# 4 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow

Channel: Greg Isenberg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn5HcjucwY0
Duration: 34 min
Language: English
Words: 6272
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/tn5HcjucwY0

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[0:00] Moes are dead and brand is the only moat you know Peter teal says like the best way to compete is to not compete and I think that brand is the best way you can do that where if you occupy enough mental space for a category no one is searching for an alternative like basically the strategy for startups right now is to be Coca-Cola it's like why do you drink Coca-Cola not because of Any like like lock in or anything it's because it's Coca-Cola I think that brand is the best mode out there this year [Music] Danny Grant I am so excited to have you here and I was really I woke up today I

[0:41] was like really excited to have you here because I know you're an idea machine and then you tweet out something that I just I I was so excited so you tweet out before Jam which is your your Venture back startup I think you've rais $9 or10 million there were 141 startup ideas we didn't build about to share them for the first time on Greg eisenberg's podcast and now I'm just salivating so my co-founder and I met when we were product managers at Cloud flare and we loved working together so much so that after I left Cloud Flair we did like a hack hackathon weekend trip to Colorado we got like a cabin in the

[1:20] woods and we like hacked on Startup ideas and we just knew we're GNA start something together we just didn't know what and so what does any enterprising you know mid 20s person do when they know they're going to start something is they create a notion of ideas and we filled it with all sorts of ideas we had over the course of like a couple weeks and there are now 141 ideas in this notion and we got super lucky because here's what happened we had like a call scheduled to go through our notion and pick what startup to start and before we could even open this dock we just

[1:54] started gossiping about our old team and talking about this crazy like pm engineer process like that that was happening right now in the team it was like it was early covid no one was set up for remote an Engineers were like asked to be like updating like spreadsheets and jira it was it was insanity and we're like wait should we just solve a problem that we have faced ourselves instead of any of these ideas and I've got to tell you I am so happy we did because the thing that I did not appreciate on day one of being a Founder is that if this goes to plan this is

[2:27] actually probably the next 105 years of your life and so to work on something that I love the user of because I've been that person and that like I resonate with the prop like I feel like we dodged a bullet but now we've got a lot of ideas to share with the people listening to you perfect win-win situation and I actually didn't realize that you were a cloud flare at the end of this episode I'll tell you the story of how uh how I met the founders of cloud flare when I was just a kid from a Facebook group so we'll I'll share that at the end are you serious yeah I'll

[2:59] share that at the the end but uh all right we're not going to get to all 141 of course but of course I don't want to waste a second what's what's your first idea for us okay idea one K-pop style factories for particular Talent when you're building a startup there are certain unicorn hes you just have to make but every single startup has to make the same unicorn hires like here's an example when a startup hires their first growth marketer that's a specialized hire it is a hard hire to find like our first marketer we spent eight months searching like really searching but that's a set of skills and you can teach

[3:45] it and so you could imagine a world in which there's a K-pop style Factory where they are churning out the first growth marketer for startups and people will pay a lot and they'll they'll they'll pay to not have to spend eight month searching and to have the person start the next day when honestly they needed someone yesterday and didn't start hiring soon enough so there's so there's a lot of programs for technical talent that exists training for technical talent but there doesn't feel like there's that much in like the growth marketer content marketer space um so are you saying like develop like you know the programs

[4:24] around taking someone who's not a growth marketer to become a growth marketer and then connecting those growth marketers with uh people who want to hire them is that the idea I I'm here to tell you that I love boot camps like I think coding boot camps have changed so many people's lives like I just I think they are one of the best things that's happened in education in the last 10 years but this flips it on its head that's the the code boot camp route is take people make them Junior developers at a generalized big company this is the opposite of that it's take people make

[4:59] them extremely senior very fast extremely specialized for a high-paying like extremely focused type of job so growth marketer is one um here's another type of job that you could do this sort of like K-pop Factory for which is a Dev evangelist when a startup needs their first Dev evangelist that person is like a superstar hire I mean like like they have they they have star power they are they're building they're great at speaking like that person is so hard to find and the only people out there that you can see doing it are the ones who are already doing it and you don't just need someone who can do it you need

[5:37] someone who's going to be the first and so like instead of me as a Founder any founder out there like hiring a recruiter trolling through Linkedin and Twitter and trying to interview like hundreds of people for this one super specialized role why shouldn't there just be like the factory that turns out the best people at this low acceptance rate but they like make them amazing 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

[6:16] 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 Google 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

