Idea
Group-buying app where you only get the deal if you recruit friends
Shaan pitches a Western Pinduoduo: a WhatsApp-based group-buying product (modeled on India's Quindle) where produce is cheaper only if you form a buying team. Customers acquire customers virally for free, and direct farm-to-buyer delivery plus batch drop-offs cut costs.
“there's something to this group buying thing that I think is really important because acquiring customers is always the most expensive and hard part of any business.”
Steal thisBuild group-buying where the discount unlocks only when customers recruit their own team, turning buyers into your acquisition channel.
Idea
Pinduoduo for X: group-buy with your own friends
Shaan explains Pinduoduo, a ~$30B Chinese company that's 'Groupon but with your friends': you assemble a team via a shared link to unlock a lower price together. He suggests entrepreneurs brainstorm 'Pinduoduo for X' to find an unbuilt vertical.
“Pinduoduo is like Groupon, but it's with your friends. So what happens is, uh, you go on Pinduoduo and there's like an item, the number one selling selling item, tissue boxes.”
Steal thisWrite 'Pinduoduo for X' and spend a day filling in X with categories where friend-group buying could unlock discounts.
Idea
Pinduoduo for Shopify: a 'buy together, save together' button
Shaan pitches a Shopify checkout button that turns customers into an acquisition channel: instead of paying ~$15 per customer on Facebook ads, offer a group discount where buyers recruit friends, mirroring how Afterpay's button lifted checkout rates.
“I think if you added a buy together, save together button, you would increase sales. So works is you're about to check out and it says, great, you can either have this item for $80, but if you get 5 friends to buy, you all get it for $60, um, you all get it for $50 or whatever it is, some discount there. And you basically are saying, rather than paying $15 per customer in Facebook ads, I will pay, you know, $15— I'll pay $10 right now to discount this item for you, um, because you're going to go acquire 5 customers for me, right?”
Steal thisBuild a Shopify checkout plugin that swaps ad spend for a group-buy discount so each customer recruits the next.