May 27, 2024 · 1h 15m · startup-ideas
I can't believe he gave away these GENIUS 7 profitable startup ideas (watch this)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this tactical brainstorming session, Greg Isenberg and Cody Schneider break down seven actionable, high-margin business ideas spanning productized agencies, app store arbitrage, and audience-first media moats. They provide granular operational playbooks for each concept, detailing step-by-step customer acquisition, automation, and monetization strategies.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Greg holds 17.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Greg as informed peer 4.4 Guest teaching 4.3 Guest disagreement 1.0 Greg pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Greg, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:09:16 Newsletter monetization reframe
In a very friendly dialogue, this represents the sharpest divergence in perspective when Greg challenges Cody's low per-subscriber valuation model by introducing enterprise backend monetization.
Hardest push from Greg ▶ 1:09:16 Greg challenges low-cost per-subscriber valuationGreg rejects the assumption that newsletters should only be valued against ad CPMs, explaining why high-LTV product agencies can afford far higher acquisition costs per sub.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 57:11 Music catalog growth playbookCody educates Greg on modern artist development economics, explaining the 300k monthly listener metric labels look for and how digital marketing converts into permanent catalog equity.
Greg holds their own ▶ 44:10 App store ratio comparisonGreg showcases strong industry metrics by revealing that QuickBooks has only 750 apps for 29 million users compared to Shopify's 13,000 apps for 4.6 million users.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Greg as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Greg pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catching Up and Setting Episode Ground Rules | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Greg sets the stage by asking Cody to focus on tactical breakdowns for service business ideas. Cody delivers an in-depth cold outreach blueprint using Google Maps scraping, ZeroBounce, and Instantly. | |
| Sponsor Break: BoringMarketing.com AI SEO Services | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | The conversation moves through an ad read into localized marketing strategies. Greg adds real-world examples including a Quebec car dealership agency and pool maintenance lead generation, collaborating closely with Cody. | |
| Idea 2: Done-For-You SaaS Influencer Marketing Agency | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Cody breaks down how to run a done-for-you influencer affiliate agency for SaaS founders. Greg builds on the pitch by suggesting Jason Fried-style founder letters to build trust. | |
| Idea 3: Building a Niche Google Ads Agency via YouTube | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Cody explains the strategy of ranking YouTube videos for niche Google Ads keywords and monetizing via affiliate tools. Greg synthesizes the approach into a structured negative-CAC customer acquisition framework. | |
| Idea 4: QuickBooks App Store Integration Arbitrage | 7 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Cody presents data on QuickBooks integrations with unmet search demand. Greg actively demonstrates domain knowledge by quizzing Cody and contrasting QuickBooks app count ratios against Shopify. | |
| Idea 5: TikTok and Social SEO for Local Hospitality | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Cody details using TikTok and Instagram SEO for fine dining and local nightlife. Greg suggests building city-specific curation accounts and shifting top-of-funnel capture from email to SMS. | |
| Idea 6: Music Catalog Growth and Modern Artist Development | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Cody shares a detailed case study of developing country artist Colby Acuff by running Instagram ads and selling equity to major labels. Greg compares music catalog royalties to real estate and praises Cody's ideation process. | |
| Idea 7: Consolidating Niche AI Newsletters and Media Moats | 7 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Cody outlines consolidating AI newsletters at under a dollar per subscriber based on ad CPMs. Greg offers a counter-valuation framework, arguing high-ticket backend service agencies like LCA can justify paying much more per subscriber. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Schneider: Ran Twitter Ads to Juice Greg Isenberg Episode Views
“I totally juiced the numbers by the way. I was like, just running Twitter ads. I just, I wanted the top spot on the Greg the Greg YouTube channel.”
Schneider: Consulted for a CrossFit Gym with $1,700 LTV and $50 CAC
“So I did some consulting. This was years ago for a CrossFit gym. They're Customer lifetime value was like 1700 dollars if I remember right. And we could get people in the door for like 50 bucks.”
Schneider: Facebook Ads Allows Targeting the Top 1% of Income Earners Locally
“So on Facebook, you can actually target people that have like, you know, they're the top one percent of income earners within a geographical area. And then you can combine that with an audience audience interest targeting.”