[6:55] think it's really interesting that you're you're thinking about Job titles that are that are overlooked like the way we connected originally I don't know if you remember but you were looking for manager you were looking like for a community manager and that's like maybe less so now but at the time it was like an you know it was a a new type of role like managing discords and things like that so I think maybe maybe the the framework for people listening at least is like what are roles that are you're just starting to hear for the first time so one of those for example is design engineer

[7:30] totally yes yeah so I think uh what you know what you do is when you start hearing a a name for the first time and maybe it's twice three times take a note of it go to Google Google Trends see if it's going up if it's going up then the way to monetize it is it sounds like it's exactly what what you're saying through your method totally and and there's no competition out there because here's what happens today like startup founder goes to a recruiter and says I'm looking for this person and the recruiter tells them that's kind of a unicorn and you're like yeah I know I'm

[8:09] in the business of hiring unicorns and and the recruiter says like okay but that doesn't really work with my model because my model is um I do a bunch of work and then if if I happen to succeed then you pay me commission and so they're nervous to do a ton of upfront effort for a search that they don't have a ton of history of doing they don't have the Network for will take a ton of calls to like sift through candidates and and then they may not even find the person so this is like the opposite of that it's like you tailor make people for these positions and the

[8:42] reason why I think this is so impactful for the world is because it makes it easier to start companies and build like impactful businesses and like that's the way a lot of things in the future will advance is like through companies building new things but the other reason is there are a lot of people out there who need to change their life and want to change their life life but they're just not going to become Junior developers because their set of skills is different like the thing that they can contribute to the world is different and so having multiple paths for someone to change their life and and impact the

[9:10] world positively is a really really great thing for everyone and if you were to start this like how how would you start this how much money would it require what tools would you use yes so you've heard like first well you you are the you are the champion of this it's like first time Founders like over focus on product and second time Founders know to focus on distribution I think that that uh product here is not the hard part it's the distribution because you both have to build trust in your quality but also you need to find people at the right moment to sell this and so I think the first thing you do is

[9:46] you just start by building your own distribution your own platform and you do the things that like you Greg have been doing which is like start the podcast start the newsletter tweet every day and like build trust as the person who gets what this role is yeah I think uh I want to give two examples of that concrete example so there was an account Julian Shapiro used to run something uh he's an entrepreneur he used to run something called demand curve and and bell curve um they were you know growth businesses and the one of the ways that he got a lot of traction is he created a

[10:19] Twitter account called growth tactics at growth tactics oh was so good so good so good so we got a really good name uh you'd be surprised some of these names are still available and just started sharing growth tactics and then people would see it uh on their feet and they're like do I you know do I want some more growth tactics in my feed yeah absolutely click follow so it started to grow pretty quickly and all of a sudden he had you know a bunch you know thousands of people interest startups Founders who are interested in growth tactics and then he sold them courses and services

[10:54] and that sort of thing so I think one good idea here is to just kind of grab like a um generic sounding name and and go and build a Twitter or LinkedIn account for that that's one one idea that's what I would do yeah I have a Counterpoint to this let's do it I believe that that would work but I wonder if it still works well in like 2025 and the reason for that is I think people are moving away from trusting Anonymous accounts to trusting people and here's an example of that we're hiring right now a role that I wish there was a K-pop Factory for because

[11:33] we're going to spend the next 10 months searching for this like unicorn person and this is a designer to lead a growth team it's just such a specialized role and you need someone very very senior who's super thoughtful and like it's a hard um job to hire for so there is a website called growth design that has a ton of these case studies and the case studies are so awesome it's a great website I've spent hours on this website also there's this woman Kate suuma she was an early growth designer at Meo she's since left and started a consultancy but she's like started a podcast and newsletter um and she like

[12:09] writes on LinkedIn a lot when I was looking for this person originally I didn't reach out to the growth design team to find a hire I reached out to her to see if she knows anyone and there's something about people that might be better at getting like um just inbound interest the other so for people who don't know growth grow. design they make these comic books and they break down it's beautiful so great go check it out yeah they break down different ux flows and they basically uh kind of commentate it with uh they commentate it with um user psychology and stuff like that and it

[12:48] just it's it's absolutely brilliant but I think that's another thing is it's animated so you don't really like feel connected to anyone um so yeah I agree with you there um makes sense all right what else you got okay here's another one before a startup is ready actually let me start with the title which is like Bounty program for Dev evangelism before a startup is ready for their first Dev evangelist hire they need to write docs they need to write starters like tutorials they need to create like starter GitHub repos uh video videos there's a ton of Dev evangelism that needs to happen even before you have the capacity for a

