š§ An Online Gift Card Solution for Local Businesses
How AI Writing Tools Actually Work and How to Use Time Boxing to Get More Done
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1. Business idea of the Week: Gift Card Solution for Local Businesses
Quick story time for you. So, this past Motherās day, I was trying to think of a thoughtful gift for my Mom and Grandma.
They rarely spend money on things like getting their nails done, so I decided I wanted to buy them each a mani-pedi. Theyāll get Mom and Daughter time, and enjoy something they wouldnāt normally do on their own.
So how do I go about ābuyingā them a mani-pedi? A gift certificate to a nail shop of courseā¦
But there was a problem.
I searched for every nail salon within 30 min of Seattle, and not a single one offered a way to purchase a gift card through their website.
No joke. 15+ nail salons, and not a single one offered online gift cards.
The idea: An online gift card set-up service for local businesses.
The tech to do this already exists, so it will be more about pitching businesses on why they need e-gift cards, and how you can help them set everything up.
Hereās 2 ways you can set up this business:
Create your own gift card application and sell to businesses. (Most difficult)
Become an affiliate of a company that already offers the application. (Least difficult)
For this example, https://www.giftfly.com/affiliates offers an affiliate program that pays 30% monthly commissions on all fees paid by merchants that you sign up.
How to get started: This business will require a lot of phone and/or email outreach to local businesses. You can start by making a list of a specific type of business (ex. nail salons), and call every one in your area (or other areas). You can offer your set-up services in person, or virtually to increase your target market.
By not offering online gift cards, businesses will be missing out on sales from customers that like to buy online. It is key to sell this pain point to the businesses, and communicate the extra revenue they will get by offering gift cards online.
Once you have a business thatās interested, you can charge a fee to set up the application on their website. Once set up, you will continue to earn monthly commission payouts from each business you sign up.
Things I like about this business:
Low start-up fees by using the affiliate model. ā
Creates a direct ROI for your customers (new revenue from gift card sales). š
Recurring monthly commissions that increase every time you sign up a new business. š
You donāt have to fulfill any services once businesses are onboarded. š
Let me know what you think!
2. Use Time Boxing to Get More Done
The idea of time boxing activities is nothing new, but is is one of the most powerful (and underrated) things you can do to be more effective with your time.
Time boxing is the idea of giving yourself a very specific amount of time to get something done.
Instead of saying āIāll write this paper todayā, give yourself from 2:00 to 3:00 PM to write the paper.
The key is to set a deadline. āThis task must be done by 3:00 PM. No laterā
This will get rid of any procrastination, and allow your brain to focus on a single task (writing the paper). Schedule a block on your calendar to focus on one specific task.
But just like most things, this only works if you keep yourself accountable.
Accountable to start the task at 2:00 PM and finish the task by 3:00 PM.
Try it out with something youāve been procrastinating!
3. How AI Writing Tools Actually Work
Imagine you downloaded every piece of writing on the internet, and uploaded it to your brain.
You would be a master at writing, and be able to write about almost any subject.
Thatās basically what GPT-3 is.
GPT-3 is a neural networkĀ machine learning model trained using internet data to generate any type of text. - techtaget
GPT - 3 was created by openai.com and is the brains behind many AI writing tools like Jasper.ai , copy.ai , and writer.com.
Each tool claims to specialize in a specific type of writing (seo, blog, copywriting, etc), but each provide the same service: Computer generated writing from artificial intelligence.
Imagine this. You want to write a blog article about uni-cycles, but you know it will take 2-3 hours of research, and another 1-2 hours to write it.
But instead of writing it yourself, you log into an AI writing tool, type in āuni-cycleā, and out pops a 500 word article about uni-cycles. How cool would that be?
Now, these AI writing tools arenāt quite at that level (yet), but itās pretty amazing what they can do.
A cool example I found this week is writelikeshaan.com made by @aadillpickle. Itās an AI writing tool that will write about any topic in @ShaanVP ās writing style.
So of course I had to try it out
Pretty good for a computerā¦
So what do you think?
Also anyone looking to boost their productivity through timeboxing as suggested by Nic in this post, here's an elegant and beginner-friendly tool that I am currently using:-
https://llamalife.co/
Hope it helps!
Hey Nic,
Here's a suggestion for an idea that you can cover in the upcoming post :- Subscriptions for local businesses.
Investors seem to really think that it can blossom into something huge as is indicated by the following investments by Y Combinator into these three players covering the same aforementioned idea into different geographies:-
1. Per Diem (Currently focused on North America but open to expansion)
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/per-diem
2. Shopscribe (Europe)
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/shopscribe
3. JoinSub (India)
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/joinsub
The idea is replicable across geographies and is highly scalable (just like the gift card for local businesses idea that you wrote about) so people in other countries who might stumble across your newsletter can think about starting a similar venture in their own country or region (e.g. Latin America, China etc.)
P.S. Per Diem was also successful in raising further funding
https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/21/per-diem-raises-2-26m-to-help-local-businesses-build-subscription-programs/
Looking forward to your next post,
Keyur