Idea
Lunch Bounty: a charity marketplace to bid on lunch with anyone
Ben pitches a marketplace where anyone can pre-bid what they'd pay for a 1-hour lunch with a named person (e.g. Bill Ackman). Proceeds go to the target's charity, which both pressures them to honor it and keeps it above-board.
“I want to create a marketplace that's basically like, okay, if there's $100,000 sitting here and Bill Ackman, all you have to do is hit yes. And then your lunch is, you know, Ben is willing to pay $100,000 to get lunch with you. Just have a marketplace where it's just one, a 1-hour lunch and someone can basically preemptively bid on how much they're willing to pay for lunch with X.”
Steal thisBuild a permissionless charity-lunch marketplace: let bidders pre-fund a lunch with a famous person, proceeds to their charity.
Idea
Paid real-life Survivor for the post-economic
Ben pitches a livestreamed, pay-to-play real Survivor: drop people on an island for 30 days, they pay ~$100K to be there, friends and family watch. The market is post-economic people who've gotten bored of luxury and crave real hardship again.
“imagine a world where we basically created an island where you have to pay $100 grand to go compete in a real-life Survivor. So you get dropped in the middle of nowhere for a whole month. You pay $100 grand to be there. And the winner, you know, the winner wins money, but the whole idea is basically an actual survivor that you pay to be there.”
Steal thisLicense reality-TV formats (Survivor, Love Island) as paid experiences people pay to live, not just watch.
Idea
Coach K in a box: AI custom motivational videos on demand
Inspired by Coach K's famously custom Braveheart-style hype videos, Ben pitches an AI tool that, knowing everything about you, generates a personalized motivational video on demand — right before a workout or a big sales call.
“So I kind of had this idea, which is like Coach K in a box, which is with AI, could you essentially make something that does custom motivational videos based on all these inputs that exactly you need today. So it's like, okay, if I wore this device and it knew everything about me, I just want a custom motivational video right now for this workout I'm about to do or for the sales call I'm about to take.”
Steal thisBuild an AI that generates a hyper-personalized motivational video on demand for the specific moment you're facing.
Framework
Defend every deal without saying 'great founder'
Angel investor Justin Kaldbeck's test: you should be able to justify every investment without invoking great founder, because that's an unfalsifiable claim no one can argue. Force yourself to defend on market, product, and other concrete dimensions instead.
“Can you defend every deal that you've kind of pushed the table for without saying these two words, great founder? He was basically like, I hate when someone tells me they're investing because it's a great founder because that's the That's something that nobody can argue you on, even if they know the person, because they're just like, I can argue on market, I can argue on product, I can argue you on, you know, 10 other things, but I can't argue on great founder.”
Steal thisJustify every investment thesis without the words 'great founder'.
Framework
You usually know what great is; you settle for good out of impatience
Kaldbeck talks to 100-150 founders a week and does maybe one deal a month. The lesson Ben took: most people you meet are good (smart, interesting), very few are great, and the discipline is to act only on great, in investing and everything else.
“So I think that was like a learning for me, which is like really being disciplined to only do deals when you think they're great, which I think applies to more than just angel investing, kind of applies to everything. It's like most of the time, you know what great is, but you just get impatient and you go for good.”
Steal thisWait for great; impatience is what makes you settle for good.
Framework
Spot the opportunity, then apply consistent intensity
Ben's What would Mike and Kendall do? framework from running Milk Road: Kendall excels at spotting the right opportunity to attack; Mike excels at consistent intensity, drilling one channel (e.g. Facebook ads) 10 hours a day instead of jumping to the next shiny thing.
“And then Mike is really good at consistent intensity. So what I mean by that is, let's say you're trying to figure out Facebook ads. Every single day for 10 hours, he'd be looking at it, trying to see what's working, what's not, and doubling down instead of being like, oh, Facebook's working, I'm going to go work on Pinterest now. I'm going to go stand up a Twitter ad.”
Steal thisPick one channel and grind it daily before adding another.