Wild 5 Step Biz Idea for the 2024 Eclipse!

Insane stat: The 2017 total eclipse was seen by 215 MILLION people! In 103 days it'll happen again, and I've got a wild 5 step biz idea.

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2017's had a problem. It went through tiny towns:

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It was a big deal! AirBnBs sold out & people drove for hours

Now we get another shot

Not just that, but it’s passing over bigger cities this time, DFW included:

I added up the population sizes, and the 2024 eclipse will pass over cities that have about 2.5x the cumulative population as 2017’s.

Not only is this eclipse going through bigger cities, but it’ll be a beautiful time of year as well. A perfect time of year for…running a 5k.

How cool would it be to run a 1 mile, 5k or 10k in the middle of a total eclipse? It’ll happen in the early afternoon on Monday, April 8th.

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Even better, how cool would it be to profit from that?

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That’s where you come in. If I had more time to launch this, here’s exactly what I’d do. Please steal (or at least borrow) my playbook:

Step 1:

Find an out of the box website solution that can allow you to create a simple race day website. I found a few for ya:

racedaymanagement . com

thedriven . com

eventbrite . com

I’ve never used any of these tools, because I’ve never hosted a race, but the top one seems like the best bet.

I don’t know them and have never used them, but I know they can handle alllll the logistical aspects of a race, from the website to the timing, bibs, chips, etc.

I’ve ran in several races that they put on and everything went smoothly.

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Step 2:

Find a local, experienced race director that really knows what they’re doing. I know two really well that I can introduce you to if you run with this.

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Step 3:

I would create either a franchise, a licensing agreement or an expensive PDF.

Franchise:

Franchises are expensive and a lengthy process, so that likely won’t happen in 3.5 months.

You have to create a FDD (Franchise Disclosure Document) that is compliant in every state you want to operate in. You also have to pay a specialized lawyer $20k - 100k+ and go over a ton of granular details.

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I think this will be the best long term play, but you don’t have time to do this for the 2024 eclipse.

Licensing agreement:

A licensing agreement can be very simple, but if you don’t craft it right you could get in legal hot water because you might merely calling yourself a franchise but still acting like a franchise.

I’ll cover this more below, but even licensing could take a while.

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Expensive PDF:

This would be a $500 - $5k digital download to you could sell to enterprising entrepreneurs that live near the cities along the eclipse path.

You’d be profitable from selling this alone, but the real profits would come later. In the PDF you’d offer them the following:

Show them a step by step guide of exactly how to host an Eclipse 5k or 10k.

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Don’t know how?

Of course you don’t, that’s why you found a race director. You’re going to pay them for their time to make this PDF for you, or cut them in on the profits. They’ll already have a huge policy booklet that you can copy/paste as well and edit to fit your race.

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Allow them to list their event on your website, which would also entail you also managing all digital logistics around sign up, marketing, etc.

This will be the one and ONLY Eclipse 5K website.

Offer to sell them all the medals, swag and merch they’d need at a deeply discounted rate.

Offer to help market the event for them, but this might cost extra.

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Step 4:

Market the heck out of this thing, both to find PDF buyers and racers. This would be sooooo easy to market!

Here’s exactly how I’d do it, in order of lowest cost yet most promising:

Have a VA scrape a list of writers/reporters/editors in all of the cities both along the eclipse path, and within an hour or two of the path.

Cold email them and tell them your story. This is totally doable.

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You want email addresses of writers of small, local news outlets and national ones as well. This is a SUPER COOL story to write about, and they will eat it up.

That’s exactly how I launched my eCom biz to $162k in revenue our first 30 days! Zero paid ads.

Have a VA join a zillion local FB groups of running clubs to advertise the event by simply telling your story.

Have a VA also join a zillion local FB groups for business owners to advertise the opportunity to host a 5k in their city.

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You don’t need to be a big city to host an event. I’d bet you there are hundreds of cities and towns big enough to justify a profitable race, especially when you consider the influx of tourists on that day. I’m thinking:

Eclipse 5K Dallas
Eclipse 5K Waco
Eclipse 5K Oswego
Eclipse 5K Carbondale

Have a VA go to runsignup, findarace and ultrasignup and scrape the contact info of every local race director.

They will be even more likely to partner with you on this because they already know what they’re doing, AND they already have a customer base to market to!

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You could even give them the PDF for free and profit in other ways (keep reading for that).

Scrape a list of every running shop or running club along the path using Outscraper and market to them as well.

These running shop owners can both sponsor your event and send customers your way.

Cut me in and I’ll tweet about it to generate media attention, race entrants and PDF buyers. 🙂

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Step 5:

Profit.

How much could this make, anyway? And why would someone go through all this work for a 1 time event?

Don’t worry, this is a long term, sustainable business, and I’ll explain why down below.

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You are going to make money in 5 ways:

1. Selling the PDF upfront.

This is essentially their franchise fee, but don’t you dare call it that unless you enjoy getting sued.

