Idea
Lemonade.com for commercial business insurance
Barkl pitches a Lemonade-style app for business insurance. Consumer renters insurance via Lemonade took 5 minutes, but getting commercial general liability and workers' comp for a business is a fragmented, draining process.
“And then I found Lemonade, went through their app in like 5 minutes. They gave me a quote, I signed up and it's like, why is that same thing not being applied to the business space? It totally, totally is a huge market.”
Steal thisTake the slickest consumer onboarding flow in a category (Lemonade for insurance) and rebuild it for the neglected SMB/business version.
Number
USPS makes ~$1B/year from PO boxes that are sold out
After researching the USPS, Barkl found PO boxes generate about $1 billion in annual revenue and are one of its only growing categories, yet they're chronically sold out for months in cities like San Francisco.
$1000M
USPS annual PO box revenue · USD/year
“The USPS brings in about $1 billion in revenue every year from, from PO boxes. And PO boxes, they're all sold out. Like if you try to get a PO box at the local post office in San Francisco, you can't do it.”
Number
USPS makes ~$1B/year from PO boxes that are sold out
After researching the USPS, Barkl found PO boxes generate about $1 billion in annual revenue and are one of its only growing categories, yet they're chronically sold out for months in cities like San Francisco.
$1000M
USPS annual PO box revenue · USD/year
“The USPS brings in about $1 billion in revenue every year from, from PO boxes. And PO boxes, they're all sold out. Like if you try to get a PO box at the local post office in San Francisco, you can't do it.”
Idea
Customer-service marketplace staffed by bored retirees
Barkl pitches an on-demand customer-service marketplace for early-stage companies, with the twist that it's staffed by retired older people who are bored at home and love talking on the phone, rather than overseas outsourcing with language-barrier and quality risks.
“So I think what the spin here should be is basically customer service marketplace that depends on basically retired older people that are bored at home and love talking on the phone.”
Steal thisDifferentiate a commoditized service marketplace by sourcing a unique, underused domestic labor pool (retirees) instead of racing to the cheapest overseas labor.
Framework
Make one sale equal 50 spots, not one driveway
The peer-to-peer parking marketplace was an awful business model because one sale equaled one driveway, requiring millions of driveways to hit meaningful revenue. The fix was shifting to lots/churches where one sale captures 50-100 parking spaces.
“Because in order to get to meaningful revenue, you need millions of driveways. And on a one-sale-equals-one-driveway basis, it just never would have made sense. And so basically, in May of 2018, we started shifting and saying, how do we make a sale and get 50 or 100 parking spaces.”
Steal thisIf each sale only unlocks one tiny unit of supply, re-target the same product at customers where one sale unlocks 50-100 units.
Framework
Make one sale equal 50 spots, not one driveway
The peer-to-peer parking marketplace was an awful business model because one sale equaled one driveway, requiring millions of driveways to hit meaningful revenue. The fix was shifting to lots/churches where one sale captures 50-100 parking spaces.
“Because in order to get to meaningful revenue, you need millions of driveways. And on a one-sale-equals-one-driveway basis, it just never would have made sense. And so basically, in May of 2018, we started shifting and saying, how do we make a sale and get 50 or 100 parking spaces.”
Steal thisIf each sale only unlocks one tiny unit of supply, re-target the same product at customers where one sale unlocks 50-100 units.
Number
AirGarage rebounded to 80% of pre-COVID, mostly from NEW lots
By August, AirGarage was at about 80% of its pre-COVID high. Crucially, ~80% of last month's revenue came from new parking lots signed during 2020, meaning the recovery is new growth rather than a rebound of old volume.
$80
Share of monthly revenue from newly signed lots · percent
“And actually last month, about 80% of our revenue last month came from new parking lots that we signed on since like basically in 2020, basically since COVID.”
Tactic
Win owners with a 70/30 revenue share and zero upfront cost
AirGarage's pitch against legacy parking operators: a 70/30 revenue split in the owner's favor with no upfront cost, because the system is software-only (no parking machines or gate arms to buy). Legacy operators sign fixed leases, then cancel them when times get bad.
“So we split 70/30 with the owner in favor of the owner. And so we always tell them, you know, this is better for you in the long run because you're gonna see the upside when times are good. And the biggest thing for us is there's no upfront cost to get started.”
Steal thisBeat incumbents who demand fixed leases and hardware purchases by offering an aligned revenue share with zero upfront cost.
Framework
Hunt for underutilized resources sitting around as byproducts
Barkl's core ideation theme: spot resources that nobody sees as valuable because they're just a byproduct of what someone is already doing (empty driveways, window space, USPS carriers' routes), then find a way to monetize them.
“It's like just seeing underutilized resources sitting around, like really just gets my, I guess, brain flowing and gears turning. It just is exciting to think about like, oh, there's this thing that nobody else sees as valuable. It's just a byproduct of what they're doing. And, you know, it could be monetized in some way, shape, or form.”
Steal thisList the unused byproducts of existing activity around you (empty space, idle routes, waste) and ask what each could be monetized as.
Story
Phoenix recycling will PAY you to take hard plastic off their hands
At a city-sponsored hackathon, a Phoenix Waste official told Barkl that most recycling sent in can't actually be processed; they pay $100/ton to dispose of harder plastics. If you found a business model to use it, they'd pay you $50/ton to take it away.
“that we're paying $100 per ton to get rid of, like we would let you have it, or you could pay us $50 a ton to take it away. And you, or sorry, we would pay you $50 a ton to take it away. And then you could use it to create a product.”
Idea
D2C printer + cheap ink on the razor-and-blades model
Barkl pitches a direct-to-consumer printer brand: give the printer away free (incumbents already nearly do), then sell ink 5x cheaper than rivals while still keeping ~80% margin. Everyone hates their printer and overpriced ink, so the brand wins on not sucking.
“It's like, why isn't there some sort of DTC company that has come out and said, hey, we'll give you the printer for free, because that's basically what they're trying to do anyway. And we made a printer that just doesn't suck, and also we'll send you ink, and it's gonna be like 5x less expensive than the other ink, but we're still gonna make a margin of like 80%.”
Steal thisAttack a hated incumbent category (printers/ink) with a D2C brand that gives away the hardware and subscribes you to consumables priced to undercut while keeping fat margins.
Tactic
Don't give yourself the reward before doing the hard thing
Barkl's morning system: don't touch your phone, Twitter, or WSJ until after the workout, making phone time the reward. If you take the reward (scrolling) first, you'll burn 30 minutes and never do the harder thing.
“But if you give yourself the reward first thing, then you never do the harder thing, which is like you could sit and scroll Twitter for half an hour and then you're like, oh shit, I was supposed to work out and you never do.”
Steal thisGate your dopamine reward (phone/social) behind the hard keystone habit (workout, reading) so you actually do the hard thing first.