Need a business idea? Run With It shares unused business ideas from successful entrepreneurs, including the exact steps they would take to launch them. If you're looking for a ready-made business idea, proven founders are sharing them every week on Run With It.
Aggregating the $9 Billion Micro-Mobility Industry with Ola Sars
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets:It’s inevitable that micro-mobility apps consolidate in the next 5-10 years. Look to examples from other industries (e.g. hotels and airlines) to see that this can be done. Action Steps: Partner with smaller players who are running scooter sharing services Bring clients to them through your app and take a percentage of revenues Move on to creating partnerships with larger players once you have built a foundation Consider ways to add value through this aggregated service (e.g. pay $10/month for someone to bring a scooter to your location) You might even entertain a bigger long-term vision... Facilitate a future in which transportation is seen as a utility. This business could eventually integrate public transit and other ride sharing platforms and incorporate government subsidies. Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Soundtrack Your Brand: Background music that works Scooter app wars begin, and Lime isn't happy about it How the novel coronavirus is speeding the scooter apocalypse Uber reports $2.9 billion quarterly loss during pandemic Ola Sars is a Stockholm based serial entrepreneur active in the music-tech space.He is the Founder and CEO of Soundtrack Your Brand, the world's fastest growing music-platform for B2B, which he co-founded together with Spotify back in 2014.Before founding Soundtrack, he was the co-founder and COO of Beats Music, acquired by Apple and transformed into Apple Music, as well as the co-founder of Pacemaker, the world's first DJ driven music platform.Ola’s driving force behind his repeated efforts in transforming the music market comes from his conviction that music is undervalued as an art-form and that the music industry offers significant opportunity for value improvement and growth. Through his multiple start-ups in the music-space, he has focused on unlocking that intrinsic VALUE, both in B2C and now in B2B.Ola has been featured in Rolling Stone, Billboard, Bloomberg and is a regular in music and technology publications.
A Platform for the Borrower's Economy with Ryan Frederick
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Action Steps: Show validation through initial users in a small, local market. Leverage social networks as early distribution channels. Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links:The Founder's Manual
YC Alum Shares Three Business Ideas for 2021
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets:Launching a great product can also build your email listAction Steps:Podcast Dashboard Start by creating an info and/or coaching product to help podcasters manage and grow their shows Understand the pain points podcasters are experiencing Create software to solve said pain points (listen to episode 15 with David Hauser for more details) Teach programming to start a business Find the type of programming jobs that are boring to experienced coders, but still valuable to end users Develop a systematized approach for novices to learn and deliver upon this type of work Bundle indie creator content Find independent creators who have a sizeable audience but aren’t huge; want them to both benefit from and contribute to your launch list Pitch these creators Consult with JV and Affiliate specialists Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Indie Hackers: Work Together to Build Profitable Online Businesses @csallen Humble Bundle Sahil Lavingia on the Indie Hackers Podcast codecademy
Audio-Driven Workouts with Colin McIntosh
Nuggets: This idea is so exciting because it’s a platform that expands both sides of a marketplace; it makes it easier for fitness instructors to get their content out, and easier for people to work out remotely Don’t forget about the incredible power of puns in branding and marketing. Action Steps: Create a business overview/plan including the product, points of differentiation, value proposition, etc... Create a financial model with some basic assumptions to ensure that the idea will be profitable Validate product/market fit (before spending serious money or seeking investment dollars) Create a basic landing page with the value proposition and run Facebook ads to it Use the data collected from ads to inform and iterate on the financial model Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Sheets & Giggles Startup Financial Modeling via Startup Rocket ATHLEAN-X Six Pack Promise Nike Run Club App Colin McIntosh is Founder & CEO of Sheets & Giggles, a pun-based, eco-friendly bedding brand that launched in May 2018 on Indiegogo with their first product: lyocell bed sheets made from eucalyptus trees. In their first 6 months in business, they received over 6,000 orders and nearly half a million dollars in revenue. They won first place at Denver Startup Week 2018, have since gone on to make and raise millions of dollars in revenue and venture capital.
Is The Next Shopify A SaaS Boilerplate Service?
