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Surprisingly simple stupid businesses- that somehow work

RicardoGrande

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Like any good TFF member, I spend any possible downtime listening to talks with founders. I like hearing about people getting off the ground and getting started, and how quickly (or not) they were able to take off.
A big, painful recurring theme is that there seem to be a lot of what I call "simple, stupid businesses" that execute on something I or probably any other sane person I know wouldn't think about, or write off as being dumb... but they appear to take off anyway. I don't have the time at the moment to go back and look but Ryan Moran has a lot of people from his community stepping forward reporting how their items crossed the 1m/yr revenue mark doing simple things like selling water bottles with inspirational messages on them (I believe she told Ryan she had a 3m$ exit selling these things which are just water bottles: https://www.liveinfinitely.com/)

Another case in point: These guys at Dude wipes - About Us

You can see it in plain english in their timeline.
1693513724482.png
What I read: We were absolutely blowing out our bowels due to horrendous diets. We got hooked on using baby wipes to save our tender sphincters, liked it, and decided to white label our own for men and just sell them.

Granted, that's not the full situation and I haven't listened to anything from the founders, but I almost fell off my chair reading that and exploring their offerings. Now, I'm one of those people that follow Ryan Moran's content and see people building audiences and pull it off with surprisingly simple stupid brands like "chocolate chip cookies for late snackers" or "Matcha tea for young professionals". Having read TMF /US and then looking back and seeing people do this just makes my head spin. Some of them make marginally more sense like a tool for woodburning hobby or the guy that makes extender plates porsche spoilers- but even those required barely anything to get off the ground, just an audience (or willing to try ads) and some money to directly order or have someone fabricate the first batch of product.

I guess in the end, there's probably a broader message about executing and just seeing what works- not getting hung up on the "perfect idea" or the "lifetime value" (especially if this is your first go around with a business that seems to be running reasonably well). Just picking something you feel and can confirm a need for, and getting off to the races.

What do y'all think?
 
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MJ DeMarco

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What do y'all think?

Confirms what I've been saying for years... if you skew value on just one value attribute, you technically have a business.

And in a lot of cases, that attribute is just marketing and positioning. Dude wipes? This is nothing knew, travel sized or not, it's just a different target angle on market positioning.
 

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The market doesn't care how complicated or how much work you put into building your product. The question is, does it provide more value than the cost of the product to someone? If it does, you have a winner.

Take PEZ for example. The candy is nothing special. It is filled with sugar, but I wouldn't say that the candy is what draws people to it. PEZ found out that their real selling point was the delivery of their product. How many candy companies have a delivery system for candy that rivals PEZ? If there is, I would guess it is limited as I can't come up with anything off the top of my head. Kids want a little toy figurine and candy at the same time. Brilliant!

Take the drink, Karma. When it is on the shelf it is literally water, and then some power in a cap. You have to push the cap to release the powder into the water. If the company just mixed the drink for us, there would be literally no difference(minus minor flavor differences) then every other flavored water drink. Yet, here I was back in college, wasting my money on this stuff.

I bought it because it was just different. College was the same every day, every week, and every semester. But this flavored water was different.

Karma.PNG

You don't need to build the next computer. You just have to build something different. As MJ said above, add a value skew.
 

James Klymus

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I actually just watched a few videos on Ryan's channel because you mentioned him, And it's super inspirational to hear some of these stories.
 
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Caminsky

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Confirms what I've been saying for years... if you skew value on just one value attribute, you technically have a business.

And in a lot of cases, that attribute is just marketing and positioning. Dude wipes? This is nothing knew, travel sized or not, it's just a different target angle on market positioning.
Did a week camping with my kid and his Scout Troop earlier this summer. I bought some "field towels," just a larger version of wipes. They were a lifesaver and allowed you to get the grime and sweat off on days when you couldn't get to a shower.

They had such a simple value proposition: Make a bigger version of wipes and market them for camping/hiking. Worked great and was far from reinventing the wheel.
 

RicardoGrande

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Here's another one:

They ran into issues with capital for launching a... pretty journal. They built a 3200 person email list to try to get 15,000$ on kickstarter but ended up getting about 300k in a month and 10,000 units in pre-sales.

