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A Tiny Conference Badge

Conferencebadge.com was just acquired by Tiny. This is interesting for a bunch of reasons. 

First, what is Tiny?

Tiny is a holding company worth $600 million. It has a fascinating history and the majority owner Andrew Wilkinson is amazing. But that’s a story for another day. 

The key is that Tiny is modeled after Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company on the lookout for wonderful businesses, but with a tech focus. 

They specifically look for businesses with:

  • High margins

  • A unique advantage (brand, community or niche)

  • A simple business model

  • Successful history of operations (3 years+)

  • A good team

  • An ethical approach 

And…

  • A healthy profit of $500k - $50 million

This is why my eyebrows perked up when I saw coneferencebadge.com was acquired by Tiny. They’re making over $500k a year? From conference badges??

What is conferencebadge.com?

Conferencebadge.com is a super simple site that makes it easier for people to make conference badges as a pdf or printed versions. 

They key is that they make it easy to import attendees from Eventbrite, Universe or Excel. But yeah, that’s it. 

They charge $0.25 for each digital badge or around $2 for a printed copy. Lanyards are a $0.99 upsell. 

So how much revenue do they generate? $700,000 a year. 

It’s amazing what a simple tool can do. So if you haven’t started something. Start small. Solve a problem. And launch. 

Business Ideas of the Week

  • Perfect examples of a productized service, Punchline's “Jab” service is a copy and conversion audit of one page of a website for $147 or you can “buy my day” for $3,497

  • Rodent glue boards as wasp traps

  • Gag gift idea

  • Waste Management is an interesting business

  • Interesting example of a simple niche hammock retail store which has a small storefront, samples and may drop ship the product

  • Shilajit brand marketed to women for fertility, most brands are dark and boring, I think you could differentiate with packaging and messaging

Business Success Stories of the Week

Interesting Finds of the Week

  • This robot is about to be everywhere

  • Scott Galloway’s interview with Stephen Bartlett is an interesting take on the challenges facing young men and what can be done to help (both are amazing communicators and worth a listen just to learn how to present and how to listen)

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