Stages of an idea, Databases, Travel Nursing

how to work less and do more

Welcome to Biz Brainstorms –

My name's Connor, I'm the author of this newsletter. Every week I'll send you an email covering ideas, lessons & tools to help you start or grow your business.

Today's Outline:

  • Stages of Ideas

  • Databases as a service

  • Travel Nursing

  • Working less and doing more

πŸ“š 1 Business Lesson:

If you signed up for a newsletter called Biz Brainstorms... you probably suffer (or are blessed) with Shiny Object Syndrome.

You might see opportunities everywhere.

Well, here are the stages every entrepreneur goes through when going from idea to business:Β 

  1. Uninformed Optimism – This is the most fun phase by far. It's the moment when you think no one has ever done your idea, that it's going to be easy and you're months if not days away from becoming a millionaire. This phase is the reason 1/3 of all purchased domains are not connected to a website. This is where 90% of people stop. It's those buddies from college who pitch you on the next game-changing idea but tell you "sign this NDA first" before you can hear it.

  2. Informed Pessimism – If you've been here, this is where 99% of people drop off. It's the moment you realize maybe there isn't a market for your tinder for pet adoption app. Or discovering that lead gen for lawyers (while a good idea at the time) is insanely competitive.

  3. Valley Of Despair – This is where you actually build. This valley is the gap between finding out your idea is competitive/hard and actually seeing any results from it. You need to just fully accept and recognize that you're going to be confused, frustrated, and if you don't have a co-founder, probably really lonely during this stage. The biggest mistake I see people making here is they spend so much time before gaining any momentum. Get literally any breathing human being on this planet to give you $1 to get out of this purgatory of business building.

  4. Momentum – Your first sale. First hire. First investment. Any tiny form of validation begins here. Your #1 goal when starting a business is to get here as fast as possible.

  5. Traction – This is where you turn that tiny shred of momentum into a system and repeat it. Don't get distracted. Focus on the things that worked in step 4 and repeat until you physically can't anymore.

My advice?

Stages 1-3 are the graveyard of entrepreneurship.

Your goal should be to get through stages 1-3 as quickly as possible.

Honestly, try to get through stage 1 in literally days if not hours.

It's the reason that service-based businesses (while not the most scalable) have a high likelihood to work. You can get a landscaping customer in 24 hours with a rake and enough knocks on doors.

But if you're building a product... or creating a business that requires months of work... it's difficult.

Acknowledging that these stages exist is helpful next time you start a new business and things get hard.

PS – I stole this framework from my buddy Cole on Twitter. Though I've seen it a handful of times before.

πŸ’° 2 Business Ideas

1. Database as a Service –

This business model fascinates me.

It's a productized lead gen service.

Here's how it works:

Step 1: You find a way to scrape/source leads into a database

Step 2: Verify & filter that data

Step 3: Sell access to that list to prospective buyers

Typically these are going to be items that fall into 2 categories:

  • Prospects/Companies to sell to (ie. take a look at Cyberleads here)

  • Employees/Talent for hire (ie. take a look at Closify here)

Personally, I love both of these businesses.

I think building one of these for vetted overseas employees would be a big win (as an alternative to all the headhunting overseas agencies you might see popping up today).

2.Β Travel Nursing Agencies –

During Covid, Travel Nursing spiked like crazy.

And while the curve has flattened, it's still nearly double pre-pandemic numbers.

If you look at the market for agencies today... it's pretty terrible.

Old school processes, very little visibility in their markup, and it operates like an old school agency in the 90s.

Opportunities as a result:

  1. Mid-Term Housing (buying properties and renting them on 3-4 month leases)

  2. Paid Community Groups (finding travel opportunities, connecting nurses, etc.)

  3. Potentially the database as a service play discussed earlier? I'm not sure if it would be more valuable for nurses or hospitals.

😎 3 Cool Internet Things:

  1. Do Not Pay – Robot Lawyer to get you out of parking tickets and negotiate/manage your subscriptions

  2. How To Optimize Productivity (While Working Less) – Great read by Mark Manson on leverage & time spent working

  3. The Partying Traveler – I travel a lot. And candidly, don't care much at all for museums. Here's a great blog to give you insights into fun things to do when traveling to new countries.

-Connor

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2 Areas I know about:Β E-commerce (Amazon & DTC), Buying & Managing Commercial Real Estate

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