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets:If you notice many open-source projects with lots of followers on a single problem, it’s probably a good opportunity; open-source projects are rarely as good as those with commercial resourcesAction Steps: Build a list of SaaS companies using Shopify Search for Shopify apps that enable SaaS companies to use Shopify; consider buying them to jumpstart your customer base Contact Venture Capital organizations and pitch them on partnering Engage with aspiring SaaS founders on sites like Indie Hackers and offer this service with the caveat that you plan to productize it Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: OneSignal Shopify's Tobi Lütke on Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman Connecting Independent Software Vendors and CRMs with Steve Benson Can Shopify Compete With Amazon Without Becoming Amazon? The Toaster Project George Deglin is Co-Founder & CEO of OneSignal, the most widely used mobile/web engagement platform. With over a decade of experience engineering software products, George was previously CTO for Uversity, a college social networking startup backed by Founders Fund and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Fixing Homelessness From the Private Sector with Calvin Correli
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets: You’re not going to end homelessness worldwide. Don’t do nothing because you can’t do everything. Sometimes a non-profit model opens more doors for those who want to invest in a project. Action Steps: Interview homeless people, social workers, and shelter employees to qualitatively understand this problem Read The State of Homelessness in America to quantitatively understand this problem Understand sources of funding, like HUD in the US or benefactors that have overcome homelessness themselves. Contact the founder of Samaritan and ask to pick his brain Learn how typical homeless shelters are financed Start small - determine how to best help a handful of people Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Simplero The State of Homelessness in America Samaritan Kiva How Not to Die (startup advice by Paul Graham) Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1 by Neale Donald Walsch Calvin Correli is the founder of Simplero, the all-in-one platform for online educators. He started it in 2009 to run his own business of teaching spiritual tools, like belief, emotions, love, and life purpose, to other entrepreneurs. It has since grown into a multi-million dollar business serving entrepreneurs all over the world, on a mission to simplify lives and raise the level of consciousness on the planet.
Split-testing SaaS Pricing with Ben Orenstein
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets: If you have a regular job, your employer might love you starting a business that serves the company Build credibility on the internet with people you might like to serve before you’ll need it Action Steps: Build trust on the internet by creating helpful, intermediate to advanced content for SaaS business owners. Build list of $1M+ revenue businesses Contact owners offering to split-test their pricing pages Once it’s clear your strategy adds to the bottom line, start charging a percentage, perhaps 10-50% This is a service that might make itself obsolete to a given client within a year, so build a pipeline of other clients or offer other services after getting a foot in the door. Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Tuple thoughtbot Art of Product Podcast Ben Orenstein co-founded Tuple, a multimillion dollar company that allows coders to work simultaneously on a project remotely.
Measuring the ROI of Hiring Funnels with Aline Lerner
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets: If Aline were building another business, she would avoid selling to a cost center rather than a profit center When pricing your products and services inquire what your prospects’ discretionary budget is and price packages within that to get your foot in the door more easily. Action Steps: Reach out to engineering managers that pay Lever or Greenhouse at least 5 figures a year. Offer consulting to companies promising to analyze their hiring data and optimize their process Try to price your services within their discretionary budget to avoid facing the approval process involving a chain of command. Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Greenhouse Lever Jobvite Aline Lerner is the founder and CEO of interviewing.io, an anonymous technical recruiting platform where companies like Facebook, Uber, Dropbox, and Snap have hired great software engineers.
Smart Face Masks - Way Beyond Air Quality
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets: “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” - Lao Tzu How stressed can you really be about losing some money if you planned on giving it all away anyway? Action Steps: Brainstorm a prototype both alone and also collaborating with designers Consider partnering with A successful inventor like Dyson Someone with an existing following (e.g. have previously launched successful design concepts via Kickstarter). Create a Kickstarter to test the idea Create funnels. Create Instagram ad and funnel to Kickstarter. Take a successful Kickstarter campaign to investors and plan production Partner with Influencers. When you find a marketing strategy with consistent conversion rate double down on it. Design your product and your marketing to take advantage of virality. (make it highly remarkable and shareable). Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Acadium - Kickstart your digital marketing career for free Moe Abbas’ Instagram Moe Abbás is the CEO and co-founder of Acadium, a platform that matches digital marketing apprentices with business owners. They’re disrupting the education system by providing relevant and free training opportunities to apprentices while helping business owners grow at very little cost. Moe started from nothing and bootstrapped himself from selling landscaping services door to door as a teenager to growing his Housing Contracting Company to 10 million dollar a year by his mid 20s. And now he’s building Acadium, and changing the future of education..
Ethically-Made Diamonds and High-End Escorts
Action Steps: Look within your own network and find a jeweler to partner with Run Google Ads to develop brand awareness Reach out to local influencers to develop a partnership Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Society Service LabTika Can You Tell Which Diamonds Are Lab Grown? Lab-Grown Diamond Jewelry | What are Synthetic Diamonds? | GIA Marike Van der Velden is a Dutch entrepreneur who runs Society Service, a high-end escort service.