[13:34] full-time hire and it usually falls on the founder who has a lot of other stuff they are doing and at that moment would be very happy to pay someone to do like a 95% good job on the like basic stuff that they need to get started you could imagine a bounty program where Junior developers all over the world are like oh great this startup needs a getting started tutorial this startup needs how to use their tool with zapier and and just one by one uh is able to contribute who else is doing that Fiverr yeah that's what I was thinking like there's it feels like there's no

[14:13] competition for that yeah I think that's right I think that um the hard part about this is um there's a like as of as a Founder honestly I'd pay a lot for good quality work but I wouldn't pay a lot for bad quality work that we'd have to redo right and so um the benefit of a dedicated Marketplace for this over a Fiverr is that the reviews can be tailor made to the platform and they can just have a really high bar the way that like uber has a high bar for drivers or Airbnb for places do you think this is a profitable cash flowing business or do

[14:51] you see this potentially being like a VC back thing I think this is a cash flow profitable business and I think it gets even more profitable over time just given the like decline of the cost of producing software like right now you may even need to like hire a developer to build the platform and all the features but like pretty soon that's like if you've seen like versel like vzero dodev it will like design and build it for you like just fast forward a few years and so then it's like okay you're one person you can run this thing can you just explain to people what uh VZ is and how

[15:26] that would extend to this it is well it is pure magic and what it is is it's AI that builds the website for you so you say what website you're looking for and it will generate it the full thing it's crazy it's so awesome because it's such a preview of how the future will be like today if you need some sort of service you have like a whole company to create that service like like how many Engineers work at Yelp but in the future there will be some sort of public database of things and then when you want the service it can just be automatically generated for you in that

[16:06] time and like that's not five years out but maybe it's a hundred years out or 50 years out I don't know but like when I see vzer I'm like oh cool the future is arriving soon this is this is this is firing me up this is why you're on the Pod right now because I feel like you have such a good sense to where things are going um I want to keep the ideas going what what what else you got let m uals invest in VC funds what you would do is you'd create a shadow LP that becomes an LP in all these funds and then allows the general public to be a

[16:39] part of to be to be part of that LP so like what it would have brought an access to is like you as a 25-year-old could buy aund $100 of a16 Z's you know fund whatever whether or not the VCS will enjoy that TBD but do people want it 100% yes yeah that was my first question to that is like if you're a16z do you you know they whole not them I don't want to pick on them exactly but the the idea is like there's there's like five funds that are really really hard to get into and they curate their LPS really really carefully and they

[17:19] don't let regular people uh invest like like you or me and but the problem is I think that they want to keep it that way yes yeah this this is this is for the record an idea that won't work and it it won't like and and there are more reasons than that that it won't work it's like also they love not having to share their fund like returns with the general public and this would change that like it's like for all the all the reason this won't work this is sort of an idea kind of like allow Harvard to accept more students and it's like that's not really what they

[17:57] do yeah but it's actually really interesting so and you know when you come with come up with a bad idea you know on this podcast we say if an idea is good you sip the idea and if if if if the idea is not good you spit it sometimes these spit ideas actually get you down the line of thinking of a good idea so for example with with this idea your Insight was right your Insight is that Millennials see you know use a lot of these software businesses use lot of these cpg businesses uh they they would rather invest in that than the S&P 500 Insight correct but the execution of

[18:38] this is difficult because the other side of the marketplace so to speak doesn't really want that to happen so the question is what can you build for Millennials such that they get that same feeling around you know that same warm and fuzzy feeling that they would have gotten totally at the time that we wrote this notion dock a company had just launched called Otis which was uh this the skillshare founder launching a new Financial startup and it allowed like I guess it's targeted for young people but allowed anyone to invest in like alternative assets like art and sneakers and just own a part of culture and uh

[19:19] when I saw that I was like that's super inspiring what else do Millennials want to be a part of and I was like a6c I there's something there and someone in the comment section is going to be like here's where I should take yeah yeah so feel free so keep let us know in the comments section um I'm just GNA keep saying what else you got what else you got what else you got what else you got at the at the time so this one is okay the one more theme that I got very interested in at the time was these in-person events and I think that now is

[19:54] the time to start in inperson things because we're all so we all realized just how precious they are but they're all really hard to start because the quality bar for what you'll attend a second time that's in person is just super high and so um there is an amazing company called soar sounds are you familiar uh a little bit I've never been to one of their events so tell me more about it they are concerts in people's homes but the thing that they just got right is they are they got the formula that you can trust and you don't what you're going to get until you show up so you

