Checkout backends, CGM for inflammation, office relocations, an Excel bot making $5k/month, a magical mantra,...

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

• “Research shows that connecting to your values can help you get through difficult experiences. I’ve been using GPT-3 to help me connect to my values every day. It’s mind blowing how much better it is than traditional journaling.” - Dan Shipper

  • Related: OpenAI just released “new embeddings at a ridiculously low price”. This means you can embed, for example, for $40 all Joe Rogan podcast's transcripts or even complete books. Two examples of what this could look like here and here. So one idea would be to let people choose their favorite self-help books or podcasts and then use OpenAI to create an AI-powered customized coach based on this input.

  • Related: “I recorded my therapy session yesterday and transcribed it using Whisper. Now going to use GPT-3 to summarize it, pull out patterns in my thinking, and help me look at things in a new way. [….] This as a SaaS for therapists! Damn that would be huge value add to their clients.” - Dan Shipper

  • Related idea: “Betterhelp for specific niches. They do $800m/year in revenue and are unbundling quickly TLDR; There is an opportunity to build multiple $1-10M businesses here in 18 months” - Greg Isenberg. You could focus, for example, on specific issues like phone and social media issues / addiction" or on specific groups like entrepreneurs.

• Gumroad just casually announced that it’ll increase its fees by 100-300% even though they’re growing, profitable, and have millions in the bank. Understandably this makes a lot of people quite mad. Lots of sellers have been unhappy with Gumroad for a while given, for instance, their weird design choices and feature prioritizations. So it looks like the recent announcement is the final straw to break the camel's back. Luckily, we live in a free market economy and whenever something like this happens, there are plenty of opportunities for savvy entrepreneurs.

  • The most obvious one is to build a competitor. The source code of v1 of Gumroad is even publicly available here. There are already quite a few competitors but most of them don’t seem to understand the one big reason why people are using it instead of just Stripe: tax compliance. Gumroad acts as a merchant of record and takes care of annoying compliance duties like VAT in Europe. So a simple platform with a fair fee structure that acts as a merchant of record and makes it super easy to sell digital products would be a great starting point. Focus on building a simple, flexible checkout backend that takes care of global sales taxes and has fair fees.

  • If you build a competitor, don’t get distracted like Gumroad by trying to do everything at once. Theoretically Gumroad replaces landing pages, email marketing, and hosting courses, in addition to accepting payments. But they’re not doing any of that particularly well. So just focus on an easy-to-use backend for sellers and let them use whatever landing page builder or email platform they like.

  • Oh and definitely don’t try to raise money since this most likely will force you to go down that route. Gumroad raised money at a $100M valuation and is now scrambling to justify this number. A simple checkout backend that charges, say, 3% on top of payment processing fees should make for a very healthy indie business.

  • Another opportunity would be to offer a concierge service that helps Gumroad creators migrate to a better and cheaper platform like LemonSqueezy.

• “The number one health device id love to see invented is a cgm for inflammation. even a blood test more comprehensive than crp would be massive (imagine something like a1c that showed trailing 3 month avg). Believe this is upstream of so so many mental and physical health issues.” - Sam Sager

  • Note: CGM = Continuous Glucose Monitoring. So the idea would be a device to monitor inflammation markers continuously to get clear data on what’s causing it.

  • Studies show strong links between inflammation and many common health problems like poor sleep quality and even things like, for example, impulsivity and lack of focus. So anything that helps to get a better grip on the problem would be a huge step forward.

  • There is also a growing body of evidence that certain compounds like Sulforaphane (naturally contained in broccoli sprouts, cauliflower, kale, watercress, …) can have a powerful anti-inflammatory effect and hence potentially help with these problems. So if you’re interested in the health/supplement industry this looks like a promising trend to look into.

🛠 Things Worth Checking Out

• Short Squeeze. Have you ever wondered what the top minds of Wall Street are investing in? The Short Squeez ‘Insiders’ membership cover topics like portfolio reviews, investment ideas, knowledge drops and picks of Wall Street’s finest. Join 170k investors today and get a free hard copy of Psychology of Money.

• The Daily Needle helps you to start thinking about mindfulness, society, and money. Become as sharp as a needle and sign up!

• Psychology of Marketing. The best marketing is based on science, not assumptions. And in the newsletter, Abhi shares 1 psychological breakdown with 18,000+ marketers every week. Sign up for $0 here.

• High Signal. Pete Codes shares 5 indie startup news stories every Friday as well as one podcast recommendation and one funny Tweet. It’s a great way to keep up to date with bootstrapped startups without spending all day on Twitter.

🚧 Domain Development Opportunities

Normal people browse Zillow, entrepreneurs browse great domain listings. Here are cool domain names that recently expired and are now auctioned off plus some ideas on what do to with them. (Inspired by Peter Askew’s playbook)

• WebinarFunnel.com - review site of different webinar funnel software.

• VeganShopping.com - shopping guide, e-commerce store

• OfficeRelocation.com - marketplace/directory of companies helping businesses relocate.

• JobCoaches.com - directory/marketplace. AI-powered job coaches for different problems/situations.

• SpaDesign.com - build a niche version of Interior AI that leverages AI to draft Spa designs.

• More e-commerce opportunities: ManicureKits.com, PortableBeds.com, DinnerwareSets.com,

Alan Lee 🚀 @helloalanlee

Thanks, @jakobgreenfeld for your domain suggestion in a recent newsletter. I have won the bid ! #blogai

👨‍🎓 Framework

• The Framework: F*ck it, let’s do it!

• Explanation: The number of times you say (or think) "f*ck it let’s do it" per day is a great metric to determine how much progress you’re making as a founder. Every time you’re saying or thinking this, it indicates successfully won a fight against “The Resistance”, that invisible force that’s holding you back in any creative pursuit. Instead of wasting time and energy worrying, just say “f*ck it let’s do it”. It’s a great mantra to push yourself out of your comfort zone and take calculated risks.

• Examples:

  • Instead of worrying whether or not to publish that tweet, say to yourself "f*ck it let’s do it" and publish it.

  • Instead of worrying whether or not to launch that project, say to yourself "f*ck it let’s do it" and launch it.

  • Instead of worrying whether or not to reach out to that person, say to yourself "f*ck it let’s do it" and do it.

💸 Revenue Signals

• Excel Formula Bot is at $5k MRR. (“Transform your text instructions into Excel formulas in seconds with the help of AI”)

• EmailEngine is making $7k/month. (“Access IMAP and SMTP email accounts via REST interface”)

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

PS: Wanna partner with me? If you are interested in reaching my audience, click here.