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Hey — It's Nico.

This is the second edition of 💡 Startup Ideas, a weekly newsletter where I share my startup ideas.

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As every week, this free issue contains 1 idea. The other 2 are only for Pro members, which has a price of $9/mo.

​Get full access to Startup Ideas Pro for $9/mo →​

Today's ideas are:

• A travel app.
• (Pro) Food subscription box
• (Pro) B2B productized service.

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💡 Idea #1: Analytics & stats for trips

As I’ve mentioned in previous emails, I’m from Argentina, but I’m currently living in Spain, doing a study-abroad program.

Being in Europe makes traveling much cheaper and faster. While traveling from Argentina to a European city can cost +$2,000 and take +10 hours, doing it from Spain can cost $50-$200 and take 2-4 hours.

That’s why I’ve spent my last weekends visiting Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, etc. Doing these trips is how I came up with this startup idea.

As a fan of analytics and stats, I’m always attracted by apps tracking my life and breaking it down into numbers (steps per day, hours slept, average blood sugar, etc.).

That’s why I’d pay for an app that provides me with a report with stats and other interesting information about these trips. Things like:

• A heatmap of the city based on the places I visited and spent the most time on.
• The routes I took and attractions I visited each day.
• What was the weather like throughout the days.

It could also integrate with other apps to generate stats related to nutrition, blood sugar, sleep quality, etc., as well as integrate with the Photos app to show your pictures over a map.

Also, it could generate comparisons between users’ data to come up with things like “places I didn’t visit, but most other tourists did,” as well as comparisons between a user’s trips to suggest things like “in this place, you slept better than in this other place.”

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⚙️ Business Model: One-Time Purchases

I’d happily pay between $5-$15 for each of these reports.

I wouldn’t pay per month for it. The reason is that I generally don’t travel every month, so it doesn’t make sense to me to pay monthly for it. Most people don’t travel monthly, either.

I have to say the low price per report does this business, as I’m suggesting it, not have the potential of becoming huge ($Ms/month).

These reports don’t help users in any specific way - they’re just a nice-to-have. Therefore, the CLV won’t be huge.

Something you could do is to provide part of the report for free and charge for unlocking the premium sections.

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🆚 Competitors: Google Maps

In 2015, Google Maps launched Timeline, a feature that lets you see the attractions and restaurants you visited and the routes you took (as well as how you moved, whether by car, bike, or walking) on a selected date.

Timeline has a section called “Stats” where you can find insights like how much time you spent shopping, which was your most common transportation method, and which day was your busiest.

Moreover, if you have an Android phone and use Google Photos, it integrates with the Photos app and shows some pictures of the places you have been to.

This is the nearest thing I’ve found to this business idea. However, Google Maps Timeline is only focused on location-related information. It doesn’t provide any insights into weather, nutrition, or any other information that can be extracted from other apps. Moreover, if you don’t use Google Photos, it doesn’t show any pictures of your trip.

I don’t feel like Google Maps will ever integrate with these other apps. It just doesn’t make sense to do so just for one specific feature of the app.

Another thing is that the Google Maps Timeline feature isn’t thought for trips but rather for day-to-day usage. This means that the stats generated aren’t oriented to tourists and therefore don’t say things like “you didn’t visit this place which 80% of tourists do”.

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✅ Validation: Service

You need to validate if people are willing to pay for this kind of report. You can do so by pre-selling access to your app.

Here’s what I would do:

1. I’d create a fake report for a trip you’ve done.
2. Then I’d promote this report in a few communities and social networks and say you’re building an app that helps generate these.
3. Pre-sell access to unlimited reports.

Define a milestone that means enough validation for you. For example, 100 pre-sales in 1 month can mean the idea is validated. Stick to this milestone to decide whether to work on the project or move on to something else.

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🛠 Building: Technical Co-Founder

Building such an app requires having technical knowledge, so if you’re not a developer, you may want to find a technical co-founder.

Building the integrations is what might take the biggest amount of time. Start lean only with the most essential and common integrations, like the Health app. Many other apps integrate with this one, so by building this integration, you’re already connecting to lots of other apps.

Another integration could be Google Maps - that way, the app would have access to the user’s location history and be able to generate reports for their previous trips.

The UX part is also important. A design that gets users to be interested and have fun while checking their trip insights will make users become repeat customers and talk about their app to their friends.

A perfect team for building this app would therefore be an iOS developer and an app designer.

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💰 First 100 Customers: Community, WoM & ASO

1. Community: Join online communities and forums of frequent travelers and share examples of trip reports. Share a link to your app without being spammy (you can share it only when someone asks you how you’ve created it).
2. Word of Mouth: Encourage users to share the reports or specific stats in their social networks or with their friends. To do so, add some insights that people might feel happy or proud of, which will lead to more people sharing them.
3. App Store Optimization: I think few people search in the App Store for keywords like “trip stats” or “trip insights”. However, you can rank for travel-related keywords and some of the users searching them might get interested in your app.

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💡 (Pro) Idea #2: Food Subscription Box

A subscription box can be a really profitable business. HelloFresh, a meal kit company, has a market cap of $4.08B, for example.

This idea is a subscription box in a niche within the food industry.

This subscription:

• Has no direct competitors.
• Can be easily validated.
• Can be built with no-code tools like Shopify.
• Grows mainly through partnerships and influencers.

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💡 (Pro) Idea #3: B2B Productized Service

Products are easier to buy than services. That's why I’ve lately been hiring more productized services than freelancers.

This is a productized service idea related to tool implementation.

This service:

• Is B2B.
• Has a high CLV (of +$10,000).
• Can be built with no-code tools.
• Grows through cold outreach and community.

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🤯 Unlock Startup Ideas Pro for $9/mo

​Become a Startup Ideas Pro member and get access all to the weekly premium startup ideas, including today's ones:

• Food subscription box.
• B2B productized service

Each one with:

• Possible business models.
• Research of competitors.
• Ways of validating it.
• Tools to build it.
• Strategies to acquire your first 100 customers.

With your Pro membership, you'll also get access to a community where we'll be talking about everyone's startup ideas.

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What do you think of this new newsletter?

• ​​🔥 Great​​
• ​​😒 Meh​​
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Cheers,

Nico