[20:30] know it's going to be 60 Minutes three bands play like 10 minutes each with like breaks in the middle so you show up and then you know that they've curated the quality so one idea in this Doc is so far sounds for talks where like I love that format it's such an easy and fun thing to go and do it's novel each time but sitting and listening to music for an hour like isn't everyone's Jam but what could be is sort of more like a variety show where you you show up and there going to be three three talks maybe one is like a comedian one is like

[21:01] a scientist and and you just and and that's that's the format and that's the that's the in-person um event uh Empire I think so far was was and is really onto something which is that events haven't really changed in years like they' basically stayed the same so they were kind of like okay how do we you know W with the with the trend around stadium shows and bigger and bigger shows and festivals how do we do the complete opposite and they did it and I think they're doing quite well um I think they're doing like eight figures in Revenue uh or so so they're they're doing really well but I think that

[21:49] there's so far sounds for X is kind of the idea that you're saying which is you know which I think I think the the the hard part with this is choosing like which Community you want to go after and what is the utility for the the event so for example so far sounds a lot of people go to those events at least in my like and anecdotally it's like they're going on a first date basically there it's like it's kind of perfect right it's like 60 Minutes you know it's it's not you're just going to a bar or something like that you're like doing something a little interactive and then

[22:24] after you can talk about it and and there'll probably be cool people there um so if you were doing you know so besides so for your example like talks comedians scientists like those to me like there's probably so far sounds for science so far sounds for comedy so far sounds for you know talks what do you think about that I think it's more generalized people want to be entertained and so it's so far sounds For Your Entertainment and you know that the quality bar is going to be good I think that the part is not choosing um a category the hard part is the brand where my co-founder says this like so

[23:05] eloquently and I'm going to butcher this but his philosophy which I think is so right is that Moes are dead and brand is the only Moe it's like we used to all talk about Network effects and like you know build something like Twitter but if you think about all the software tools you use right now there's not really a network effect there's not really a network effect for notion like maybe there's like like we can come up with some but why did you choose notion it's because the brand is just so strong like basically the strategy for startups right now is to be Coca-Cola it's like

[23:32] why do you drink Coca-Cola not because of Any like like lockin or anything it's because it's Coca-Cola and so the why do you show up to a sofar sounds with a first date it's because you know it's going to be a high quality hour of your life and so I think the hard part is to establish that trust and to maintain it I stand corrected also I love that line that line is so good I'm going to reuse that all the time and you're right with with notion specifically like we use notion we probably have like 70 or 80 people on notion and there is no network effects because

[24:08] I've thought about it too because we're thinking about moving off of it and now it's just there were Network effects with some of these businesses when it was really hard to get the graph on there but like you know it's really easy to to post a link on slack and get my team to use something else you know um so when people were saying network effects were everything that was like in 2005 2006 2007 when that was a lot harder I agree you know Peter teal says like the best way to compete is to not compete and I think that brand is the best way you can

[24:43] do that where if you occupy enough mental space for a category no one is searching for an alternative when we started Jam we didn't search for what's the best knowledge base we just use notion because their brand is so strong I think that brand is the best mode out there this year 100% the the thing really to to end on is to say that like there are things that I did not appreciate on day one of starting a startup about choosing your idea that I really wish that I had known on day one or like we sort of lucked into but I think are helpful for people

[25:14] who are on day one of choosing what to work on the first thing is that if if the startup goes to plan like if all your dreams come true this is probably like 10 to 20 years of your life which is really a lot like we started Jam when I was 26 this is probably going to be all my 30s and so that's very exciting but it's only exciting if you love what you do and the thing that I didn't realize on day one is that it's a has to be exciting enough that you're going to say no to a lot of other opportunities that come your way

[25:44] but B it's it is going to be like you are going to think and talk about your company like all the time because it's not just at work it's you go see your family and your family is like how's the business doing and you go see your friends and they're like how's the startup and you like meet people at parties and they're like what are you working on and then like they have follow-up questions so you're just con like like you are in that space all the time and so you better find the thing fascinating enough to talk about it for 10 years straight the second is when

[26:15] Once the thing starts working then you have this question of like okay well great like now now how how do we like a THX this thing and you kind of want to know on day one that there is a to that you don't have to know what the exact path is but just having like people call this like an idea maze but just having like here's what needs to happen to make this so worthwhile to spend a ton of time on um is is really helpful and the last thing is that the type of business you start dictates how you will spend your time and who you will talk to and

