Boy Scouts of America

A startup raised $8M copying the org-chart idea from the show

After Shaan and guest Daniel Gross brainstormed a public, crowdsourced org-chart tool on the pod, a stealth startup called The Org launched doing exactly that and raised $8M from Sequoia and Founders Fund.

“There's actually a startup that came out of Stealth that is doing this after we talked about it. Clearly stole our idea. It's called The Org. They raised $8 million from Sequoia and Founders Fund, and it looks like they're doing exactly this.”

Study old, boring incumbents to see proven demand

Sam's repeatable move: look up dated, unsexy operators like KOA campgrounds or Boy Scouts to confirm real demand exists, then build a modern version that adds features and prioritizes revenue and profit.

“what I love doing is I love looking at these older things, uh, like KOA, like Boy Scouts, and it's like, show me the demand. And that kind of gives me an idea. And then if you just like add add-ons and operate it in a in a way where you prioritize revenue and profit, then things get super interesting.”

Steal thisFind a decades-old incumbent in your space to prove demand, then rebuild it profit-first with modern add-ons.

Boy Scouts: $1.5B in assets, membership at an all-time low

Shaan's read of Boy Scouts' public nonprofit financials: $1.5 billion in assets and about 2 million members, down from 6-7 million in the 1960s-80s, with roughly $200 million in 2018 revenue mostly from fees.

“they had $1.5 billion $1.5 billion in assets. Membership right now, they have around 2 million members. That's at an all-time low. In the '60s, '70s, and '80s, it was all the way up to 6 or 7 million members.”

Boy Scouts' biggest expense is $120M of insurance

Shaan was struck that the Boy Scouts' single largest cost is insurance, at $120 million a year, driven by taking kids camping into the wild.

“They pay $120 million for insurance.”