Schneider: Niche Car Wash Marketing Agency Generates $60M Annually
“But if you look on zoom info, it says they do like twelve million a year. I know from insider information, it's like five X that and all they do are marketing car washes for car washes and their acquisition strategies, literally exactly what I just talked abou…”
Isenberg: Quebec Car Dealership Marketing Agency Generates $20M Annually With Outdated Websites
“I heard a story of a company that is a marketing agency for car dealerships in Quebec. And do these websites that they're building, like look like they're from. 1997. Terrible man. Terrible. And the business is doing twenty million dollars a year, just marketi…”
Schneider: Seeding SaaS Influencers Triggers Free Affiliate Reviews from Smaller Creators
“Once you get enough influencers talking about your product in this category, Then you'll start to see that up and coming influencers that are trying to build within that space will also review that product for you for free without paying them. All they're doin…”
Schneider: Daily YouTube Videos of Public Experiments Drive Inbound Agency Leads
“YouTube is the top of funnel for service businesses. This is like going viral in the SEO community right now with like Julian Goldie and Jackie Chow... All of them are basically doing the same strategy where it's like daily videos talking about whatever, like,…”
Schneider: Posting Daily Niche YouTube Tutorials Reaches $30K/Month in 200 Days
“And I guarantee you, if you did a video a day for the next 200 days, you could easily be at 30 grand a month doing this. And like from all of the revenue streams that we just talked about right there.”
Isenberg: Skool pays 40% lifetime affiliate revenue on $99/month subscriptions
“For example, you know, we host a lot of our communities on School. And School, which is actually Hermozzi's, one of Hermozzi and Sam Oven's business. We get 40% of lifetime revenue of the 99 dollars a month that people pay for it.”
Schneider: 40% to 50% of 4,000 QuickBooks integration keywords have no existing app
“We analyzed the data for these, and we found that about 50% of them, 40 to 50% of them didn't have integrations that already existed. So of those 4000 keywords, There were not integrations that were on QuickBooks already.”
Schneider: Building missing QuickBooks integrations is a $30M/year business opportunity
“I think this is probably a thirty million dollar a year company. I a hundred percent think that just based off of the search volume, based off of how many users of QuickBooks there are, And based off of how many people aren't building these integrations for th…”
Isenberg: QuickBooks App Store has only 750 apps and 70-80 active ones
“750 apps. And half of them don't even have any reviews. So there's basically like 80, 70 apps that people use. It's a gold mine.”
Isenberg: Founders Should Evaluate App Ecosystems by App-to-User Ratios
“4.6 million users. Which is a whole other framework for thinking about when you want to create software in one of these app ecosystems, look at how many apps are in the ecosystem versus how many users are”
Schneider: All local search discovery is moving toward social platforms
“Like all searches are going to go towards this. This is where it's starting. This is where discovery is starting from a person's marketing journey now.”
Schneider: Laylo is becoming the standard CRM tool in the music industry
“So it's going, it's, this is becoming like the standard in the music industry space right now is like, this is the tool that you use if you want to basically like do good marketing.”
Schneider: Social curation will replace Yelp because nobody trusts Yelp or Google Maps
“Cause like this will replace Yelp. Like nobody trusts Yelp and nobody trusts Google maps.”
Schneider: Music catalogs have zero churn and indefinite intrinsic value
“Once you get a fan and music, they don't churn, they come back to that back catalog over and over until the day that they die. Right? So that catalog has an intrinsic value that lives on indefinitely, even past your own existence.”
Schneider: Record labels start pursuing artists at 300K Spotify monthly listeners
“There's this threshold right around 300,000 that labels will approach you. So 303 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify a month and labels start to look at you because you're at a dollar amount where they realize that they can make money off of you, especially …”
Schneider: Acquiring engaged newsletter subs under $1 is a great buy
“Like if you could get email subs for under a dollar a piece, like, so say it's a 20,000 person newsletter and like, it's an active newsletter. Like we'll say it's like open rates are averaging, we'll say 50 plus percent. And you know, CTRs are in the range of,…”
Isenberg: An enterprise AI agency client is worth $1M to $2M
“So we actually have an agency called LCA that literally builds the biggest AI products out there. So we'll work with like a Dropbox and be like, Hey, let's go build like an AI first version of Dropbox or the Googles of the world, that sort of thing. So a clien…”