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How I Launched A $1.5K/Month Science Box For Kids

View this in your Web Browser IdeaEconomy.net Ideas and Opportunities for Hustling Startups Forwarded this by a smart friend? Subscribe Here. Thursday, August 13, 2020 1 VEED.io - Zero to $1m ARR in 12 Months Bootstrapped VEED.io Video editing SaaS, VEED.io shares their lessons learned growing the company to $83k per month from nothing. Three key ideas are: 1. start with the simplest MVP, 2. validate your ideas fast to make sure there is a market for the product, 3. charge for the product early on. Here is another good article from VEED on how they grew to 50,000 users with no budget. 2 Need business ideas? Watch out for Unbundlings Hundreds of businesses have been started from unbundling other platforms like Craiglist or Reddit. You've probably seen the famous image (above) of all the dozens of spin-offs from Craiglist, attributed to Andrew Parker in 2010. Businesses like AirBnB, eLance, PlentyofFish, oDesk, StubHub, CouchSurfing, and Homeaway all focused on a narrow Craiglist niche. Jakob Greenfield suggests more opportunities with the unbundling of Reddit, spreadsheets, WordPress, hippie culture and more. The flipside of this argument is also interesting. Many of these initial spin-offs are now out of business and there is a re-bundling as the industries consolidate. Business Opportunities: What sub Reddits or Craiglist categories are underserved? Spending a few hours thinking about interesting niches like this is bound to lead to some cool opportunities. 3 The Fastest Way to Become the Person You Want to Be Benjamin-Hardy-Pesonality-Isn't-Permanent Authority Benjamin Hardy makes the case that Personality Isn't Permanent in his latest book. "At some point, we “settle down.” We stop engaging in new roles and new situations that bring out new and different sides of us. Because people’s lives become highly routine, both in their social roles and their environments, you begin to see very predictable behaviors and attitudes. This is one of the core reasons that personality is viewed as stable and predictable over time. It’s not that your personality itself becomes stable but rather that your routine environments and social roles lock you into habitual patterns." Lesson: If you want to change who you are, change your environment and friends. This is one of the reasons I love a digital nomad lifestyle. I call it a digital nomad reinvention every time my family arrives in a new city. 4 17 Advanced SEO Strategies for 2020 Brian Dean from Backlinko has some interesting advanced SEO strategies that you are probably not utilizing now. It's a good idea to keep up the latest in SEO to make sure you are maximizing your ranking opportunities. 5 How I Launched A $1.5K/Month Science Box For Kids During COVID-19 Quarantine

Whitney Bowen, the founder of Fem ‘n STEM science boxes shares her story of building a $1.5k per month business in a few short months. Whitney sells “STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) themed boxes with all of the necessary materials to carry out four science experiments per box.” This is a good look into what it took to get the business started.

StarterStory is a premium site, but there are free articles available each month. It’s a good site to see what it takes to get a business started.

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DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) Businesses on Trends

DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) Businesses on Trends

Dru Riley is covering Direct to Consumer retail on this week’s edition of his Trends.vc newsletter. Subscription businesses like Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s are very lucrative businesses.

One interesting prediction is the importance of influencers in this space. Having an audience to market to is critical. Influencers will increasingly create their own product lines, rather than just promote others.

Matt Ward’s analysis on online retailing is also worth a read if you are interested in this space.

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Birchbox’s Katia Beauchamp On Scaling Relationships, Building Trust, And More

Birchbox’s Katia Beauchamp On Scaling Relationships, Building Trust, And More

Katia Beauchamp talks about how she started the the 8-figure subscription beauty box company Birchbox.

The value of positioning: Cosmetic companies typically give away samples, and up to 90% end up unused. Birchbox sells samples and customers go to buy more of what they like. See Sam Page’s “What are you really selling?“

Hustling for first customers: They got 200 boxes made and asked 40 people they knew to email friends about the business. Those first customers lead to 1000 people on their email list.

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