If you're new, welcome! We've had 191(!!!) new subscribers since the last issue. This was our biggest week ever ... by far!

Each week I share a new product idea & how I'd market and launch it, as well as my coolest finds of the week. My goal is to spur your professional creativity, whether as a founder, marketer, or student.

Today's agenda:

• New referral system(!)
• Sahil Lavingia, artist
• Thing 1: early Shopify
• Thing 2: Shopify University
• Unter Freight

You know how when you're reading you sometimes skip all over a page & can't concentrate? That was me last week when I wrote the newsletter - there was a paragraph I straight-up didn't finish. One of you said you wouldn't refer friends to a newsletter with a typo, well find a typo this time, I dare you.

Oh & by the way,

New referral incentives...

We're growing like a rocket ship & don't plan on slowing down! I even revamped the referral prizes to be money-themed:

• 2 referrals: I'll venmo you a penny (open to better ideas)

• Every 5 referrals: a shout-out of whatever you choose (medieval history meme, your company or Twitter handle, whatever! - assuming it's appropriate)

• 20 referrals - I'll literally mail you an old wheat penny (U.S. only)

Sahil Lavingia, artist

Most people know Sahil Lavingia as the founder of Gumroad, but few know that he's also a prolific painter. I wrote a Twitter thread about his art & it's now one of my most popular tweets.

If you haven't heard of Gumroad, it's a digital marketplace for creators. They took VC money in the early 2010s, but weren't growing fast enough & Sahil had to lay everyone off, even his closest friends. He bought back the investors & it's now profitable & growing at 100% YoY. His article about this experience went actual-viral, not mini-viral like my thread.

My coolest finds

• Thing 1: Here's a Shopify investing memo from Bessemer Venture Partners in 2010, one of the first investors in Shopify.
• Thing 2: Speaking of Shopify, their program Dev Degree lets you go to college & intern at Shopify at the same time. They pay your tuition & give you a stipend too.

Now, on to the main event ...

The problem:

Last month, I rented a weekend Airbnb with my in-laws in Algoma, WI (pop. 3,045) on Lake Michigan. After a chilly afternoon on the beach, we headed to eat at a roadside diner. However, no sooner were we seated, than we were informed of a COVID-induced crab shortage. Note: at no point was I considering crab anyway.

I can't prove it, but COVID disruptions have affected rural & small business supply chains more than city supply chains.

Small towns demand smaller shipments, which are less profitable for shippers. Even in the Before Times - pre-COVID - many distributors likely lost money on rural shipments due to half-full trucks & increased distance.

Given a choice between fulfilling an order to Chicago or Algoma, Chicago is prioritized 10 times out of 10. And so, rural crab shortages are not unexpected, especially in 2020.

The competition:

There's a company in every industry calling itself the Uber of industry x. My own company HomeX is the Uber of home services. WARECAP is the Uber of industrial storage. Fiverr & Upwork are the Ubers of talent. Uber has even expanded to literally become the Uber of other industries, i.e. Uber Eats & Uber Freight.

Uber Freight connects long-haul truckers to shippers seeking flexible, on-demand freight capacity. It's one of Uber's fasting growing businesses, already accounting for nearly 10% of their revenue. In a world that demands global next-day delivery, logistics is a huge opportunity. Uber Freight made freight flexible & on-demand, but the next phase will be driven (no pun intended) by driver crowd-sourcing, not self-driving trucks.

The solution:

Uber & Airbnb both brought on-demand capacity to their industries, but Airbnb went further by "micro-izing" their industry. You need a semi to ship with Uber Freight, but you don't need a hotel to host on Airbnb - an air mattress works just fine.

Enter Unter Freight - the Uber of micro-freight.

For an Algoma road-side diner, Uber Freight isn't that helpful. And self-driving technology will reduce shipping costs, but it won't solve half-full semis.

On the other hand, Unter Freight could permanently solve micro-freight by crowdsourcing capacity from pick-up truck & mini-van owners. Anyone with room in their trunk could earn as much as or more than if they ride-shared.

Where a rural restaurant previously couldn't order enough to fill an entire semi, they now benefit from cheaper & more tailored shipping capacity, which means fresher inventory.

How I'd launch Unter Freight:

Peer-to-peer marketplaces often start by doing things that don't scale.

I'd find 5 rural restaurants willing to try the service. Before a functional app, I could deliver orders in my own car. With a bit of consistent demand, it'd be simple to recruit Uber drivers to drive for Unter on the side.

Priority #1 though, would be to drum up demand via a mix of word of mouth & intentional outreach. Cold visits to rural restaurants might work, & another likely avenue would be reaching out to the local city councils. Impressing town boards could result in adoption by several restaurants & stores at once.

To scale drivers, I'd want to test marketing channels like radio & billboards. Why? My target audience would be a) people who live in rural areas & b) pick-up truck or van owners. Radio & billboards reach that audience in their cars. Both are also easy channels for geographic targeting, with cheap CPMs in rural areas. The fit is perfect.

As late as 2000, over half of Americans lived in towns of under 25,000 people. The market for Unter Freight is substantial.

There you have it. A free business plan for a big opportunity. If one of you starts Unter Freight, I won't come after you. I'll even volunteer as an advisor :)

If you made it the to bottom, congrats!

Today's issue was a bit longer than normal. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Did you love it? Hate it? Not read it?

Best,

Luke

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