Dec 21, 2023 · 1h 5m · startup-ideas
Steal These 6 Startup Ideas For 2024 | Theo Tabah & Jordan Mix
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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 holiday special, Late Checkout partners Greg Isenberg, Theo Tabah, and Jordan Mix reflect on their key business lessons from 2023 and pitch six actionable startup opportunities for 2024. Spanning holding company strategy, energy management, and innovative consumer concepts, the team outlines practical blueprints for founders to build defensible, high-trust businesses.
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 44.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Greg as informed peer 6.3 Guest teaching 3.4 Guest disagreement 1.3 Greg pushing back 2.3
speaking balance: gold is Greg, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 24:03 Theo forces Greg to share his 2023 regret
Theo refuses to let Greg pivot straight to startup ideas without first being vulnerable about his personal business regrets.
Hardest push from Greg ▶ 41:00 Greg rejects the Apple Vision Pro bar pitchGreg refuses Jordan's optimistic revenue projection for hardware lounges, grading it a low 5.5 due to high capital intensity and lack of business longevity.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 3:43 Theo details the Three C's trust frameworkTheo systematically educates the host on how desired outcomes combined with credibility, competency, and personal connection drive high-ticket sales conversions.
Greg holds their own ▶ 56:46 Greg calculates Nextdoor's distressed enterprise valueGreg demonstrates sharp M&A expertise by instantly evaluating Nextdoor's market cap, cash reserves, and cost per weekly active user to propose a distressed corporate acquisition.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Greg as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Greg pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theo's 2023 Takeaway: The Three C's of Trust | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Theo breaks down his core sales framework of desired outcome plus trust, detailing the Three C's (credibility, competency, connection). Greg actively builds upon this by emphasizing internet content as an asynchronous salesperson that generates trust at scale. | |
| Jordan's Takeaway: Productized Partnerships vs. Services | 6 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Jordan contrasts transactional productized services with strategic productized partnerships. Greg pushes Jordan to explain how to actually operationalize this in an agency model and adds context on how AI makes commodity services obsolete in favor of advisory. | |
| Permissionless Apprenticeship and Jordan's Onboarding Story | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Jordan recounts how he landed a partnership at Late Checkout through permissionless design work on Twitter. Greg pulls up the original Twitter DM exchange to verify the timeline, highlighting the low downside and high upside of meeting collaborators online. | |
| Managing Personal Batteries and Role Alignment | 6 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Theo explains his mental model regarding personal energy batteries and avoiding burnout through proper role alignment. Greg adds nuance by balancing individual energy management against the harsh realities of startup business needs and employer market shifts. | |
| Scalable Consulting Through Purpose-Built Education | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Jordan outlines how purpose-built educational curriculums act as scalable consulting and top-of-funnel trust generators. Greg supports this by citing Apple Store workshops that drive hardware purchases. | |
| Greg's 2023 Regret and the Mindset of Relentless Execution | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Theo presses Greg to reveal his 2023 regrets, prompting Greg to explain why he regretted operating out of fear rather than aggressively acquiring distressed assets. Theo adds his own lesson on ditching internal rationalizations in favor of raw execution. | |
| Startup Idea 1: Locket for X and the FUN Framework | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Theo pitches 'Locket for X' to create intimate widget-based home screen experiences for creators and athletes. Greg critiques Instagram Broadcast channels for cluttering personal DM inboxes and breaks down the technical opportunity in iOS widgets. | |
| Startup Idea 2: Apple Vision Pro Lounges and Spatial Computing | 7 | 3 | 2 | 5 | Jordan pitches physical Apple Vision Pro lounges monetized by hourly rentals. Greg directly pushes back on the longevity and capital intensity of hardware bars, giving it a 5.5/10 and arguing that high-margin upside lies in spatial software and ad networks. | |
| Startup Idea 3: 'Fitness for X' Gamified Wellness Platforms | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Theo pitches 'Fitness for X' apps across financial, creative, and professional domains. Greg analyzes Duolingo's multibillion-dollar language gamification model to demonstrate why purpose-built niche utility creates defensible moats. | |
| Startup Idea 4: IRL Creative Retreats and Neighborhood Work Clubs | 7 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Greg and Jordan discuss creative wellness retreats and neighborhood co-working spaces capitalizing on WeWork's collapse and SoHo House's waitlists. Greg delivers a critique of snarky social media commenters who dismiss new ideas by claiming they already exist. | |
| Startup Idea 5: 'Cup of Sugar' and Public SPAC Acquisitions | 8 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Jordan pitches 'Cup of Sugar', an unbundled friendly alternative to Nextdoor. Greg immediately reframes the business model around public market mechanics, calculating Nextdoor's cash reserves, enterprise value, and active user metrics to propose a distressed acquisition buyout. | |
| Startup Idea 6: 'Right Hand' Operator Network for Creators | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Theo pitches 'Right Hand', a vetting and matchmaking network pairing operational seconds-in-command with solo creators, while cautioning job seekers against branding as generalists. Jordan and Greg strongly validate the demand from overworked creators. |
