morals that I live by and I think that to me is Ultimate wealth you know so all of the tools all of the things that we've that we've talked about and everything they're they're they're incredible but I wouldn't want to do any of it or would sacrifice anything on the other side um if I wouldn't have or could do it with those kinds of people you know and I think when you put so much pressure on it and and if you really fixate so much about you know wanting to go so big I

57:12think it personally takes away the fun you know because I am I mean we're like our business is doing um you know like like multiple a figures and I don't necessarily talk about that in my content even like people don't even know how you know like how big the business actually is you know but the reason I don't talk about it is because I mean like even if it would have been you know six figures it doesn't matter because it's still fun and and it's still getting the same thing done and the amount of money is not going to change my happiness is just is just a tool to

57:44do it bigger better with probably cooler more experienced people um and just have fun you know yeah I think uh one thing I learned about myself is building I can't have fun if I'm having too many meetings yeah so I could be in the best business of all time like with the best people working on the coolest stuff having the time of my life crushing it but if I have 25 recurring meetings in a week and they just recur every single week I will want to blow my brains out and show me show me your Cal like the wealthiest people have the least amount of recurring meetings yeah yeah exactly

58:32that's my hot take yeah yeah yeah yeah no that's it's uh you have this um um i' I've seen you I've seen you tweet about it I forgot what it's called it's it's it's something like you you need a robot or something yeah yeah I love that so much because I feel like um you know like the empty calendar can also be very easily achieved by just leveraging everything that's out there you know and like we're going through a big phase of that right now within the company where we're just rethinking everything like literally everything you know everyone's being challenged like no everyone's like waking up it's like okay how can we how

59:11can we you know like make this more efficient how can we use AI how can we automate this um just to just to get that calendar clear um Daniel we had one more idea but we're not going to have time to do it I'm going to flesh out that Insight uh send it out in my newsletter um people can go and go and check it out Greg Eisenberg docomo I just have a question for you before before we end it should I ask people to like like comment and subscribe or should I just like not just like not ask I think in all honesty um what I've seen like

59:53especially within within like how I've positioned myself with within you know the YouTube and content creation I feel like we're kind of entering this area era of of you know call to action kind of becoming dead um where I like I feel like even throughout like throughout my content like I'm I never like ask necessarily anything of like check out my business or check this or like like or subscribe I feel like when people like it they'll like it and they'll just they'll just you know they'll do what they they should do you know um that's that's really really what I've seen you know but one day you're

1:00:33not going to in your content you're not going to promote a product or like how do you how do you think about that I mean I mean like the way I look at it it's it's I promote my stuff all the time but there's a very big difference between showing what's happening and talking about what has happened so for me to document how we're building a brand and sharing the lessons along the way is the best form of marketing that you can ever do without you know making people feel like you're you're screaming in their face or wanting to sell anything to them you know it's it's it's it's just

1:01:11something that is so different especially within um because it's like it's really funny like you mentioned right like there's there's there's two types of audience that listen to to this podcast there's one type of audience that probably has never heard of me there's one type of audience that you know like is is heavily invested in my content um now like um anyone who watches my stuff um and if I were to like actively promote or like talk about things I feel like in some extent it it with me building the business that I'm building it just takes away a little bit of authenticity because my goal is not

1:01:50necessarily to promote these businesses to them it's to take them through the learnings of me building these businesses where I just get to experience the upside and benefit of of you know me just actually building something that they're interested in you know so um that's like how how I like really look at my position within within my my brand and like my YouTube it's like it comes out of a place of just wanting to show and share and the exposure is there you know and people who want to find out they will find out and they will click I am not going to ask people to like comment and subscribe

1:02:29going further so they well they they know what to do anyway but you know the the reality is like I I just I'd like the comment section to be popping just because like I want to see if the content that I'm creating is resonating with people and that's ultimately what I care about so yeah but that's good advice that's good advice yeah I think I think one thing that I always do is um yeah like that that is something something that I that I um that I do ask for it's like you know let me know send me a message yeah shoot you know shoot it shoot through a tweet shoot through a

1:03:06DM um you know those those are things that that I do that I do ask for okay so I'm going to try this no asking for like comments and subscribing but I but I will I would love to hear your thoughts going forward people um Daniel I know you're not a you don't want to promote you know that's not your so I'm going to promote for you I think everyone should go and watch how watch watch Daniel's Channel and on YouTube follow on Instagram we'll include those links um even if you're not particularly interested in you know Hong Kong China DDC e-commerce I think the way that he's

1:03:48building his brand in public is is you know top tier top shelf as we say in can um and you can learn a lot of it so learn a lot from it so dude I can't thank you enough for for the time uh I just want to build a business with you man I don't know what it is we should yeah I don't know what it is but something yeah yeah well let's make it happen man that's uh as I said man content compounds like if we put this out there and like like a year from now we done it that's going to be some cool

1:04:23stuff man totally all right well I'll catch you later thank you so much for having me GRE I've had a um I've had a really good time it's uh you know I've been I've been following your stuff for a while as well and um it's uh it's been super cool to just jam and talk product with you like like such a pleasure thank you so much for having me the pleasure is all mine awesome [Music] it's time baby