A JOURNAL.

(to be fair, a journal for "people that want to be excited about starting and recording their days", but STILL.)
 
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Caminsky

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Here's another one:

They ran into issues with capital for launching a... pretty journal. They built a 3200 person email list to try to get 15,000$ on kickstarter but ended up getting about 300k in a month and 10,000 units in pre-sales.

A JOURNAL.

(to be fair, a journal "for people that want. to be excited about starting and recording their days, but STILL.)
I read an article about some kid who made six figures off a Notion template. He saw some weakness in the market and capitalized on it. The opportunities are out there, but it's up to us to find them. Myself included.

Edit, found the article: I made $239,000 this year selling budgeting and productivity templates online. It's the perfect business to start as a one-person team.
 
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Aidan04

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The market doesn't care how complicated or how much work you put into building your product. The question is, does it provide more value than the cost of the product to someone? If it does, you have a winner.

Take PEZ for example. The candy is nothing special. It is filled with sugar, but I wouldn't say that the candy is what draws people to it. PEZ found out that their real selling point was the delivery of their product. How many candy companies have a delivery system for candy that rivals PEZ? If there is, I would guess it is limited as I can't come up with anything off the top of my head. Kids want a little toy figurine and candy at the same time. Brilliant!

Take the drink, Karma. When it is on the shelf it is literally water, and then some power in a cap. You have to push the cap to release the powder into the water. If the company just mixed the drink for us, there would be literally no difference(minus minor flavor differences) then every other flavored water drink. Yet, here I was back in college, wasting my money on this stuff.

I bought it because it was just different. College was the same every day, every week, and every semester. But this flavored water was different.

View attachment 51108

You don't need to build the next computer. You just have to build something different. As MJ said above, add a value skew.
This realization hit me a few weeks ago. Now my "invention book" is filled with ideas that take a product and add several value skews onto it, or just combine several similar products into one thing.
 

Mikkel

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This realization hit me a few weeks ago. Now my "invention book" is filled with ideas that take a product and add several value skews onto it, or just combine several similar products into one thing.
Awesome! I'm not an IP lawyer, but my understanding is that combining existing designs to make a new design is allowed to have its own IP.

Making modifications to improve a product is a great way to value skew.

There are plenty of product that I wish were slightly different. Make the difference, reap the reward.
 

MRiabov

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This realization hit me a few weeks ago. Now my "invention book" is filled with ideas that take a product and add several value skews onto it, or just combine several similar products into one thing.
Ah, the Inventors Journal! I'm not the only one...
 
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RicardoGrande

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Here's another one:

"Cheap polyester headband that doubles as a sleep mask and also has earbuds" but there's also a children's version ...and they have disney licensed editions.

 

WJK

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Like any good TFF member, I spend any possible downtime listening to talks with founders. I like hearing about people getting off the ground and getting started, and how quickly (or not) they were able to take off.
A big, painful recurring theme is that there seem to be a lot of what I call "simple, stupid businesses" that execute on something I or probably any other sane person I know wouldn't think about, or write off as being dumb... but they appear to take off anyway. I don't have the time at the moment to go back and look but Ryan Moran has a lot of people from his community stepping forward reporting how their items crossed the 1m/yr revenue mark doing simple things like selling water bottles with inspirational messages on them (I believe she told Ryan she had a 3m$ exit selling these things which are just water bottles: https://www.liveinfinitely.com/)

Another case in point: These guys at Dude wipes - About Us

You can see it in plain english in their timeline.
View attachment 51104
What I read: We were absolutely blowing out our bowels due to horrendous diets. We got hooked on using baby wipes to save our tender sphincters, liked it, and decided to white label our own for men and just sell them.

Granted, that's not the full situation and I haven't listened to anything from the founders, but I almost fell off my chair reading that and exploring their offerings. Now, I'm one of those people that follow Ryan Moran's content and see people building audiences and pull it off with surprisingly simple stupid brands like "chocolate chip cookies for late snackers" or "Matcha tea for young professionals". Having read TMF /US and then looking back and seeing people do this just makes my head spin. Some of them make marginally more sense like a tool for woodburning hobby or the guy that makes extender plates porsche spoilers- but even those required barely anything to get off the ground, just an audience (or willing to try ads) and some money to directly order or have someone fabricate the first batch of product.

