🧠 3 Idea Thursday - Global Talent, Quickbooks, and Buying Used Electronics

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Another week, another 3some of business ideas.

The house number curb painting idea from last week was a hit. I had a lot of parents email me asking for more ideas to introduce their kids to business.

Honestly, “entrepreneurship for kids and teens” could probably be it’s own weekly newsletter. But #3 below is another door-to-door idea that would make a great summer gig.

Now, let’s get into it. Today’s ideas are so good that you might as well call them centipedes.

They got legs.

1. Global Talent - A unique angle on the global talent game.

2. Quickbooks Apps - Lots of problems looking for solutions.

3. Door-to-Door Buys - Why sell when you can buy?

🧠 Idea #1: Global Talent Service

Hiring global talent is all the rage right now on Twitter (I mean X. I’m never getting used to that), thanks to people like Nick Huber and his company Somewhere. Or Sahil Bloom and a company he invested in, Landed.

Finding talented people overseas can be a big win for any business.

There are loads of companies you can use to find potential hires, but I’m intrigued by Sagan Passport. You pay ~$10,000 a year, and they will headhunt up to 6 hires for you. Or you can pay ~$30,000 for up to 30 hires.

The opportunity here isn’t starting a company to compete against those guys. The opportunity is to use Sagan as your “backend” to find great talent and offer a value-added service to your customers.

I think the trick here is to go niche. What does that look like?

• Use Sagan to hire bookkeepers. But you don't just start a bookkeeping company. You offer bookkeeping services to seven-figure HVAC companies.

• Use Sagan to hire video editors. But don’t just start a video editing company. You offer short-form video editing for eComm businesses in the health and fitness niche.

• Use Sagan to hire virtual assistants. But you don’t just start a VA company. You offer operations assistance to “Mommy Bloggers” and family-focused influencers.

The key is to pick a service, then pick an industry, and then pick a specific type of customer in that industry. If you go too broad and shallow, you won’t be able to justify the markup.

Niching down three levels allows you to focus on value-added services and expertise, incentivizing your customers to hire you instead of a direct employee.

The global talent trend continues to spread, so you won’t be able to take advantage of this model for much longer.

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🧠 Idea #2: Quickbooks Plugins

Here’s a useful framework for finding business ideas: look at app/plugin/extension marketplaces. If a customer base is very large and the number of plugins is very small…$$$.

For example, Shopify has over 4 million stores and around 13,000 apps. Saturated.

On the other hand, Quickbooks (accounting and bookkeeping software) has almost 30 million users but only 750 apps. Opportunity.

So, what should you do with that information?

• Keyword Research - Find out what people are searching for, “Quickbooks app for X”, “Transfer X data to Quickbooks”. Go make it.

• Review Analysis - Dig through reviews for existing plugins and look for ones with lots of bad reviews. Lots of reviews mean lots of demand, and bad reviews mean the current options are subpar. Build a better one.

• Cross Platform - Look at other accounting software, like Xero, find the top apps, and copy them for Quickbooks.

🧠 Idea #3: Door-to-Door Purchasing

As I mentioned up top, I got a lot of requests for more kid/teen-friendly ideas. Here’s a good one.

You know what’s easier than making money doing door-to-door sales? Doing door-to-door BUYS.

Specifically, buying used electronics. Every family has a basket, box, or under the bed floorspace full of old electronics: phones, tablets, laptops, you name it.

1. Go door to door, tell them you're buying old electronics, and leave a brochure with a date and time on it.

2. You say you’ll come back on that day. You don’t want to wait awkwardly in their living room while they dig everything up.

3. You quote them a price based on a proprietary formula (just looking it up on eBay or Gazelle.com)

4. Give them cash, then go home and list them on eBay, Mercari, or Facebook Marketplace with a nice little markup.

Lots of business education going on here. Sales chops, eComm knowledge, and cash management skills.

If you want more of these, let me know. I’ll find some other ways you can turn your kids into future entrepreneurs.

🧠 BONUS Idea: Hotel Reviews

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hotel showers that are barely more than a gentle misting.

📖 Brainfood

Here’s a 3-pack of useful/interesting/entertaining content I’ve come across this week:

1. If you’re looking for more inspiration to teach your kids about business/finance/entrepreneurship, this thread has LOADS of great recommendations.

2. I love David Perell’s podcast, How I Write. In this episode, he grilled Shaan Puri on how to become a better storyteller. If I had to sum it up, Shann’s advice is: every story needs an Intention, an Obstacle, and Stakes.

3. This thread has some wild stats on the “Disney World of youth baseball”.

That’s all she wrote. Well, it’s all I wrote.

Let me know what you enjoyed from today’s ideas. Or what you hated. All feedback is good feedback if you have enough irrational optimism.

— Andrew ✌️