Ideas, opportunities and things I’m thinking about right now

Ideas, opportunities and things I’m thinking about right now:

1. Finding mispriced assets. The internet has created a goldmine of undervalued businesses hiding in plain sight. AI advancements, shifts in commerce, and social media dynamics have changed the game. Sometimes you’ll come across a business valued at 4X EBITDA that really should be valued at 14X EBITDA. That spread is your retirement. The key is to spot these hidden gems. I’m developing a thesis on what that is. Worth you thinking about it too.
2. The Elon effect. Fire 90% of your team and watch productivity soar. Elon did it at Twitter, and it’s a masterclass in cutting dead weight. Most tech companies are just burning cash on mediocrity. It makes you think about your own companies. How much bloat is in your organization?
3. Localizing apps to new markets. I found an app crushing it in Pakistan that would do really well in the US. No one is doing it. Gets you thinking that sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Just find a validated product and bring it to your market. The playbook: check app store charts for different countries, localize it in another market, and scale it. There’s a world of opportunities out there.
4. The anti-Mr Beast strategy. Micro-influence > mass appeal. Building a massive audience is great, but a small, loyal following can be just as powerful. And there's way less competition. I’ve seen creators with just 10,000 dedicated fans make more impact (and money) than those with millions of passive viewers. Depth over breadth. Sleep better at night.
5. Data is the new oil. NewsCorp did a $250M deal with OpenAI yesterday. Reddit inked a $60M/year deal with Google to train their models. What are some non-obvious data sources to build that will be very valuable to LLMs in the future? Think about the unique data you have access to or worth getting access to.
6. Silent entrepreneurs. I've met a few recent entrepreneurs that are off Twitter, just quietly building empires without peacocking. I call them virgin entrepreneurs. Multi-million dollar businesses, zero social media. There’s something to be said for the “virgin entrepreneur” approach—focus on building, not broadcasting. You can also share what you're doing after you've scaled.
7. Resurrection of old products. An Australian group called Royel Otis covered the old Cranberries’ song “Linger.” It got 100M+ views. Some old products are ripe to go viral with the right twist. Dust off those forgotten ideas and give them a new life.
8. Brute force audience building: When I started my first blog in 2007, I replied to every comment. It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked. The same principle applies today—engage relentlessly, and you’ll build a loyal audience brick by brick. Taylor Swift is famous for this. Replied to every single fan 1v1 for years. I recently started replying to every YouTube comment on my YouTube and it's a reminder that's what works.
9. Pay per outcome (PPO) - the new business model of the internet. This is being accelerated by AI driving costs down. If you can’t prove value, you don’t get paid. There are industries ripe for disruption with a pay-per-outcome model. Compete with SaaS subscriptions by going pay-per-outcome.
10. I'm so bullish on YouTube right now. TikTok’s potential ban will make YouTube the hottest platform again. With new features like Shopify integration, creators can now monetize directly by picking products they like and taking an affiliate cut. I think we'll see a chunk of ecommerce AND creator millionaires being minted thanks to this integration.
11. The Half-Life of virality. A viral sensation used to last six months. Then six weeks. Now maybe six days. Noticing more and more viral sensations losing steam quickly. Either have a system for manufacturing virality or be ready to capitalize fast.
12. Embrace "being bad". You have to be terrible at something before you get good. The only way to mastery is through failure. I’ve failed more times than I can count, but each failure was a step toward mastery. Embrace the process—it’s the only way to improve.
13. Health data ownership. The next big thing in health tech is personal control of medical data. Imagine having ownership and monetization potential of your health records. I can imagine tons of startups being built to visualize this data and make it actionable. It’s about time individuals had control over their own data. The implications are huge.

Those are some ideas, opportunities and things I’m thinking about right now. Some more half-baked than others.

That was a new format I was trying. Let me know if you enjoyed it. Maybe I'll do more of it.

Next up, bookmarks I saved this week worth reading

#1

internetVin @internetvin man, some people in this city really like to take a 25mins task and spread it out over 3 years 9:51 AM • May 22, 2024 3 Retweets 50 Likes Read 2 replies

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This made me laugh. Got me thinking. Are there any tasks I'm doing that could take 25 minutes of focused work that I've spread over 3 years?

#2

Cody Schneider @codyschneiderxx its a shared apple note and a group chat that's the infrastructure to start a software company stop overcomplicating this do product and growth 5:0 PM • May 20, 2024 0 Retweets 12 Likes Read 4 replies

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Amen.

#3

Ian Nuttall @iannuttall Here's your reminder to raise prices. Gumroad increased their fees to 10% and made $10M MORE PROFIT from $15M LESS GMV. 11:18 AM • May 20, 2024 1 Retweets 57 Likes Read 8 replies

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Today's reminder to increase your prices.

#4

Shane Mac @ShaneMac Once everyone can code with AI, everyone will get to experience how hard it is to build something people actually want. 2:37 PM • May 19, 2024 0 Retweets 10 Likes

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This hit hard. Anyone who's built anything, knows what Shane means here. And I couldn't agree more. That's why distribution/marketing skills matter more in the AI age than anything else.

New podcast episode is live with Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole. These guys are my go-to friends for the business of writing (they make 7 figures/year doing it). We discuss startup ideas related to using data to write books with AI and human beings. Watch on YouTube​ Listen on Spotify​ Listen on Apple Podcasts​ Enjoy!

Thank you for reading Greg's Letter. I hope you found it valuable. Forward to a friend if you did or share on social to get others thinking.

Until next week.

Be well,

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