I guess in the end, there's probably a broader message about executing and just seeing what works- not getting hung up on the "perfect idea" or the "lifetime value" (especially if this is your first go around with a business that seems to be running reasonably well). Just picking something you feel and can confirm a need for, and getting off to the races.

What do y'all think?
I think you're right. People take this all way too seriously. You can take an idea and run with it. See if it works. Tweak it. Change it. Try a different approach. Start small. The main thing is to get your idea out there. It doesn't need to be perfect. Find out what works and doesn't work for your customer. Try a new customer base. LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN....

I think about the teenagers who are building businesses where they wash windows. They started with almost no start-up costs. What's more basic than that? There are a couple of people who have built huge businesses mowing lawns and hauling trash. I knew a guy in LA who started a pool cleaning service to pay his way through college. His business was so successful that he continued when he was done with college. I have an account at a plumbing store that is owned by a local plumbing contractor. Between his plumbing services and his store, he has a multi-million dollar business. (I know I spend thousands there every year.) My assistant sells boxes of Alaskan rocks on the net. She goes to the beach, picks up pretty rocks, and sends them out in flat-rate boxes. My dog groomer shows up every month with her table to trim our dog's nails. And she does a bunch of dogs while she's here. My friends and tenants show up with their dogs. We have a "dog party" each month in the porch of my office. And each dog owner pays the groomer for her services. That's a nice payoff for the groomer and it's fun. Oh, my mechanic just showed up in my driveway. He comes with his toolbox and uses our shop space to work on our vehicles. Just some ideas...
 

karas499

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Like any good TFF member, I spend any possible downtime listening to talks with founders. I like hearing about people getting off the ground and getting started, and how quickly (or not) they were able to take off.
A big, painful recurring theme is that there seem to be a lot of what I call "simple, stupid businesses" that execute on something I or probably any other sane person I know wouldn't think about, or write off as being dumb... but they appear to take off anyway. I don't have the time at the moment to go back and look but Ryan Moran has a lot of people from his community stepping forward reporting how their items crossed the 1m/yr revenue mark doing simple things like selling water bottles with inspirational messages on them (I believe she told Ryan she had a 3m$ exit selling these things which are just water bottles: https://www.liveinfinitely.com/)

Another case in point: These guys at Dude wipes - About Us

You can see it in plain english in their timeline.
View attachment 51104
What I read: We were absolutely blowing out our bowels due to horrendous diets. We got hooked on using baby wipes to save our tender sphincters, liked it, and decided to white label our own for men and just sell them.

Granted, that's not the full situation and I haven't listened to anything from the founders, but I almost fell off my chair reading that and exploring their offerings. Now, I'm one of those people that follow Ryan Moran's content and see people building audiences and pull it off with surprisingly simple stupid brands like "chocolate chip cookies for late snackers" or "Matcha tea for young professionals". Having read TMF /US and then looking back and seeing people do this just makes my head spin. Some of them make marginally more sense like a tool for woodburning hobby or the guy that makes extender plates porsche spoilers- but even those required barely anything to get off the ground, just an audience (or willing to try ads) and some money to directly order or have someone fabricate the first batch of product.

I guess in the end, there's probably a broader message about executing and just seeing what works- not getting hung up on the "perfect idea" or the "lifetime value" (especially if this is your first go around with a business that seems to be running reasonably well). Just picking something you feel and can confirm a need for, and getting off to the races.

What do y'all think?
LOL @ the dude wipes example. I love this post because it's what I'm finally starting to see myself, the value skew. I love listening to Ryan Moran (started recently) and this idea has gotten me to write down products I use everyday and to write down who I am, what avatar I would be and see how I could best market a product I use to someone like myself since I will better understand this audience. It's so easy to overthink this.
 
