66 - Two Unique Business Opportunities No One Is Talking About with Chris Koerner
Oct 4, 2024
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Chris Koerner, a business partner and innovator, joins to discuss unique business opportunities. They explore launching a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) to amplify small business negotiating power. The conversation dives into scaling print shops and leveraging lead generation tactics. Chris shares insights on selling high-ticket items to heavily regulated industries like airline manufacturing, highlighting both challenges and surprisingly high profit margins. Their discussion reveals innovative strategies for navigating niche markets and creating modern value.
Creating a Group Purchasing Organization empowers small businesses by enhancing their collective negotiating power to achieve better supplier rates.
Navigating FAA regulations presents both challenges and lucrative opportunities in selling high-ticket widgets to airline manufacturers.
Deep dives
Navigating FAA Regulations in Airline Sales
Selling to airline manufacturers requires navigating extensive FAA regulations, which can create significant barriers to entry for new vendors. This regulatory environment can lead to monopolies among niche suppliers who dominate specific product categories, allowing them to set higher prices. The podcast highlights how these vendors can charge exorbitant fees for basic components due to the lack of competition in the sector. This presents a lucrative opportunity for individuals willing to comply with FAA requirements to enter the market and potentially realize high profit margins.
Exploring the Print Shop Business Model
The conversation dives into the print shop industry, where a business owner is successfully rolling up smaller print operations to enhance his market presence. By acquiring these smaller shops, he leverages an existing customer base without the need to integrate new employees or processes, working instead with existing assets. The discussion identifies that many print shops still rely on static websites without interactive features, which represents a significant inefficiency in quoting processes. By modernizing their online presence, there is a chance to drastically improve operational efficiency and customer engagement.
Creating Interactive Tools for Print Shops
An idea is presented for developing interactive quoting tools for print shops, which could streamline the quotation process and enhance customer service. Many print shops use simple pricing sheets that do not cater to customer needs for personalized quotes, leading to operational bottlenecks. The podcast suggests the potential to hire virtual assistants to build these interactive tools and implement them across various print shop websites. This approach could open new revenue streams and help capture the significant number of shops lacking this capability.
Group Purchasing Organizations as a Business Model
The concept of Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) is discussed, highlighting their capacity to empower small independent businesses to negotiate better rates with suppliers. By combining their collective purchasing power, these organizations offer significant savings to their members, often improving the bottom line for individual businesses. The podcast suggests that this model could be particularly effective in the healthcare sector and other industries where vendors wield considerable power over pricing. As a potential entrepreneur, organizing a GPO focused on a specific industry could yield great financial rewards and facilitate collaboration among businesses.
Join me, Nik (https://x.com/CoFoundersNik), and my business partner Chris (http://tkopod.co/p-x) for another HoldCo Bros episode! This week, we're talking about some fun business ideas. We discuss starting a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO)from scratch. We talk about print shops and keep gravitating back towards opportunities in this space. Lastly, we discuss selling high-ticketwidgets to airline manufacturers, including the challenges of dealing with FAA regulations, which also make the surprisingly high margins possible due to the barriers to entry.
What are the key steps to scaling a print shop business, including acquisitions and efficiency improvements?
How can a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) benefit small businesses and increase their negotiating power?
What unique opportunities exist in creating niche solutions for traditional industries like print shops?
What are the challenges and opportunities in selling to heavily regulated industries like airline manufacturers?
What strategies can be used to develop and launch a new product in an industry with existing high barriers to entry?
Enjoy the show! __________________________
Love it or hate it, I'd love your feedback. Please fill out this brief survey with your opinion or send me an email at Nik@cofounders.com with your thoughts. __________________________
00:00 Highlights 01:11 Introduction to the Boomer Businessman 01:51 Challenges of Running a Print Shop 02:20 Innovating the Print Shop Business 03:15 The Interactive Website Solution 04:56 Exploring New Business Ideas 09:33 Lead Generation and Ethical Bait Switching 16:05 Validating Business Demand 23:05 Recap of Business Ideas 23:51 Challenges in Healthcare Negotiations 28:10 Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) 34:47 Innovative Product in the RV Industry 36:29 Framework for Idea Validation and Distribution 39:58 Leveraging Insider Knowledge for Business Ideas 44:30 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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