Idea
An agency staffed by failed YC founders
Shaan pitches turning failed YC startups into a high-end dev-shop talent pool: two-person 'demolition crews' you can hire for a period, positioned as the premium tier above Upwork/Fiverr/Gigster, with founders using it as an interim gig between startups.
“If they can get more failed YC startups to do this as an interim thing of like, hey, yeah, I do this while I'm in between figuring out what my next startup is. I think that's a very smart idea.”
Steal thisBuild a premium agency that farms the YC talent pipeline; hire founders between startups as elite contract teams.
Idea
Turnkey bathroom renovation: pick a design, see the price, push the button
Sam celebrates Maid Renovation (Roger Dickey of Gigster, $9M raised) productizing bathroom remodels. Instead of hiring a contractor and building a vision board, customers choose from ~4 fixed designs at a set price (e.g. $5,000) and push a button — collapsing a custom one-off into a packaged product.
“So they have like 4 designs of bathrooms. You just pick which one you want. You want the old Victorian cool-looking one? You want the modern one? Or you want the middle-of-the-road one?”
Steal thisProductize a custom local service by offering a few fixed design packages at a set price with one-click ordering.