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WJK

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LOL @ the dude wipes example. I love this post because it's what I'm finally starting to see myself, the value skew. I love listening to Ryan Moran (started recently) and this idea has gotten me to write down products I use everyday and to write down who I am, what avatar I would be and see how I could best market a product I use to someone like myself since I will better understand this audience. It's so easy to overthink this.
I think about the story about the dad who sent his teenage son over the buy mis-shapened watermelons, which he sold at huge profits -- rather than getting a summer job. There are so many opportunities out there! And they can become a side gig. They don't have to be a home run.
 

RicardoGrande

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Here's another one:
Have to parse out some relative's belongings and get rid of it or find a way to move the cool stuff forward.
Was on the page of a local antique mall when something caught my eye- they do a community market every Sunday.
"Okay, well what's so special abo-"
They charge 425$/mo for 1 day (sunday) booths for vendors to sell stuff.

Granted, not everyone just has a commercial building, but half of their booths are just spaces in their parking lot.
So here's a business where you already have something, allow people to set up and sell and you're theoretically making an extra 4,250$/mo with no extra overhead if you land at least 10 vendors, which should be easy if you're an established community store.
 

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I'll have a listen to thesr podcasts. I saw one from Ryan from a guy who runs ballsy.com
 
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ZackerySprague

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Here's another one:
Have to parse out some relative's belongings and get rid of it or find a way to move the cool stuff forward.
Was on the page of a local antique mall when something caught my eye- they do a community market every Sunday.
"Okay, well what's so special abo-"
They charge 425$/mo for 1 day (sunday) booths for vendors to sell stuff.

Granted, not everyone just has a commercial building, but half of their booths are just spaces in their parking lot.
So here's a business where you already have something, allow people to set up and sell and you're theoretically making an extra 4,250$/mo with no extra overhead if you land at least 10 vendors, which should be easy if you're an established community store.
I have an e-commerce store for you. Try selling to Mothers who have children with big purse-looking bags. An old friend of mine bought an e-commerce store a while back from another person. This person created this bag that she sold for $440 dollars a piece. From what I hear, she hasn't been active in the store. It's a product that is known to sell. The bag is a bit pricey but if you could come down on price a bit. It has a huge AOV. Women in particular loved it. The owner sold it to my friend because she wanted to do other endeavors.
 

RicardoGrande

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I have an e-commerce store for you. Try selling to Mothers who have children with big purse-looking bags. An old friend of mine bought an e-commerce store a while back from another person. This person created this bag that she sold for $440 dollars a piece. From what I hear, she hasn't been active in the store. It's a product that is known to sell. The bag is a bit pricey but if you could come down on price a bit. It has a huge AOV. Women in particular loved it. The owner sold it to my friend because she wanted to do other endeavors.
Yeah, simple, visible stuff like that (and in this thread) are success cases one can see all the time.
In one of the DFW TFF meetups in 2019 there was a kid who showed up who helped run his family's ecomm shop. His parents started it as a side a thing selling equipment for what you'd think is a relatively saturated niche with ALL the standard products you'd find in big box stores but they seemed to be doing very well regardless.
 

RicardoGrande

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Yet another one:

"What if Workout supplements... but alpha gigachad?"
They don't seem to have been in operation for too long but already at almost 900 amazon reviews. Seems to be coffee with a few extras in it.

F5rTbMdXMAE4q_N.jpgApplicationFrameHost_QqYucNDGIs.png

Again, posting these because I'm stupefied at how easy and quick this can be.
Forget that the nutrition space is arguably one of the most saturated on earth- they have gigachad :cool:
I used to think Ryan Moran was completely full of sh!t but if you can crap out instant coffee with a gigachad picture and make tens of thousands a month than he's completely right and I'm the idiot lmao.

("Down bad to Gigachad" is going to be the title of my autobiography now)
 
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This realization hit me a few weeks ago. Now my "invention book" is filled with ideas that take a product and add several value skews onto it, or just combine several similar products into one thing.
James Altucher recommends having 5 ideas every day.
 