[26:49] what you will wear and like and what your life will be like so we started a business targeting developers I get to spend all day every day talking to developers it is awesome I love it but if we had started something where I have to wear a suit all the time or I have to travel a ton um or like there are just a lot of different uh types of businesses to start and you should choose one that fits your personality because it should be energizing in your day rather than very detracting there's only one thing I'll push back on in in what you just said

[27:20] which is the business will take up 10 15 plus years of your life for some businesses that's absolutely true and but I think we're entering this new era of micro businesses so you know 10 15 20 50 years ago when you wanted to create a business it was this it was this it was like clowning Mount Everest in terms of like what you needed to get done you know back in the day when it was there was no internet and you wanted to let's say make a store like you had to go and like find the location and spend so much money renovating it and painting and

[27:58] merchandising and getting the suppliers um you know then 15 20 years ago if you wanted to put an e-commerce or you have to like build your own shopping cart um there was no Shopify now what's cool is you can stand on the shoulders of giants and there is like a lower kind of a lower risk way of putting things out there um now these businesses might not you know be as big biggest Jam um and you might need to create a portfolio of them to end up you know making it meaningful but that's my take on the business needs to be 10 to 15 years okay it's you're right it's

[28:43] true but something that I underappreciated on the first day of jam is I was I used to be a product manager and I sort of thought all about product and I was like the hard part of building this is building the product but building the product is like now you can just even get started and and the rest of the journey is is you're creating a movement that helps people improve their lives in a particular way and just social change takes time and behavior change takes time and the environment changes around you and so you're just you're like if it's not something where people are going to search for this tool

[29:15] and it's going to be the the top search result in SEO always and that like if the distribution doesn't come naturally you're you're embarking on a very long journey and a lot longer than I sort of appreciated 100% yeah I I feel you I feel you on that you know and especially if you take Venture that's also like you're definitely signing yourself up for the the a chapter of your life and where you know I guess the difference is some businesses are chapters and some businesses are pages and know the difference between a page and a chapter yeah I think that's right um before we head out I need to tell you quickly the

[29:56] story of how I met Michelle Zin from the co-founder of uh of cloud Flair and her husband uh Jamie I think his name is I'm dying to know so I think and he was also involved in Cloud flare I think Jamie was was he I don't know not that I know of but it's yeah maybe so people know this I'm Canadian when I first came out to San Francisco I didn't know anyone but there was this Facebook group called ac781 and ac781 St stood for Air Canada 781 the flight from uh Montreal to San Francisco and for whatever reason I was in this group and I was like coming to San

[30:49] Francisco looking to sublet a place I didn't know anyone I was probably like 20 years old or something and Michelle responded and she's like hey I've got this startup called Cloud flare and like we've got this uh we've got this space and it's a studio and she rented it to me for like nothing literally out of the goodness of her own heart and uh really got me like hooked onto San Francisco and and uh changed my life from that little moment and I think you never know who you're going to meet you know now I mean now Cloud fair is like a$ 20 billion company you never know who

[31:30] you're going to meet and uh it was just so cool how and positive and and how she gave back so I will say there's power in community and uh shoot your shot wow that's an amazing story and like what a like warm and like beautiful thing to do yeah totally Danny it's been a pleasure uh people please like and comment the YouTube video If you're not watching this on YouTube Just Get on YouTube and like it and comment on it I hate I hate that I say this now but it actually gets the video spread and gets the Pod spread if you enjoyed this if you got an ounce

[32:11] of value um I mean she gave you a bunch of great ideas and a bunch of good Frameworks for thinking about this so thank you Danny where could people find out more about you and jam um well first I'll give you for the first time the full 141 idea notion to share um and if people are starting companies um our first pitch deck if the

[32:31] raising VC is still online it's at deck. jam. deev um so that's if if anyone out there is starting something if that's helpful to you um but I'm I'm Danny jam. deev if you are using the product and you have feature requests or suggestions or just thoughts um reach out I love chatting with our users this is amazing so you just put up your the deck and when we started when we started the company I used to be a VC and I just thought like it's so unfair that I've gotten to see other Founders pitch and like it when you're starting a company like the quality of your pitch deck

[33:06] matters and so how can we just like here's what ours is so other people who've never seen one can create their own yeah this is I'm just going through the deck right now everyone should go check this out because this is so well done this is like very a good deck is just very clear around here's you know here's the problems here's the solutions and for anyone who's like doing any business idea even if you're not raising Venture creating a deck like this will just help it'll help you clarify what what you're doing um so this is really good check it out thank you for sharing

[33:42] this and and yeah we'll link the the notion and this in uh the Youtube description for for people thanks so much for having me Greg thanks Danny later [Music] B

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