What to build? Part One
One question that I keep asking myself or keep discussing with other Founders is ‘What to build?’. What would you build that can become the next big thing? What would you build that can disrupt a sector?
Few things that I believe should be built:
Knowledge sharing within companies. Few months ago I read an interview of Tobi (Founder, Shopify) where he mentioned that to succeed within Shopify we recommend that people listen the huge number of Podcasts that have been internally recorded by the people working at Shopify for the people working at Shopify. At Unacademy as well, this is something that has always bothered me, internal knowledge sharing is broken. Loom is a good tool, but its library is really bad. We need a new Knowledge Sharing Platform that’s as easy to use as a Slack or a Notion for both people who will create content and for people within the org who will consume that content. The way to build it would be to pick a few formats, or maybe just start with one say Podcasts and then make creation super easy, maybe as easy as Clubhouse and a super simple and intuitive Platform for consumption. I mean why Clubhouse is not going in this direction is beyond me. This has inherent network effects and lock-in. Nobody would switch from Slack if they have been using it for a while. If you can solve for creation and make it super simple and fun that it encourages everyone in the company to share knowledge, then the knowledge library gets build with time which is very useful for team members.
Unbundling of YouTube. Two weeks ago I learnt that Twitch did a Revenue of more than $5B last year. It’s annual growth since the last few years is amazing. And remember this is the company that Amazon bought for around $1B. Twitch focussed on Gamers, built streaming tools for them and understood their needs. Even for the viewers it made the streams more fun and discovery super easy. And it’s compounding massively. There will be an unbundling of YouTube and Platforms will emerge that will focus on a particular sector or type of Content. And it’s also applicable for monetisation, Twitch invented some very innovative ways for Creators to monetise their audience. Platforms will also invent new ways for Creators of a particular content type to monetise, something that YouTube will take a long time to copy because it will stay focussed on Entertainment, Music and News (or Shorts).
10x better UpWork or Freelance.com. What Tinder and Bumble did to Match.com is what needs to be done to UpWork and Freelance.com, someone needs to reimagine the entire user experience and build an intuitive and easy to use Platform from scratch. More and more people will choose the path of self-employment and a Platform will be created that disrupts Products like UpWork and Freelance.com which are in their Match.com phase with their outdated UI and UX.
@Gaurav
What’s your framework on what content to consume if you wanna go deep on a topic?
P. S. - Saw your iconic goals and needle moving framework. Loved it - super nuanced and helpful.
absolutely love your newsletter. perhaps, the only one i click every time i see it because ik it's not gonna be too long & full of insights.
i do think a tiktok-like or youtube-like app for fitness would easily be a $100b+ biz. i have tweeted about it before (https://twitter.com/deadcoder0904/status/1467506535202840579 & https://twitter.com/deadcoder0904/status/1467764005334773768).
personally, love doing follow-along workouts with fitness blender (like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcN37TxBE_s) so if someone makes an app specifically with a timer that allows follow-along, then i don't see any reason it wouldn't be huge. doing a workout with an expert would be huge.
heck, people would pay $10 to join in live. plus you can sell supplements, merch like a full on ecommerce store to your fans. the best time for an app like that was during pandemic when everyone needed to do a workout but can't see why it wouldn't work now.