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I used to think Ryan Moran was completely full of sh!t

I signed up for Ryan’s ‘free email course’ not so much for the course itself as to learn more about how he does content marketing/lead nurturing. I’ve been a little underwhelmed with the first couple of emails. Today’s one, though, was along the lines of ‘I’m updating my paid course because it wasn’t good enough (not enough people were taking action) and the price will be going up a lot. Get in now”. Lots of urgency etc. Not sure if that is for real or a scam to generate FOMO but saying our product's no good but we're fixing it so you should buy it now is an interesting approach.
 
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RicardoGrande

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I signed up for Ryan’s ‘free email course’ not so much for the course itself as to learn more about how he does content marketing/lead nurturing. I’ve been a little underwhelmed with the first couple of emails. Today’s one, though, was along the lines of ‘I’m updating my paid course because it wasn’t good enough (not enough people were taking action) and the price will be going up a lot. Get in now”. Lots of urgency etc. Not sure if that is for real or a scam to generate FOMO but saying our product's no good but we're fixing it so you should buy it now is an interesting approach.

Yeah I'd say don't go for it it's 3k/yr. He promises there's coaching and accountability but I don't trust anything that expensive and recurring. Thing is: A bunch of success stories were people who either only read his book, listened to the pocasts, or were in his paid course back when it was only like 30$/mo(!).
What I'm doing instead is trying to e-mail some of these founders esp if they were in a situation like me.

One I respected that was on the podcast was a guy who hated college, hated the thought of working, so he wanted to found a cookie brand for people that "like cookies at night" but didn't want to balloon up in weight. He went and did it after reading Ryan's book (and allegedly only that) and right now he's just launched product #2, making about 9k/mo and is working on releasing #3. They're literally a slightly more expensive copy of hi-key cookies too, he just films random vlogs and slaps them onto tik tok to give people an "inside eye" on his """"journey"""" haha.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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The amount of opportunity out there that is just created with minor value skew is absolutely astounding. I never can understand these people who continually complain about a lack of opportunity.

  1. Order some cheap shit from China.
  2. Hire some girls in sports bras and men with muscles.
  3. Show them "ooohing and ahhhing" on Instagram ads.
  4. Collect XXX% profit.

 

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A couple of good store finds:


Use Koala Inspector to see stats, their doing good.
 

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Some of these are just so insanely random:

1702510031727.jpeg
View: https://youtube.com/shorts/1Bm9uCukgds


A fake trading card game about the hallmarks of divorced dads.
- put stock photos of assorted daddery on cardboard as a joke
- filmed it and posted videos
- spoke to the ccg niche but was so relatable it spread like wildfire outside of the niche
- selling 20c worth of cards for 20$ a pop

It's at the point other creators are getting in on the joke and people are making fan animations of divorced dads having anime battles.
Probably not a long term business (games and cards do actually seem to do well) but he just *tried* something and it blew up and landed money into his bank account.
 
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RicardoGrande

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Here's an interesting one.
There's been a lot of drive thru coffee shops popping up all over the place with different kinds of positioning.
On one end of the spectrum are places like dunkin with their fast and cheap iced coffee.
In the middle you can have something like dutch bros.
At the end you'd have starbucks or local coffee shops pushing 7$ for a large latte.

One started popping up in my area called Seven brew. It's a drive-through only fast coffee place. It's not overpriced (hallelujah) and I noticed something interesting.
1705175003879.jpeg

1) Drive thru only (you could walk up to the benches outside but it's sort of like a shake stand and not encouraged to hang around)
2) Everything seems to be automated and simplified- every time I go they have wall-to-wall bottles of different flavoring syrups (literally just off-the-shelf Torani's syrup). They have pop-and-go espresso machines that appear to grind beans, pour out the specified amount of coffee, and dump the espresso base into the cup. From there the employee just dumps in milk/ice/syrup and the drink is DONE, I've gotten a drink in as little as 45 seconds from order before. Every single thing on the menu is just a different combo of off-the-shelf ingredients that just need to be tossed into a cup.
3) Staff expertise is largely removed from the process, I'm not a simp for corporations using humans as flesh automatons but I've seen at least 3 sets of employees come and go in the past months. There's no brewing, no special espresso pours, no fancy customization or things that need in-depth barista secrets. Going with point #2, you just need someone who can run an ipad and take payments or put cups in front of a machine and spurt syrup into a cup.

