Happy New Year!

I've been trying to make this year the year of CREATION.

That's why I've been on a 13-day streak of creating something each day (this email is my creation for the day!).

Today I want to talk you through my business plan for Malayalee Christian weddings. But first, a few life updates:

• HOUSE SALE: We officially sold my parent's townhouse and are now looking for a 1031 Exchange replacement property. It's been a lot of work, but I enjoy the house search process. I just wish there were more properties on the market right now...

• WEDDING PLANNING: We've now officially booked our DJ and Wedding Coordinator and will be signing the contracts for the Decorator and Photo/Video this week. We're also thinking back through how we should best track these steps in a dashboard (and create that as a template for other couples to use).

• 2023 Goals: I've been thinking through what I want to prioritize and accomplish going forward. I'll likely send an email breaking down my goals a bit more specifically. Like should I target a $500k revenue year???

My Business Plan

I've been building an Instagram page called Manthrakodi.

I had coordinated a few Malayalee Christian Weddings and was planning on trying to become a part-time planner/coordinator. But I felt like that market was saturated (it's really not and I plan on actually doing this soon), but I wanted to lean into what I'm uniquely good at, marketing and building, to see if I could make it easier for couples to plan their weddings.

So I spoke with a few couples and decided to experiment with building a marketplace where you could find vendors that specialized in the Malayalee Christian market.

But over time, I've realized that people don't really struggle too long trying to find vendors. Most are just going to ask friends and family for recommendations and, similarly, most vendors get their clients through word-of-mouth.

I've been in talks with the best-known brand in this space, @FollowTheMinnu, to acquire their page and business.

I haven't yet because:

1. I feel like we're on an upward trajectory and will surpass them soon enough - especially since they went stagnant.
2. Because they've been stagnant, I think Instagram is not going to show their posts to as many people when they eventually start posting again.

Regardless, I've been interested in having two brands. One that specializes in the physical products used in these weddings that typically come from India:

• The bridal saree (manthrakodi)
• The bridesmaid outfits
• Invitations
• Gold jewelry

Almost every bride gets her saree from India - either by going there herself or by having a family member send it over.

I think it's a little ridiculous that people have to pay for a $1,000 flight to buy something. That's a business opportunity.

So basically the idea for the two brands is:

1. Manthrakodi will be for buying physical aspects. The social media will be focused on outfits and the aesthetics of the items in a wedding.

The minimum viable product for this would be an affiliate site where I get paid to send leads to existing businesses that provide these services. The hope would be to partner with a service in India where I would be the American-middle-man, where I do pop-ups selling these sarees across the U.S.

1. FollowTheMinnu (or a similar brand) will be a content site and hopefully a membership or affiliate model.

For example, at the very least I can build a page of "lookbooks" of other people's weddings to provide inspiration and drive people towards those vendors and get paid by the vendors for any referrals. Plus I can sell wedding planning templates for this niche and maybe even some low-touch planning services to get people started.

I'm sure it'll be fun to look back on these ideas at the end of the year!

Have a good weekend,

Aswin