Happy Friday, 👋
Today we're talking about a metal building, some painted lines, and $500 in Facebook ads. Somehow that's a six figure business.
In Todays Edition, TL;DR
A secret pickleball club you can validate before spending a dime
An app that fines you every time you don't finish your todos
AI agents that run your whole startup from one dashboard
CEO of Robinhood said this about AI…
The Friday Idea
💡 The Secret Pickleball Club
The Problem: Did you know 36.5 million Americans play pickleball. Participation has tripled in five years. Most of them are jammed onto public courts with wait times, strangers, and zero consistency on when they can play.
Private clubs exist but youre paying an arm and a leg to play.
🛠 Solution: Rent a metal building. Paint lines on the floor. Sell memberships. Set up a monthly fee. Reserve a court when you need it. 24/7 access. No audience, no wait list, no one watching you shank a third shot drop.
Just show up, tap in, and play.
The experience is the whole pitch. Add a small lounge where people can hang after their session. A few bar stools, a mini fridge with drinks, maybe a food option that doesn't require a commercial kitchen
💵 The business model:
Base membership: $99/month, guaranteed court access X times per month, additional plays at a per session rate
Founding member tier: launch with a limited number of memberships
Guest passes: members pay a flat day rate to bring non members
Upsells: ball and paddle rental, tournaments, bar and food.
Heres some napkin note math
Two courts, 200 pre sold members, $99/month = $19,800 coming in before anyone buys a drink.
Fixed costs run maybe $4–6K/month (insurance, utilities, a cleaner). So by my math thats $14–15K in profit or $170K/year. Buildout costs could be $10-20k upfront, which you're paying back in two or three months at full capacity.
How To Build This (In A Weekend)
🧰 The most important rule: don't spend $40K on a building before you know anyone will show up.
Step 1: Did you know you can validate this idea for $500?
Run Meta ads to a Typeform. Obviously Location specific, other than that, run broad targeting let Facebook find the people theyre pretty good at that.
Keep the ads simple. "Secret pickleball club opening this summer but founding memberships limited". I’d build one campagin, one ad set and 3-5 different ad creatives.
What you need to see: At least 50+ completed surveys, average intent score of 7+, respondents saying they'd bring friends. If you get that, Id say you have the green light.
The best part is you can pre sell the memberships to help off set startup costs
Step 2: Find the space
You don't need commercial real estate. You need a metal building someone isn't using. Pole barns, back of lot storage, unused warehouse space. Target 4,000–7,000 sq ft.
Negotiate a lease, don't buy. 2–3 year term with a renewal option. A lot of these buildings sit empty and the owner will take $1,500–2,000/month just to have someone in there.
Again, you’ve pre sold memberships to cover these costs
Step 3: Build it out (~$10k-20k)
Court surface and lines: $3–8K. Existing concrete works fine, just sand, seal, paint.
Keycard access (Kisi or Salto): $500–2K. No front desk, no staff.
Lounge, bar stools, mini fridge: $2–5K.
Lighting: $2–4K if the building needs it.
Insurance: $200–400/month. Get this before anyone steps on the court.
Step 4: Launch + creative way to market this
You already have a list of people who said they'd join/prebought a membership. Email them first. "We're opening. Founding memberships capped at 200. Here's your link."
From there, you could bring in small time local influencers, make founder content document yourself building this idea and use that as fuel for marketing.
Napkin Note Ideas
💡 The app that charges you for being lazy
The Problem: Every productivity app has the same fatal flaw… There's no consequence for ignoring it. You add tasks, you miss them, the app sends a passive aggressive notification. Accountability without stakes isn't accountability. It's journaling.
The Solution: Build an app that lets you connect your todos, add a fine per incomplete task, link a card. If you miss your deadline, you get charged. You pick the amount, $1, $5, $20, something that hurts. The money goes to a charity, a friend, or a personal savings pool you can't touch.
The business model:
The irony of monetizing an app about not paying for things you don't finish is not lost on me.
$5–8/month subscription to use the platform
2–3% processing fee on every fine collected. users are already primed to pay, the whole premise is money leaving their account
Charity partnerships: they get a steady stream of micro-donations with zero acquisition cost
Corporate wellness deals: companies deploy this internally for team accountability, pay per seat
How did we do? 👇🏻
Weekly Gems Worth Reading
Here’s the 16 most interesting startups from the YC W26 batch
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev just said this about the future of AI and its not what you might guess
🤖 Paperclip: hire a team of AI agents to run your startup: Anonymous founder built one of the fastest growing open source AI projects right now. Paperclip lets you create a CEO, engineer, content strategist, etc. and manage them from one dashboard.
That’s all guys
Alright, that’s a wrap for this week.
A members only pickleball club you can validate for $500, an app that charges you every time you skip a todo, and an AI agent team you can spin up today.
Talk next week.