1705175025662.png

Looking into their numbers, they at least appear to be doing 337k revenue/employee.
This is SURPRISING because they're essentially doing what I can do in my kitchen with a keurig and a bottle of Torani's but at SCALE and make $$$ off of it. The coffee is just okay but at it's price point and speed I see a bumper-to-bumper line everytime I pass that place.

Guess the biggest lesson here is in scale, simplifying, and looking for opportunities other people could blatantly look over- if you had asked me if I thought I could run an iced coffee cart using pre-made coffee and torani's syrup I probably would've made up a million excuses why that shouldn't work... but like we see in everything else in this thread, sometimes it does if you just try.
 
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Bigguns50

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Here's an interesting one.
There's been a lot of drive thru coffee shops popping up all over the place with different kinds of positioning.
On one end of the spectrum are places like dunkin with their fast and cheap iced coffee.
In the middle you can have something like dutch bros.
At the end you'd have starbucks or local coffee shops pushing 7$ for a large latte.

One started popping up in my area called Seven brew. It's a drive-through only fast coffee place. It's not overpriced (hallelujah) and I noticed something interesting.
View attachment 53538

1) Drive thru only (you could walk up to the benches outside but it's sort of like a shake stand and not encouraged to hang around)
2) Everything seems to be automated and simplified- every time I go they have wall-to-wall bottles of different flavoring syrups (literally just off-the-shelf Torani's syrup). They have pop-and-go espresso machines that appear to grind beans, pour out the specified amount of coffee, and dump the espresso base into the cup. From there the employee just dumps in milk/ice/syrup and the drink is DONE, I've gotten a drink in as little as 45 seconds from order before. Every single thing on the menu is just a different combo of off-the-shelf ingredients that just need to be tossed into a cup.
3) Staff expertise is largely removed from the process, I'm not a simp for corporations using humans as flesh automatons but I've seen at least 3 sets of employees come and go in the past months. There's no brewing, no special espresso pours, no fancy customization or things that need in-depth barista secrets. Going with point #2, you just need someone who can run an ipad and take payments or put cups in front of a machine and spurt syrup into a cup.

View attachment 53539

Looking into their numbers, they at least appear to be doing 337k revenue/employee.
This is SURPRISING because they're essentially doing what I can do in my kitchen with a keurig and a bottle of Torani's but at SCALE and make $$$ off of it. The coffee is just okay but at it's price point and speed I see a bumper-to-bumper line everytime I pass that place.

Guess the biggest lesson here is in scale, simplifying, and looking for opportunities other people could blatantly look over- if you had asked me if I thought I could run an iced coffee cart using pre-made coffee and torani's syrup I probably would've made up a million excuses why that shouldn't work... but like we see in everything else in this thread, sometimes it does if you just try.
Thank you for this! I've had an idea for a drive-thru coffee where I live for months now. I feel there's a definite need for this where I live.
 
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Xeon

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I'm actually curious how do these guys even get the word out there for this kind of businesses, because these are not the type of things people search for daily on Google. I assume they burn 5 - 7 digit figures a week on FB ads with investors' money, or throwing 5 - 7 figures a week at TikTok/IG influencers.
 

MitchC

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Yet another one:

"What if Workout supplements... but alpha gigachad?"
They don't seem to have been in operation for too long but already at almost 900 amazon reviews. Seems to be coffee with a few extras in it.

View attachment 51334View attachment 51335

Again, posting these because I'm stupefied at how easy and quick this can be.
Forget that the nutrition space is arguably one of the most saturated on earth- they have gigachad :cool:
I used to think Ryan Moran was completely full of sh!t but if you can crap out instant coffee with a gigachad picture and make tens of thousands a month than he's completely right and I'm the idiot lmao.

("Down bad to Gigachad" is going to be the title of my autobiography now)
Not sure if you randomly found this or if you posted it because you know but the owner of this is an Amazon guru

 

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