Brainstorms Issue #17

Brainstorms Issue #17: Trying Something New

February 18, 2021

Brainstorms Issue #17

Trying Something New...

This week, I’m experimenting and iterating on my product. Rather than sending out 1 fully fleshed-out idea, I’ve got 3 shorter ideas.

As this truly is an experiment, I need your feedback to help push Brainstorms in the right direction.

At the bottom of this email, I’ve made it super easy for you to give feedback on this issue - you literally just need to click a button. 

With that said, let’s get into this week’s Brainstorm!

3 Startup Ideas

#1: Glassdoor for Athletic Programs

The Pain Points

As an up-and-coming student-athlete, it’s hard to know which college athletic program is best for you as their primary source of information is recruiters.

Recruiters are like car salesmen - some are good, some are bad. The bad ones will tell potential student-athletes whatever they want to hear so they join the program. This lack of transparency leaves potential recruits and their parents wondering what the program is actually like.

The Opportunity

Someone should create Glassdoor for athletic programs. Glassdoor is a website where current and former employees can anonymously review companies that they worked at. The anonymous reviews give potential employees a more transparent view into a company’s culture, salaries, and how they’ll be treated.

This same concept would be perfect for athletic programs. Giving new student-athletes access to information from previous or current student-athletes helps add a new source of transparency to an otherwise untrustworthy process.  

Current Solutions

#2: Tattoo Design as a Service

The Pain Points

Recently, I got my first tattoo, and it was a surprisingly difficult process. Without going into all the details, I had the most challenges getting the initial tattoo design and picking a style that suited me best. After talking to over a dozen artists I found two big problems:

  1. Many tattoo artists won’t design a tattoo until the week or day of the tattoo. This leaves very little time for edits/revisions.

  2. Without having a clear picture of what you want, it’s hard to know if a tattoo artist will be able to pull it off.

The Opportunity

To solve my problem, I decided to find a tattoo designer to help me flesh out my ideas. This was a much more affordable and quicker way for me to tweak my design and get it right before talking to a tattoo artist.

The site I used was low quality, user experience needed work, and there was a lot of back and forth between me and the artist that didn’t need to happen. Despite all that, the site still charged $250 to get a design from them. While I was ultimately happy with the end result, I see an opportunity for competitors in the space.  

Current Solutions

#3: Easy Side Project Emails

The Pain Points

As someone who is always coming up with new side projects, it can be expensive to purchase email hosting from G Suite for every new project. Many times, I just want to look professional with a “[email protected],” but i dont always need the full-features of a G Suite.

The Opportunity

I came across Sidemail while trying to solve this problem. Sidemail lets you easily set up forwarding to a primary inbox as well as send from an alias domain. Unfortunately, this product is defunct. I’ve reached out to the maker serval times, but he hasn’t gotten back to me.

Someone should either buy Sidemail (as it appears to be abandoned) or replicate it. It received over 1,100 upvotes on Product Hunt and definitely fills a need.  

Current Solutions

Validation Bootcamp

I've still got a spot open for the Validation Bootcamp. Check out my announcement for more details. 

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Thanks for reading - now get out there and build it! 

Catch ya next week, 

Keevin ✌