Founder's Compass: Week 13
Hello there and welcome to Founder's Compass, a good way to get oriented around the labyrinthian world of startups.
Tool of the week
Having trouble coming up with ideas? Here's an AI agent optimized to help you with that. Your personal Brainstorm Buddy:
Video of the week
In a world so well-connected, we're drifting apart from each other. Family is not just for the holidays. Call your loved ones, your friends, even those you haven't talked to in years. Ask them how they've been. We're all a lot more lonely than we think. A great piece from New York Times showcasing this:
Startup Idea of the week
Downcycling promotional materials ๐
๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ๐บ:
We're still using plastic in a lot of places we shouldn't. You're probably already familiar with the term PVC from PVC pipes, which are set in the ground for tens if not hundreds of years. Yet we use the same material, PVC, to make billboards, ads, roll-ups and truck tarps. In some cases, like promotional materials, these PVC banners are used for a couple of months at best and then discarded. The companies that produce them also have a hard time recycling/re-using them, as their branding is on the promo materials (sometimes even with outdated campaigns).
๐ง๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ด๐ฒ๐:
Printing shops, companies with OOH advertising/physical signage, trucking companies.
๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ฝ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฆ๐ผ๐น๐๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป:
The good part about PVC is that it's very useful: water resistant, strong, durable. With a clear enough process of covering the branding up, you could buy the banners, roll-ups, spiders and all others from clients and downcycle them into more useful applications. Some applications include: Skiing equipment, jackets, bags (the most famous example here is FREITAG), pool liners, aprons and more.
๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ฒ๐ณ๐ถ๐๐:
โ Reuse of previously thrown-out raw materials, decreasing the cost of production.
โ Superior material thanks to it's great properties mentioned above (that also makes it dangerous for the environment though).
โ Easy to deploy: Downcycling flexible PVC is rather simple in operations: washing/cleaning and treating it as a textile material works.
๐๐ต๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐ป๐ด๐ฒ๐:
โ Tough sell: Convincing companies to let a startup handle their discarded promotional material is not an easy task.
โ Dwindling supply of new items: There is a trend towards LED billboards and less use of promotional materials in general (which is a good thing in general, bad for this idea).
โ Labour-intensive: The process might be easy, but the human labour involved with this isn't cheap, especially for a startup.
What would you do differently to get this startup off the ground? Do you think this would work? Let's talk in the comments ๐ค
Some news as well
That's it for this week's edition. Stick close for the next one.
Pssst... Are you looking to generate awesome ideas like the one above? You can work with us and create a hackathon for your team: https://creativemotion.io/creative-labs/
If you already have an awesome idea and an awesome team to boot, don't shy away and apply to our accelerator:
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