Day One: an IDEA can change your life

Day One of Seven Day 100$ Startup

If you’re new, welcome! I’m Arjun Agarwal and this is my newsletter. I hope it convinces and helps you to start the next Fortune 500 compony.

I would like to request my not-business loving readers to also read through this. Business terms have been used at a minimum and I have tried to make it as accessible as possible for all of you to also try this public experiment.

IDEA

Let’s start with something without which a business can undoubtedly not exist, an IDEA. From 48 Hour Startup by Dorthy Fraiser:

Every business begins with an idea, so the first step in the 48-hour startup process is to come up with one. Usually, this is where people fall into a great black hole of endless dreaming and scheming. Some people can’t come up with any ideas at all and some come up with too many and can’t decide which one to pick.

One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from an American called Charles H. Duell. All the way back in 1899, when he was the US Commissioner of Patents, he proposed that the Patent Office’s days were numbered and that it ought soon to face closure. He proclaimed that ‘Everything that can be invented, has been invented.’

Of course, more than 100 years later, his comment strikes us as farcical. When we think of all of the innovation and change that has happened in the century that followed his proclamation, it is clear that he was very much wide of the mark. But the funny thing is that this is exactly the type of comment I hear people making almost every day.

So let’s start, shall we?

WE WOULD LIKE TO INTERUPT YOU WITH AN IMPORTENT ANNOUNCMENT

Please eliminate all distractions. We are trying to startup in less time with less budget. Can you imagine wasting time on a internet rabbit hole?

Now you can return to the actual post.

RIP USP: Never existed, still dead.

TV entrepreneurship will normally tell you that you need some USP, some defensibility to make a big company. You don’t. The idea of USP has been hammered into our heads but think about it for a moment, how many successful companies actually have ‘USP’?

My message to USP

A minority. It’s very simple, today the market is full of competitors, copycats, fakes and imitators. You can no longer have a monopoly or USP, at least not for long.

But what you can have is a unique brand and a unique story. So let’s work on that.

The Confluence Method

The basic method of jotting down your interests based on your heart and then playing elimination based on your mind. An easy way to find your interests(if you are a citizen of net) is to make a list of the subreddits and YouTube channels you have followed/subscribed to. Some one may even consider Instagram but in my experience people follow way too many things/accounts on Instagram.

But again, if you think including Insta will help, go ahead.

For my list, instead of reveling the exact data, I am going to include the major topics

My list

1. Books

2. Writing

3. Self-improvement

4. Dungeons and Dragons

5. Math’s

6. RPG’s

7. Designing Games

8. Board Games

9. Food

10. Cooking Food

11. Magic

12. Mentalism

13. Magic The Gathering

14. Engineering

15. DIY

16. Bullet Journal

17. Art

18. Map Making

19. Films

20. Games

21. Theorizing

So let’s play elimination, shall we. First lemme remove things I am not incredibly well versed with. Basically be like Lori(Shark Tank USA) or Namitha(Shark Tank India), It is not my expertise, that’s why I am out. Also try to cut down atleast half the things on the list, every step. Treat it like a bracket.

Let’s see, in bracket one I am much better at games than writing fan theories. So that settles that.

Bracket two is slightly more difficult. I am fond of both reading and writing books. But more avid reader so… we’ll go with that.

Bracket three, foodie for life.

Bracket four, I like MTG but bullet journals don’t come with copyright problems.

Bracket five, I already have RPG’s in the other bracket so Board Games.

From the top, I like games over art. Math’s over films(proof of nerd). Books over DIY. Food over designing games. Bullet journal over map making. Self-Improvement over magic. Engineering over Board Games. Cooking food over RPG’s.

I like Math’s better than games(Nerd detector active). Foodie for life. Bullet journal is self-improvement, and much more niche. Cooking Food cause I am a foodie.

I am gonna choose food over math, as I am a better at cooking than at maths. I don’t have a phd.

Also I am gonna choose Bullet journal over cooking just to make sure we don’t end up with two food things.

So in the final we are left with, Bullet Journal and Food. We are not gonna choose between either. In the third position matchup we have Math’s and cooking, we are gonna consider neither.