DuoLingo for Management & Leadership Training
Tell us what you think at update@runwithit.fm! If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Nuggets: It’s easier to pivot after starting than to get started, so just start. Management tip: to avoid over or under managing, work with your direct report to get started and then let them drive their own ship. Move fast and don’t look back: things that you think are important early on will seem trivial later so don’t sweat. Being a great curator of content can be just as valuable as creating content, especially in an increasingly noisy information space. Action Steps: Start with a very minimal module (1 week) of management training Incorporate this into blog or newsletter as content for readers to apply Consult a lawyer to check whether it’s ok to share curated ideas in a paid newsletter Target middle-level companies of 50 employees or less to begin Links: Laudable The Long-Term Effects of Management and Technology Transfer: Evidence from the US Productivity Program Google re:Work Lesson Plans as a Product with Rob Fitzpatrick Looking For Syllabus 2.0 We Need a New Science of Progress Angela Ferrante is the founder and CEO of Laudable, a startup making it easier (and more affordable) to create video content by doing it all remotely. Laudable is out to kill the boring B2B marketing archetype (cough, the PDF case study) and bring human stories to life through video. Angela was previously the founding CMO at Sparkfund, a venture-backed energy technology company. Before Sparkfund, she started the alternative energy group at a Boston-based insurance company.
How a Mom Can Start an Online Business
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets: Don’t ask friends and family whether they like your idea. If they’re good friends, they’ll lie to you. Instead, ask them about their personal experiences. Listen with an open mind when hearing things you think you already know. Oftentimes, there’s much more depth to the idea than you’ve internalized. Action Steps: Answer Joe’s guiding questions to understand what you really want from a business Choose your niche based on your interest and connections Talk with 30 members of that niche to understand their pain points Brainstorm solutions and ask prospects to pre-pay for them Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Ajax Union Joe’s LinkedIn profile (mention Run With It and he will accept your connection) Evyrgreen (LinkedIn lead generation) Lesson Plans as a Product with Rob Fitzpatrick Getting Things Done Think and Grow Rich Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of digital marketing agency Ajax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. In 2016 Joe was named the King of Kings County Brooklyn for his contribution to the business community in Brooklyn. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his beautiful amazing kids.
Digitize Identities with Ryan Coon
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets:The most important asset an entrepreneur has is her persistence; don’t start until you’re ready to “sleep like a baby” (stay up all night crying) Action Steps: Identify the problem read US Department of Justice Study on Identity Theft understand where the $25 billion per year losses are going (i.e who is getting hit the most) speak with these organizations to learn more about the challenges they are facing Develop the solution create a business plan of how one would solve this problem close the gaps needed to achieve this solution Persist Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Avail U.S. Department of Justice Study on Identity Theft Black Mirror episode White Christmas Credit Karma Stripe Ryan Coon is the co-founder & CEO of Avail, an all-in-one software solution designed for do-it-yourself (DIY) landlords that is used by more than 600,000 landlords and tenants across the United States.
[Inside the Business] with Lindsay Gabbard and Alessandro Pepe
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Nuggets:If you desire power, you shouldn’t pursue it (paraphrased from Plato’s Republic) Action Steps:Create a marketing plan for growing Roscioli Wine Club and community.wineFollow through on these action steps and email us your results at update@runwithit.fm. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.Links: Roscioli Wine Club Wine Tasting Rome community.wine The Flywheel Effect Gregg Popovich is a wine connoisseur Lindsay came to Italy 5 years ago when she was studying wine in the US, came to Rimessa Roscioli to do Alessandro's wine tasting, left in awe, fell in love in every sense did a U turn to get back. She now is a partner in the business and manages the Roscioli wine club along with partners Alessandro and Mattia. Alessandro Pepe has done it all - documentaries, theater, opened multiple wine bars in Dublin then returned back to Rome and ultimately was the mastermind behind Rimessa Roscioli, a wine bar and restaurant in Rome, and the created the Roscioli Wine Club and Community.wine.
A Tell-All Episode with Chris and Eathan
Links:Principles by Ray DalioMan's Search for Meaning by Viktor FranklAccadium - Digital apprenticeshipsCal NewportDavid GogginsTim Ferriss Podcast EpisodeErin Hooley's Run With It Episode for E-commerce Growth