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Happy Friday!
Well, it’s 4:47AM and I’ve been up for an hour. Why? Because I go that hard? Well, sorry, but no. It’s because I had a nightmare about snakes and I woke up FREAKED OUT and couldn’t go back to sleep. So I drove to the office and got a head start on today’s newsletter.
Today is crazy busy anyway, so I’m gonna make busy juice out of lemons and get an early start.
Today’s topic is a bit…off the wall, but I think you’ll like that about it. I have an idea that’s either really stupid, or it’s one of those things that becomes successful and everyone think “Really? That?” And also, he doesn’t read this, but the original idea came from my friend Grant, so I can’t claim it. He planted the original seed and I ran with it. Anyway, enough blabbing. Let’s get down to bidness.
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One of the reasons I love this newsletter is because I can throw crazy and/or dumb ideas out there and see what everyone thinks. BTW, I reply to every single email and read every single word of feedback you leave on your poll responses, so thank you. If I didn’t respond to an email of yours, I promise it’s on accident, so email me again and call me a liar and I’ll repent and send an extra long response.
Ok, I haven’t had my adderall yet today because that last paragraph went off the rails. Let’s try that again.
I love seeing what you all think about these ideas before blasting them out to the world on X. And also, I love dreaming that one of you will start one of these ideas, with or without me, and so you’ll get first look by subscribing here. There’s only 2,857 of us here, after all! If you haven’t noticed, when I post something that I’ve already emailed about, it is edited and trimmed down significantly. The real juice is nestled snugly within the nouns, verbs and adjectives of this email.
Ok, let’s get to it.
Guys, do you realize there’s a massive total eclipse coming in 3.5 months? Do you realize that the last one was in 2017 and was viewed by 215 million people? That’s twice the viewership of the Super Bowl. And you know what that means right? My 2nd favorite P word:
Profit.
But, 2017 had a problem. The eclipse went through tiny little towns, plus Nashville. See below:
If you don’t remember, it was a big deal! AirBnBs sold out along the path, and people drove hours and hours to catch a glimpse.
And now, we have another shot at it.
And not just that, but it’s going to pass 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.
Even better, how cool would it be to profit from that?
Well, you’re in luck, because I own eclipse5k .com and eclipse10k .com. But no, there’s nothing on those websites (yet). No use typing into your browser.
That’s where you come in. If I had more time to find an operator for 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.net
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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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. 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 Texas Snax 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 join a zillion local FB groups for business owners to advertise the opportunity to host a 5k in their city. 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.com, findarace.com and ultrasignup.com 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! 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. (Fun fact, I reached out to Outscraper asking to buy them, because it seems like a rad business I’d want to own. No dice.) 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. 🙂
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.
You are going to make money in 5 ways:
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.
A revshare from the entry fee ticket sales.
100% of entry fees from the virtual event.
Marking up the swag and merch.
Finding sponsors for the event.
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.
$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.
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.
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.
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
Every runner will need a:
Shirt
Bib
Cheap, paper eclipse glasses
Medal
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 (consrvative) markup X 25,000 entrants = $125,000. Don’t worry, you won’t need to rent a warehouse.
$50,000 from sponsoring
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.
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%.
This could be you:
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Ok, so what do I do after April 8th, 2024?
There are about 7 solar and lunar eclipses every year. 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 $700k, this could be a $700k/year profitable business.
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.
Use Facebook ads to target runners.
This can be done, people!
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.
I think lunar 5Ks at night would be even more popular.
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. 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.
But hey, we’re running (heh) out of time. 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.
Forward it along, will you?
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.
What I’m working on
Well, I took a 4 day trip with my son to Portland, and we had an absolute blast. We caught crabs and rainbow trout. We went skiing for the first time on Mount Hood and got private lessons. And we ate a TON of amazing food. Gravy was the best restaurant we ate at, FYI.
Things are slowing down at Texas Snax now that the holiday rush is over. Bummer.
I hired a PPC agency to take over Google Ads for 3 of my companies for me to free up more time, so I’m excited about that.
Oh! And at Mining Syndicate we got a $324k order yesterday! It’s the 4th biggest order in company history, and is quite profitable as well. Our average order size is about 1/100th of that, so it’s a big deal. That was an awesome, awesome thing to hear. We have a $200k order in the works as well. My stress level is dropping 83% now that BTC is out of the doldrums (I hope).
I had two consulting calls yesterday. One with an awesome woman that sells design thinking workshops, and another with a guy buying a small HVAC biz in Minnesota! Both were very awesome calls and people.
That’s all I can think about for now. Thanks for reading, and please share this newsletter with the link below if you know of any startup addicts or wannabe addicts such as myself. 1 referral = a personalized marketing tip from me based on your website.
Chris Koerner
chrisjkoerner.com