We keep an ongoing rough list of startup ideas which we think are high-potential, and for which we haven’t yet seen a compelling opportunity to invest. These all address compelling problems, and we’ve included below our proposed solution. But, we have no idea if we’re correct. Our goal here is just to spark thought about ways to address the market needs below. For more ideas, see What startup will you build? Identifying market white space.
If you’re working on any of these ideas (or any other), consider joining Versatile VC as an Entrepreneur in Residence.
These ideas are in no particular order. Use them at your own risk.
Opportunity: CEOs/CFOs (specifically of early-stage tech companies) have trouble identifying the optimal source(s) and type(s) of capital to fund their company.
Potential solution: Neutral tool for assessing all corporate financing options against both cost of capital and risk. A site featuring:
- Graphic ease-of-use of Venture Deal or Mint
- Risk assessment similar to Stratifi (past investment)
- Covers all financing options, including but not limited to: Traditional equity venture capital and private equity, debt, merchant cash advances/factoring, Revenue-Based Finance, Recurring revenues (Capchase and Pipe), Flexible VC, Small Business Association Loans, Equity crowdfunding (e.g., Republic, past investment)
- Format of output: Very graphical with sliders, and also using the “SMART Box®” (“Straightforward Metrics Around Rate and Total Cost”), backed by the Innovative Lending Platform Association
- Business model: referral fees from financing providers
Models/competitors: A number of firms offer versions of this, usually focused on a subset of financing options: Capital’s Cost of Equity estimator (probably the most ambitious); Lighter Capital’s Cost of Capital Calculator; 645 Ventures’ cap table simulator; Bootstrapp.co’s Comprehensive Cost of Capital Calculator; NoteGenie.io
There already exist numerous debt marketplaces, e.g., Nav, Primerates.com, BitX, Capx, Capital Source Group, Fundera, Intro by Indie.VC, GUD Capital, LenCred, Lendio, NerdWallet Small Business Loans, QuickBooks Capital, SmartBizLoans.
Detailed business plan available on request.
Opportunity: Most organizations don’t fully leverage their broader network of supporters and allies.
Potential solution: “Action Tank”: A business which helps enterprises to execute initiatives which require coordination across diverse non-employee stakeholders, e.g., make a large sale to a critical client, or lobby for a change in regulation. We want to use our proprietary technology and network to tap the relevant players to take the relevant steps forward; and identify, document, and disseminate best practices to do so. We envision this as an enterprise SaaS company with a strong consumer-facing component, initially targeting NGOs and then over time institutional investors, corporates, etc. Details on how NGOs can leverage their followers: How Non-Partisan Business Leaders Can Help Fix America; Partisan Activism 101 for Investors and Executives.
Summary of our ask: Seeking CEO+team to Make America Functional Again.
Detailed business plan available on request.
Opportunity: People have trouble sticking to their goals, particularly ones set as New Year’s resolutions.
Potential solution: A company that motivates people to do what they want to do/strengthens self-control. Example: Stickk, Wellth, Clarity (past investment, acquired by Goldman Sachs Marcus for >$100m).
Opportunity: Private companies often have inconsistent valuations by multiple shareholders in the same firm, often holding the same security.
Possible solution: Co-op of valuations of private companies, with cost paid pro rata by their investors and possibly the companies themselves.
Opportunity: Employees of regulated companies are conducting important correspondence with clients on their chat/whatsapp/Wechat, and compliance isn’t capturing that information.
Possible solution: Real-time tracking of all employee communication on all channels.
Opportunity: Most people aren’t very interested in putting money into savings accounts. It is simple, unenjoyable, and boring.
Possible solution: Auction-based savings. See as models: winwinsaving.com, LongGame, PrizePool, sofi.com/money/money-sweepstakes/, withyotta.com, pooltogether.com, thread.
Opportunity: Some people have the knowledge to solve your most difficult problems but don’t even know it. There is no way to connect the people with the knowledge/knowhow to the people with the problem.
Potential solution: An expert network that takes advantage of the knowledge on individual peoples’ computers. Allows users to search through others’ knowledge base (e.g., all of their emails), with privacy protected. Methodology: a network member gets a notification: “David is researching Norwegian oil reserves, and we see from files on your computer you’re an expert on this. Are you open to having a call with David?” A company tried this a decade ago, in partnership with our founder. Contact us for details.