It’s more akin to a course than anything.

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2. A revshare from the entry fee ticket sales.

3. 100% of entry fees from the virtual event.

4. Marking up the swag and merch.

5. Finding sponsors for the event.

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Here’s how much I think this could make:

$50,000 from selling the PDF

Let’s be conservative and say you sell it for $999 to to 50 race directors or business owners in 50 cities and towns. That’s about 98% less than most franchise fees, so it’s a pretty great deal. Or hey, sell it for $5k to 10 race directors. Same same.

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$62,500 from entry fees

Let’s say each race has a 1 mile, a 5k and a 10k with 500 entrants total.

Many 5ks have 1,000 - 10,000+ people, so 500 is very conservative. The market price for a 5k is about $50, and you could likely justify charging even more since it’s such a unique event.

500 people x $50 entry fee = $25,000 per race. Yes, there will be costs to incur, but you’re going to take a % of revenue at signup, so you don’t care about costs.

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If you take 5%, that leave you with 50 races X 500 entrants per race X $50 entry fee X 5% fee = $62,500 from entry fees. This 5% would be akin to an ongoing franchise fee, but DON’T YOU DARE CALL IT THAT!

$500,000 from the virtual event

Did you know that virtual 5ks are very much a thing, and cost the same as an in person race? Thank you, Covid! Look it up!

Sell $50 tickets to 10,000 people and you have $500k. That’s your moneymaker right there. You’re keeping 100% of the virtual event, less costs of course.

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I’m confident that this could generate enough organic impressions from news articles and social media posts to generate $500k in virtual ticket sales.

You can sell them to anyone in the country, whether they see the eclipse or not.

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Paid ads would likely do well as well.

You’ll have to mail them a medal, eclipse glasses and a shirt. Maybe those cost extra and maybe they don’t. Your call! But that will cut your profit in half. Those things are usually included in virtual races.

$125,000 from marking up the swag and merch

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Every runner will need a:

Shirt
Bib
Cheap, paper eclipse glasses
Medal

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You will order these in bulk (except the bib) from Ali Baba and have them dropshipped directly from China to your event directors, with a markup.

A $5 total (conservative) markup X 25,000 entrants = $125,000. Don’t worry, you won’t need to rent a warehouse.

$50,000 from sponsoring

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Honestly, I completely made this number up. I’m out of my depth when it comes to potential revenue from sponsoring races, so $50k feels right.

You could either control all sponsorship across all 50 races, or teach the race directors how to find sponsors themselves, but you wouldn’t be able to get a cut in that case.

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That’s $787,500 gross profit, or $527,500 if you cut your margin in half on the virtual race by including the swag and shipping in the $50 entry fee.

The shirt will be about $7, the medal $2 and the paper glasses $.50, all shipped. Call it $10 total + $5 shipping. So maybe a 30% cost on $50 is more realistic than 50%.

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Ok, so what do I do after April 8th, 2024?

There are about 7 solar and lunar eclipses every year.

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That means you can host 7 races in X number of cities every year with this number of race director and affiliates that you’e already done the legwork to assemble.

Let’s say each race profits you $100k, this could be a $700k/year profitable business.

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This doesn’t have to just be a US thing, either. Sell PDFs and virtual races 7 times per year to millions of people around the world and it could profit millions.

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Use Facebook ads to target runners.

This can be done, people!

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Yeah, none of the other 5ks will be as big as the one in April, but it’s still a cool, unique reason to get out and run.

Shoot, if 15,000 people line up to run the Hot Chocolate 5k in Dallas every year (fact), you can find people to run for a freaking eclipse.

There will be another total eclipse in 2026, BTW.

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I think lunar 5Ks at night would be even more popular.

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Or, TLDR? Skip everything above and go straight to a virtual only event. Much easier.

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Conclusion

There’s a massive solar eclipse coming in 3.5 months that hundreds of millions of Americans will get excited about.

There needs to be an “Eclipse 5K” that someone enterprising makes a bunch of money from.

Someone needs to do this. This needs to be a thing.

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I feel like if someone actually does execute on this, my profit estimate will either be way low or way high.

It won’t cost much money to launch, just time and hustle. You can use the PDF revenue to buy this shirts and swag, or simply have the race directors pay upfront.

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But hey, we’re running (heh) out of time.

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April is almost here. Someone reading this will either think “This is the perfect thing for me to launch because of X Y Z.”

Or, someone reading this will know the perfect person to launch this.

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Also, let me know if you’d like to partner somehow. I’ll tell you upfront that I always can find time to advise, but not the time to be an active partner on this.

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I already own eclipse5k .com and eclipse10k .com. But no, there’s nothing on those websites (yet).

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If you don't do something with them then no one will.

I emailed this out to my newsletter on Friday and already have a few people wanting to do it.

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Would love a follow if you found this interesting: @mhp_guy