Early stage CRMs, domain development opportunities, adult playgrounds, hard pivots, ...

Hey,

this is Jakob Greenfeld, author of the Business Brainstorms newsletter - every week I write this email to share the most interesting trends, frameworks, opportunities, and ideas with you.

Let's dive in!

💡 Opportunities

• “Notion is eating up the early stage CRM role and sticking around into later stages due to gravity. Lots of opportunity to build full B2B apps on top of Notion API. Yes, platform risk, but you can diversify across CRMs after PMF.” - Drew Bredvick

• It’s hard to find good-looking plastic-free clothing while at the same time, people are becoming more aware of the dangers of having microplastic in your system. Your skin is your largest organ and it seems likely that having plastic on your skin all day is not healthy. So I think there’s a great opportunity to establish a vocal brand as the leader in this fight.

• “What I would *REALLY* love to have is a private version of ChatGPT that’s been trained on your internal org documents. Have an HR question? Ask Chat. Don’t know how to use some application? Ask Chat. When is the next vacation day? Ask Chat.” - Bojan Tunguz

🚧 Domain Development Opportunities

Constraints breed creativity. This is why I think a great framework to find business ideas is to start by looking at available domain names. (To learn more about this approach, read Peter Askew’s playbook.)

• MedicalExams.com: An online platform that allows people to book appointments for medical exams with local clinics and doctors.

• CustomizedClothing.com: An online store that offers customized clothing pieces designed by customers and produced by professional designers.

• DrugDetoxification.com: An online platform that provides access to drug detoxification services and resources.

• ContactNow.com: SaaS that provides fully-managed contact pages for businesses or influencers. E.g. ContactNow.com/Jakobreenfeld.

• CarVacuums.com: An online store that sells car vacuums and related accessories.

• LaserTubes.com: An online store that sells laser tubes and related accessories.

• JuiceBottles.com: An online shop that sells glass juice bottles.

• GoKartRacing.com: A website that provides information and resources for go-kart racing enthusiasts.

• WaterTests.com: An online platform that provides access to water testing services and resources.

All of these domain names are currently being auctioned off at GoDaddy. Just put the domain name in the search bar to find the corresponding auction.

🛠 Things Worth Checking Out

• SaaS Origin Stories Podcast. Deep conversations with founders as they share how they started their SaaS journeys. You’ll hear firsthand the do’s and don’ts of building and growing a SaaS company and inspirational stories to fuel your own SaaS adventures. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

• KP’s Column. A weekly advice column about how to build in public, grow your startup and create world-class communities. Join 7000+ founders, execs and creators uncovering proven playbooks and secrets.

• Microns.io is a marketplace to buy micro-startups (read: affordable) without commission my friend Ilya Novohatskyi runs. I really like the idea of buying a business that already has some traction instead of trying to start something from scratch. And even if you’re not quite ready to buy a business yet, browsing the Microns’ listings is a great way to get ideas since you can see directly how much revenue different projects are making.

📈 Trend Signals

• Painting to Gogh is an ecom store that sells paint at home kits. They deliver art supplies along with step by step video instruction from artists around the world.

• Very clever way to package well-established products to create a new category. Estimate is they make around $9M/month in revenue.

• Adult playgrounds are outdoor recreational spaces specifically designed for adults, with features such as fitness equipment, exercise areas, climbing walls, and adult-sized play structures.

• They are often located in public parks, community centers, and other public spaces. I see more of them popping up in every city and companies that built them are definitely killing it.

👨‍🎓 Founder Reads

• This is an incredible post by Athens Research founder Jeff Tang. Jeff decided a hard pivot is necessary. He started talking to all kinds of smart people about the opportunities they're seeing. Then condensed each convo into 1-4 bullet points. Incredible density of valuable insights in this post.

• Love that he’s not sitting at home trying to come up with some idea but instead goes out and talks to people. Great example of what it means to “Get on the Plane”.

Why We Stopped Working on Athens, and What I'm Doing Next

💸 Revenue Signals

• Skyward Digital is generating $30k/month right now. (“We're a small, passionate team of freelancers who love improving UX and working with modern Jamstack tech.”)

• Golfstead is generating $21k/month. (golf affiliate site)

• Dubble made $1024.05 of sales in January. (“Dubble watches how you work and translates your actions into written step-by-step guides, videos and screenshots - so you don’t have to.”)

End Note

As always, if you’re enjoying this report, I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two. You can send them here to sign up.

Have a great week,

Jakob

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