🧠 3 Idea Thursday - Slack Clone, Genius Shopify App, & Power Washing Hustle

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BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

As some of you may recall, a few weeks back Keevin announced he was looking to sell Brainstorms.

Well, he sold it to me. Your new Brainstormer-in-Chief, Andrew Haag.

To prove my bona fides, here’s a small sample of my past entrepreneurial endeavors:

• I started a company called Bloom Dudes to help men buy flowers for the women in their lives. Unsurprisingly, this went nowhere.

• I built an agency (generous use of the word as it was just me subbing the work to a white-label WordPress design firm) that made websites for schools and local governments.

• Last but certainly not least, my most proud business achievement was making a WHOLE 100 BUCKS training Pokemon on my Gameboy for other kids when I was in 4th grade.

Outside of that, I’ve spent my career in the SMB world getting sweaty and operating businesses.

These days, I run Biz Dev for an EdTech company. But my free time is spent deep in the bowels of the internet, learning about interesting businesses, finding weird trends, and discovering up-and-coming opportunities.

I love it. Not just because I’m looking for my next business idea, side hustle, or spectacular failure (RIP Bloom Dudes). But because it’s thrilling to learn what’s possible.

People like us aren’t just seeking the perfect idea for our next company. We love this stuff because fuels our existing projects, fires up our own idea machines, or just gives us a good laugh at what the entrepreneurial spirit can bring into the world.

With that said, today I’m gonna tell you about 3 ideas so hot they make Sriracha taste like a snow cone:

• Slack for Communities: A good old-fashioned clone job.

• Clever Shopify App: The next evolution in “spin the wheel for discount widgets.” And..

• Pressure Washing: Spray the ground, collect the $$.

🧠 1: Community-Focused Slack Clone

Slack is the go-to for lots of paid/free communities since so many of us are already there for work. However, the pricing leaves much to be desired once a community starts to scale.

The current alternatives all have their own issues:

• Discord - Tons of great features, but the UI can be intimidating to the non-gamer crowd.

• Skool - A bit too simple. And developing a reputation as the go-to option for sketchy gurus with a course to sell.

• Facebook Groups - Probably the lowest barrier to daily use (everyone’s on Facebook), but hard to keep organized.

Why not clone the Slack UI and price it to be friendly for community-based businesses?

If you can overcome the usage hurdle (there’s a reason so many groups use Slack and Facebook; people are already there every day), this could be a big opportunity.

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🧠 2: Genius Shopify App

Today’s magic number: $36.

That’s the ROI of every dollar spent on email marketing. Getting into your customer’s inbox is a MASSIVE unlock. Especially if you’re a consumer brand.

And if you’re a brilliant brand, like Fabletics, you’re getting creative in how you do that. Like gating products for members/subscribers/email hander overer’s only.

Genius.

Here’s the opportunity: after a quick search, I couldn’t find a Shopify app that makes this process easy for brands to do. So go build one. With over 4M active Shopify stores, it shouldn’t be too hard to quickly scale this to $10k+/month.

If this sounds interesting to you, stay tuned. I juuuust might be working on a longer piece on how you can build, sell, and grow this thing to $1M.

🧠 3: Pressure Washing At Scale

Ohhh, pressure washing. Most people’s experiences with high-velocity water hoses start and end with those oh-so-satisfying time-lapse videos.

But did you know that the businesses drenching us with premium entertainment are also soaking in premium margins?

Granted, this one is pretty sweaty. And most of the spraying is done overnight.

But if you’re good at getting leads and finding reliable subcontractors, this can be a pretty slick side gig.

SIDENOTE: I did lead gen for local service businesses for years, including helping a friend scale a cleaning business to $20k/month. If this idea wets your whistle, let me know, and I can do a deep dive into the different ways to leverage the lead gen+subcontractor business model.

🧠 BONUS: Million Dollar Food Truck

More like a billion-dollar food truck.

Let’s be honest. This is my best idea today.

📖 Brainfood

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

1. Scott Galloway was recently on the My First Million Podcast. Here’s the thing about ole Prof G. Half of what he says, I hate. The other half, I love. I think that’s a sign he’s worth listening to. Which you can do here.

2. Rainmaker raised $6.3m to, well, make it rain. They’re a cloud-seeding company founded by a dude named Augustus. Augustus has a mullet. I love everything about those last 3 sentences.

3. Myles Snider is a chef who launched a recipe site that is just… his recipes. No ads, no popups, and no stories about how the writer visited their aunt in Georgia one summer and fell in love with a local only to realize they weren’t meant for each other but how parted ways reminds them of this apple pie recipe. That was probably just copied off a pie crust package. We need more Myles Sniders recipe sites in the world.

That’s it for this week.

Now that I’m steering the Brainstorms ship, I’d love to get your feedback on what you want to see every week.

• Do you like the 3 idea format? Or do you prefer deep dives on just 1 idea?

• Maybe fewer specific ideas and instead cover more trends, problems to be solved, or general opportunities?

• What about industries? More tech? Service businesses? SMB/sweaty stuff? Franchises? Underwater arts & crafts?

I’m here to give the people what they want, so reply to this email and let me know!

— Andrew ✌️