Happy Trends Tuesday!

HubSpot’s 2024 million-dollar pitch competition is officially open — get your application in! It'll be kinda cool to see you in Boston this summer. 

To help you prepare, we tracked down the founder of Doola, winner of last year’s ultimate prize. Read his take on raising money, perfecting the pitch, and growing the company in an emerging space.

P.S. Today’s no-code webinar is happening in 12 hours... Don't miss out! ⌛

In today's email…

• Vagus nerve care is the latest health trend
• The million-dollar pitch secrets from last year’s winner
• What we’re surfin’, from TikTok predictions to Zuck’s acquisition emails

Let's dive in!

🫡 EASY FIVE-YEAR PLANNING

It’s not about sticking to a stiff agenda, but setting some goals and seeing what flies. Grab this template and make yourself a roadmap for the future.

🚀 WHERE TO BUILD NEXT

Caring for your vagus nerve can be big business

That sinking feeling in your stomach when you’re nervous? 😣

It’s the doing of your vagus nerve – or “wandering nerve” – a highway in the human body that connects to almost every internal organ.

It lets your brain talk to your gut (hence the stomach churn), but also regulates your digestion, heart rate, breathing, and a heck lot of other things.

Source: Google Trends, six-month rolling average

As folks prioritize their mind-body connection, vagus nerve care is getting a good share of Internet attention: 

• “Vagus nerve exercise” gets 185m+ views on TikTok
• “Vagus nerve stimulation” gets 54k searches/mo, per Ahrefs
• Amazon’s bestselling stimulator raked in $1m+ last month

The global vagus nerve stimulation market is worth ~$483m in 2023, and set to exceed $1B by 2031.

Some opportunities to cash in on the rising awareness of vagus nerve care:  

Specialty spa experience

The $21B+ medical spa market can be a solid investment, and a good fit for vagus nerve care. 

Single-location spas get an average of ~$2m in ARR, with a 20%-25% profit margin. On average, a medical spa owner can make $300k – $375k a year. 

You can incorporate vagus nerve massages or non-invasive stimulation into existing spa experiences, and market this feature to draw in more customers. 

If a spa is too costly to start, you can also become a certified specialist in vagal toning – aka using the activity of the vagus nerve to improve overall health – for $599. 

Content and product curation 

This YouTuber focuses on nervous system healing and pain relief, and her most viewed videos are all about the vagus nerve – the highest being a vagus nerve exercise tutorial that got 6.8m views.

Don’t limit yourself to video tutorials – it can be as simple as curating a music playlist, like this video that gets 1.4m views on YouTube. 

Or, use content as the funnel to a e-commerce offering, like a “vagus nerve self care kit” that includes: 

• Vagal massage gadgets – e.g. the ZenBud headset 
• Books on taking care of your nervous system
• Snacks and supplements rich with Omega-3 fatty acids (good for the vagus nerve)

The supplement piece can stand on its own, too — almost ​​40% of supplement takers are early adopter-types eager to try the newest thing, and vagus nerve support will play well in this crowd. 

Take a page out of Hims’ playbook and white label vagus nerve supplements with your own branding. 

Niche down

Everyone and their dog (literally) has the vagus nerve...

So here's a crazy thought — you can take all the ideas above, and apply them to specific demographics, or even species. Keep reading to see the opportunities.👇

♟️ OPERATOR WISDOM

How this $40m startup got its first 100 customers

You’ve heard the phrase “when you know, you know” – aka the magical feeling that something just… works. 

That’s how Arjun Mahadevan felt when he pitched his company, Doola, at HubSpot’s Million Dollar Pitch Competition in 2023. 

And he won. 🏆 

But getting there was no magic. So I caught up with Arjun for a glimpse of his secret on consistently wowing investors, growing the company, and more.

Source: Inbound.com

Doola makes starting a business easier by offering a service called "Business-in-a-Box™.” It streamlines the process of business formation, obtaining an Employer Identification Number (EIN), and managing bank accounts. 

Founded in 2020, it has now helped 10k+ business builders set up their companies. Investor interest also remains high, with influence-preneurs like Codie Sanchez jumping on board. 

But how did Doola get their first 100 customers? 

💨 Hustle within your network

He actually acquired Doola’s very first customer by shooting his shot and Twitter DM-ing someone in his network.

“For the first few customers, you beg, you scrap, you hustle, bother your family, friends, network… you do whatever it takes,” Arjun said. 

Brutal, but powerful. 

💬 Paid ads + instant support

In the early days Arjun deployed paid ad campaigns, which had pop-up chat bubbles asking if prospects wanted to talk to Doola’s 24/7 support.

When someone clicked into the chat, Arjun would get instant notification on his phone, and drop everything to respond.

He even fashioned a mobile workstation with a phone stand and a clip to bring everywhere. 

The result? He won a ton of businesses because customers were stoked about how fast this company responded to them. 

🗣️ Content + word of mouth

The team also created thought leadership content through social media and the company blog. 

Arjun himself is an active voice on LinkedIn with 46k+ followers. He also shares public updates on Doola’s numbers. 

Content is a longer term investment, or as he calls it, “climbing the cringe mountain.”

We’re here for it. Source: LinkedIn

“You won't see results from that immediately, but over time people will come in through that, hit your website, and convert. Then you start to get word of mouth because that founder who used you, they know other founders too. And if you wow them, they will tell their friends,” Arjun said. 

🤝 Lean into human touch

Over 66% of Doola’s customers live outside the US. These entrepreneurs aren’t familiar with the legal landscape here, and want a human to walk them through the process. 

To help them, Doola offers free, around-the-clock consultations. 

“If you can have a 15-minute conversation with us, and we can appease those fears and help you get excited, it builds a lot of trust going forward,” Arjun said. 

This also helps him learn how customers discover Doola, and their specific needs, creating a flywheel that feeds into product development and marketing. 

The “we made it” moment

Even with high-profile investments and a $40m valuation, the “we made it” moment only came when Doola passed $1m in ARR.

For Arjun, that’s a sign of finding product-market fit.

Crossing the zero to one threshold kicks everything into gear, and makes it possible to continue growing the business.  

“It doesn’t mean there won’t be hiccups and roadblocks ahead – every year the challenges get bigger,” Arjun said. “But you now have the confidence that with hard work, consistency, and understanding customers, it's possible to do it.” 

Keep reading to see how Arjun prepared for the pitch that won $1m from HubSpot, and the hardest question he had to answer in all pitch meetings. 

🗂️ OPEN TABS

👑 Royals: Has "distribution" dethroned content as the new KING? Discuss.

🔮 Tok: While we still got TikTok, here are 4 predictions for creators

📧 From X: How Zuck thinks about acquisitions, via his emails on the IG deal

🎧 Listen: Biz wiz Greg Isenberg shares his framework on building a kickass AI business