Statements from this episode (19)
Mix: Productized Services Are Operational Tools, Not Outbound Marketing Strategies
“I think productized services were a big buzzword in 20, 23, and somehow that became an outbound marketing strategy when it's really for internal use only to help run the machine more smoothly, but really changing a productized service, which is more of a trans…”
Isenberg: Productized Services Will Fall Flat as AI Tools Replace Service Providers
“And I think that's where a lot of productized services are going to fall flat. Is there going to be a service that of course provides some value, but I think that in an AI generated world, like people are looking for partners, not service providers because ser…”
Isenberg: Meeting internet strangers offers high upside and low downside
“If you're not afraid of rejection and you're not afraid of like meeting strangers on the internet that's the beauty about the internet, right? Like it's weird to meet a stranger in person sometimes for safety reasons. But if Jordan was weird and we were on a F…”
Tabah: Burnout is driven by uninspiring work, not 60-hour weeks
“I think like burnout occurs when your batteries get drained and it doesn't mean you've worked 60 hour weeks. It doesn't mean you are like burning the candle at both ends. It probably means you're just doing things that don't get you fired up. And, or with peop…”
Isenberg: Tech hiring leverage shifted from employees to employers by 2023
“I think it's also, we've seen a shift in, in Three from prior years, for example, 20, 21, when we were just trying to fight to retain as much of our talents as possible. Not just us, but all, you know, startups in general, large tech companies and it's moves n…”
Isenberg: Startup Failures Will Increase in 2024, Creating Distressed Acquisition Opportunities
“20, 23, 20, 24 is a very unique time in technology. There's going to be an increased amount of startups that are going to die. Incredible influx of talent that is looking for work and opportunities to acquire these businesses for pennies on the dollar.”
Isenberg: Instagram Broadcast channels fail because inboxes are overcrowded
“I've been playing with a few and it's, I can see the look on Jordan's face. It's not it. I don't love it. And the reason I don't love it is this for the reason that you brought up Theo, which is people are ready underwater when it comes to their inboxes. So ba…”
Isenberg: Expect a surge in specialized 'Locket for X' widget apps
“I think there's going to be not only more lock it for exes, but just in general widgets, Are really interesting and there's not just widgets on your iPhone, but also, you know, widgets on your Mac and other places.”
Tabah: Building social apps requires balancing Format, Utility, and Niche
“One of the frameworks that we came up with Greg, In 2020, if you still use today and it's still fire is the fun framework for how to build a new social minded products and fun is format, utility, and niche. And I love that framework and it's still is burned in…”
Isenberg: Software developers will capture the upside in Apple Vision Pro
“And I think the people are going to get the upside of the people who are going to be developing the experiences on the platform. So just like how we talked about iOS, 14 and lock it and how there's so much opportunity there. There's so many, so much opportunit…”
Isenberg: Niche gamified utility products create moats and high user retention
“If you actually create a tight digital product with utility and then you layer on like a game, like experience in a niche that's purpose built for that. It's got all the makings of a great business cause you've got the moat because it's purpose built. So other…”
Isenberg: Soho House will be a top beneficiary of WeWork's bankruptcy
“So, so house I think is Going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of WeWork's bankruptcy in a lot of ways. And in fact, they actually have a SoHo House workspace business as a part, like a separate business that they, from what I remember, were trying it in…”
Mix: Switchyards Nashville oversold memberships by 800 people in two minutes
“One opened up here in Nashville that is called switch yards. And it's really like bare bones, coworking, free coffee, 24, seven access, et cetera. And it's a hundred dollars a month and they went live with it. And they oversold memberships. Like something happ…”
Jordan Mix: Nextdoor is terrible, gossipy, and fear-mongering
“Next door is terrible. There's a bunch of Karen's on there. It's become Facebook. It's just gossipy and really just like fear mongering.”
Isenberg: Nextdoor trades at $666M market cap with $500M cash
“So next door as of today is trading at a market cap of six hundred and sixty six million devil devil science, six, six, six. And, but what they don't tell you is that, or you have to look into, they also have about five hundred million dollars of cash. So ente…”
Isenberg: Opportunities exist to acquire and modernize distressed SPAC assets
“So I think there's, this is like a bigger idea around there's opportunities to buy some of these distressed assets in the public markets from all the specs and stuff like that. And then basically modernize the products and also build them with a more profitabl…”
Tabah: 80% of US Small Businesses Have Zero Employees
“99.9% of businesses in the US are small businesses. 80% of those are businesses with zero employees. That means one person.”
Tabah: Two Million Influencers Make Over $100K Annually
“The valuation of the influencer industry has 11 X'd in the last seven years. You know, two million influencers today generate over a 100,000 dollars a year at least, and then there's like a top cohort that's generating well over 500 K.”
Tabah: Job Applicants Harm Themselves by Claiming to Be Generalists
“Everyone who comes into a job interview or applies for a job and says, I'm a generalist. Stop, please. From someone who's interviewed hundreds of people in the last year, it's not doing you any service, even though that's what someone might need. It's not what…”