411: 4 Business Ideas, 1 Growth Tip, & 1 Personal Update

Dear starters,

Welcome to the Starter Story newsletter.

In this issue, I’ll be sharing 4 business ideas, 1 growth tip, and 1 personal update. 

P.S. I'm also offering a deal on Starter Story premium for just $1.71/week (see bottom of email).

4 Business Ideas

Business ideas that are absolutely killing it right now:

#1: Inform & educate people about the stock market

Due to COVID, retail investors make up 25% of the stock market now. Also, the GameStop story is DOMINATING the airwaves and introducing many new people into the industry.

I think there is a huge opportunity to help people in the markets by helping them in their investment journey.

We just interviewed MarketBeat - they publish a free daily stock newsletter to 2M subscribers and make $14M/year.

We also interviewed Paul who makes $3K/month on the side with an investing course.

Another great example - Motley Fool's "Stock Advisor" program - they make at least $10M/year from an email course.

Want more? Get access to 3,000+ business ideas.

#2: Personal finance courses

Similar to content around the stock market, there is money to be made in helping people with their personal finances.

Why? Because everyone needs help with their personal finances!!

We interviewed Michelle who's doing $1.2M/year with her personal finance courses.

Here's some more:

(1) Michael makes $10k/month from his personal finance blog
(2) Bobby makes $88k/month from finance courses
(3) David gets 200K visitors to his personal finance blog

Still interested? Here are 40 bloggers making up to $2M/year.

#3: Handmade, durable, high-end apparel

We just interviewed Jeremy from Tradlands - they're making $1M/year selling handmade women's apparel.

I think this is a good business idea because:

- You can start from home (sewing in your living room)
- Handmade, durable items are trending

More examples:

(1) $1M/year handmade leather company
(2) $21K/mo high-end preppy clothing company
(3) $3.6M/year premium streetwear brand

There is so much opportunity in fashion. Here are 30 profitable fashion business ideas (up to $1M/year). 

#4: Shoes for X company / niche athletic brand

We just interviewed Olguy who started a $12.5k/mo running shoe company.

I think this is interesting because these running shoes have no heels.

Which got me thinking... Since people are willing to own different shoes for different occasions, you could create a better:

- tennis shoe brand
- wrestling shoe brand
- weightlifting shoe brand
- [INSERT SPORT] shoe brand

Or, really, a business around any sport:

(1) Dominic got on Shark Tank for a basketball pickup app
(2) $100k/year baseball cup brand

If you also love sports, here are 40+ more business ideas for athletes and sport lovers.

1 Growth Tip

A growth tip that I love:

#1: Build a quiz funnel

Jeremy ($1M/year) uses quiz funnels:

"Building out a quiz funnel on Typeform as shown by Eric Bandholz of Beardbrand (here and here) has proven to be our most successful on-site lead gen strategy."

In other words, he engages site visitors with a fun quiz to get their email. Read the story to check out their quiz strategy.

Want more ways to grow your business? Here are 30 ways to grow your business.

1 Starter Story Update

One update from me:

#1: We just hit 50K email subscribers!

Thank you to everyone who's subscribed and has shared this email newsletter with their friends and colleagues.

We look forward to hitting 100K, and then 1M one day :)

Could not have done this without our email platform (and sponsor) Klaviyo - what an amazing tool.

Here's our growth (daily new email subscribers) since we started:

How did we grow so much in the last year? Our SEO strategy.

Ends today: Subscribe for $1.71/week.

If you’re looking to start or grow your business, Starter Story can help.

Get unlimited access to 2,000+ case studies and 3,000+ business ideas for just $1.71/week. The offer ends today.

Or, get our Premium Plus membership for $3.83/week. This also gives you access to our Lean SEO course.

(all of our plans are billed yearly)

P.S. Huge thank you to Klaviyo - our exclusive sponsor at Starter Story. By using Klaviyo, we've grown our email list to 51K and added thousands of dollars in revenue per month through email marketing. Get Klaviyo today!

Looking for a business idea? Find yours from our database of 3,000+ business ideas.