Opportunity: Sometimes during the sale of homes, certain problems and pieces of home history that are important and relevant for a potential buyer are hidden. This results in sometimes inaccurate prices for homes.
Potential solution: Carfax for homes
Versatile VC focuses on investment tech. The following are some other ideas which we also think have potential:
Opportunity: People have trouble bridging the gap and making cold connections with people they want to build relationships with.
Possible solution: Social network grooming service. Initial target market: VCs. VCs give the service a list of companies, management teams, and people with whom they want to build good relationships (“Ally List”).
The service provides clients with a feed of draft posts consisting of:
- positive-energy, non-controversial social media posts by Allies;
- positive, congratulatory posts by other people regarding Allies.
Opportunity: With the world transitioning to remote work and play during the Covid-19 pandemic, people are not just searching for online communities to join but are looking for ones with quality discussion.
Potential solution: Database of gated online communities. See www.community-finder.co for a version of this. We have built a proprietary version of this.
Opportunity: It’s hard to find professional caliber content (e.g., made by Hollywood, Bollywood, Netflix, Amazon, HBO, etc.) online, dubbed in other languages.
Possible solution: Search engine for foreign language movies available via streaming. This content exists, because people living all over the world watch Hollywood’s latest releases dubbed in their local language, as soon as those movies come out. See Seeking a search engine for foreign language movies.
Opportunity: Amazon is riddled with counterfeit, low quality, and/or non-reputable products and brands and consumers are losing trust; only wanting to use Amazon when they already know what they want to buy.
Potential Solutions: A shopping search engine partnered with 3rd party, unbiased reviewers (I.e. Amazon + Wirecutter).
Opportunity: Religion has a large existing base but more and more people of the younger generation are distancing themselves from religion.
Potential solution: An AI oracle (in the classic sense of the word), with a community around it based on religious communities. See People Are Now Worshiping AI Gods—But There’s Only One Thing We Want to Know and the Church of AI. More ideas.
Opportunity: Many companies are spending on digital content at scales not seen before. In conjunction, there are vast amounts of content out there from artists, writers, etc., in need of a platform, investment, and other support.
Potential solution: YC for content. Details.
Opportunity: People see a select few famous influencers on various social media platforms but there are many more unseen people vying for a spot in the spotlight.
Potential solution: A marketplace for content contributed by ‘influencers’ seeking exposure, like search.creativecommons.org/. Potential model.
Opportunity: Some studies show that old age is a mindset and that better care of the elderly can lead to better health and feeling “younger.” Current care for the elderly does not reflect these studies.
Potential solution: Senior care center of future. Combines on-location education, an on-location kindergarten/day care, and one room for each decade the residents were young (e.g., a room that recreates the décor, music, furniture of the 1950s.) Model: the Ellen Langer reverse-aging study.
Opportunity: Stock plans for employees are not standardized and unfortunately some pre-IPO companies take advantage of employees with sneaky terms/conditions where they effectively steal back shares from their employees.
Potential solution: Yelp for stock option plans. Details.
Opportunity: Creating behavioral change is quite difficult. An example is the Covid-19 pandemic which requires educating the whole country about certain behavior changes, e.g., wearing masks.
Potential solution: Fact-based meme productions. Could you use a company like Jibjab to create messages about “Wear a mask”, “wash your hands”, etc., and then market to local opinion leaders (priests, pastors, politicians) to insert their face into those messages? The message has the production quality and evidence-based medicine of a professional Public Service Announcement, but the credibility of a local influencer. We produce high-quality, fact-based educational messages, starting with messages about how to protect yourself from COVID, e.g., this. We distribute this content to individual influencers, e.g., a doctor who’s a member of a church. The doctor uploads her face and voice to our site, and we insert her into the video. The church then distributes the video via social media. It has the production quality and evidence-based medicine of a professional Public Service Announcement, but the credibility of a local influencer. Models: Buzzworthy.com, JibJab.com, zdoggmd.com, socialnative.com (HOF Capital is an investor), contently.com (ffVC is an investor). Background.
Opportunity: People now more than ever need good financial planning and analysis as retail investors are growing thanks to services like Robinhood. Individuals are being exposed to multiple times of investments past just stocks.
Potential solution: Personal FP&A / forecasting tool: multiple account types, loans (home, auto, etc.), various equities and assets (stocks, bonds, tokens, etc.), forecasting, scenarios, and simulations. Source.