So now that we have out winners, let’s actually do the convergence.

Every successful business can be defined as the convergence of the founders passion/interest with something that is a problem people want to pay for.

My topics of interest were food and Bullet journal. Let’s look for three problems and a solution to each in the given niches.

FOOD:

1. Coffee is expensive and making it at home time consuming.

   1. Coffee mixed with sugar and chocolate and other things.

   2. Cheap coffee place

   3. Easy equipment to make it at home

2. The never-ending list of new food to try

   1. Food subscription box.

   2. Hotel Coupon finder

   3. Recipe Subscription box

3. Lack of new recipes

   1. Personalized recipe finder

   2. Peer Review Recipe app

   3. A restaurant which keeps on changing its menu every week.

BULLET JOURNAL:

1. Time Consuming

   1. Pre-made Bullet Journal

   2. Bullet Journal stickers

   3. Bullet Journal design which I could copy

2. Not Presentable

   1. Pre-Made Bullet Journal

   2. Easy Bullet Journal themes

   3. Bullet Journal Printables

3. Too-complicated for new members to enter

   1. Pre-Made Bullet Journal

   2. Printables

   3. Stickers

Once I wrote this list down, I had an euphony “The solution to all the bullet journal problems are already in the market.”

I know that I am not an excellent artist and nor I have the time or money to hire one, at least not for this project. So the best option: Let’s go with food.

Pro Tip

So we are trying to startup in 1 week. We most probably cannot make a tech company, again I am not saying it is not possible. I am just saying it is not probable. Therefore I am going to eliminate all tech solutions which need me to code(or get coded) something more than a simple website.

So now I am left with:

FOOD:

1. Coffee is expensive and making it at home time consuming.

   1. Coffee mixed with sugar and chocolate and other things.

   2. Cheap coffee place

2. The never-ending list of new food to try

   1. Food subscription box.

   2. Recipe Subscription box

3. Lack of new recipes

   1. A restaurant which keeps on changing its menu every week.

Another thing I wish to eliminate from my list are things that require real-estate. Like restaurants or cafe’s. I like sticking to online B2C intially, but this is just a personal choice. I am not making any suggestion here.

So now I am left with a basic list of three ideas:

1. Coffee mixed with other ingredients which you can add to a cup, mix and drink.

2. Food Subscription box

3. Recipe Subscription box

Here, I decided to compare Google Treads. Here are the results:

So coffee wins by a huge margin. Also I made a comparison for coffee subscription box also where coffee was barely left behind by food.

That basically shows that people are mighty interested in coffee, and that is a good thing.

So basically I am now making a coffee business where I sell instant coffee.

The Story

So let’s get into the nitty gritty of the story, shall we?. I can connect this business with one of my biggest fails, The Bold Quill.

We basically made kits to make DIY vintage letters. It was a partnership with an very artistic friend. But like most artists she didn’t believe in punctuality and the business closed on net loss of $6.00(which I took cause I am a good friend)(I called it a big fail cause I was invested in the idea emotionally).

But I still have some of the envelopes we purchased and what better way to sell coffee cheaply by actually packing it in post envelopes and mailing it. If I include a hand written thank you post card in the envelopes, at least in the initial ones, I can also develop a personal connection with the customer.

Unfortunately as Envelope Coffee is already taken. But no worries, I can name it Coffee by the Post (a play on coffee by the pot).

And there we go, I have a idea and a name. Tomorrow, I’ll have to create a product, the packaging and the marketing.

Balance Sheet

Start - $100

Spent - $0

Time left- 6 days.

The AA guarantee

The AA guarantee says that:

If you follow the series of articles dedicatedly and diligently and still don’t manage to make a business you are happy with, I’ll buy your business for the 100 USD you may have spent.

That means you get the learning of the fail but none of the loss.

This guarantee is in place to motivate all of you, whether or not you were interested in startups or not, to create something.

Warm regards,

Arjun Agarwal.

Despite being a bussiness lover, this newsletter is not sponsored by a giant, all-powerful corporation. You can help me grow in three ways.

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