🍖 Roast our Startup Idea

Less SVB talk, more startup jamming

Hey Founders,

☕️ Welcome back to the Kernal Newsletter: the bank teller that genuinely enjoys hearing about your startup vs up-selling you on credit loans.

📰 Latest news: SVB had a hell of a week. The Oscars happened. Ryan Reynolds sold Mint Mobile for $1B. Biden says banking is safe. Everyone’s re-watching the Big Short. OpenAI launched GPT-4. TikTok may split from ByteDance. VC funding slowed down. We’re all tired from the time change. If you’ll are ready to rock, our newsletter’s game to talk.👇

✨ Partner of the week

The No-Code MVP Bootcamp is a hands-on learning experience for entrepreneurs, creators and innovators who want to master the power of no-code. Kernal has partnered with them to help you bring your ideas to life. The next No-Code MVP Bootcamp is happening on May 1st. Submit your idea to their Kernal page and get started now.

Have a message you wanna share with 10,000+ curious and good looking founders? Smash that button below 👇

🍽 Today's Menu:

  • Our new idea: Platform for Incubators

  • Growth hacks to scale your startup idea

  • Fresh MVPs to sink your teeth into

  • Tweets of the week

🤫 Our New Idea: A Platform for Incubators & Accelerators

In true Kernal fashion, we’re asking you to spend 2 minutes reviewing our new startup idea to let us know if it has legs.🦵

The goal: We wanna build Kernal for Startup Programs a way to manage applications, track startup progression and engage with founders.

Here's our "back of a napkin" on why we think it should exist:

  • 🗝️ Opportunity: Kernal is the place where startups begin. Members post ideas and get supportive feedback from our trusted community as they navigate their entrepreneurial journey. We see an opportunity to expand Kernal’s core features to Startup Programs as an all-in-one platform to manage applications, track startup progression, and support founders.

  • 🙋‍♀️ Customers: Startup Program Managers of:

    • 🚀 Incubators, Accelerators

    • 🧑‍💻 Bootcamps, Hackathons

    • 🎓 University Programs, Online Courses, etc.

    • Know any? We’d love an intro to [email protected]

  • 😡 Pain points:

    • Applicant Tracking: it’s common for founders’ info to get lost in dozens of google sheets

    • Visibility into Startup Progression: it’s hard to stay in touch with founders that move away, go remote or raise funding

    • Founder Engagement: every update needs to be manually tracked vs having a simple CRM

  • 💡Solution:

    • A white-labelled experience for startup programs to efficiently manage founders from application to exit in one centralized hub.

    • This group will be community-powered, allowing cohorts to provide feedback and support on each other’s startups.

  • 🤔 Existing Alternatives:

    • Updating endless google sheets

    • Manually sending individual emails

So, what do you think?

But for real, would this tool be helpful for you?

Then someone from our team will reach out with next steps to get you access.

LAST ASK: Do you know someone who works at an incubator or accelerator program?! We’d love for you to share this with them. You can also email us at [email protected].

💸 7 Growth Hacks for your Startup idea

Mental models are all hype. But often you need some good old-fashioned growth ideas to get your idea off the ground.

This is where we’d love to tap into spotlighting a recent post by Lenny.

Steal some of his most used top-of-funnel growth ideas.

📈 Drive more top-of-funnel (short-term) growth for your startup idea

  1. Convince an important (niche) influencer to mention you (e.g. Tinder, Twitter, Clubhouse)

  2. Do something controversial to get people talking about you (here’s some advice)

  3. Buy lots of billboards in a concentrated area (e.g. Brex, Airtable, Venmo)

  4. Release a shareable one-off product (e.g. Copy.ai, Ahrefs, Calm, UberPuppies)

  5. Launch on Product Hunt and hustle to get to #1 (guide, guide, guide, guide, guide)

  6. Publish a viral piece of content (e.g. Clancy’s Auto Body TikTok video, Dropbox, Superhuman)

  7. Get a popular newsletter or podcast to cover you (e.g. Ramp and Packy, Vanta and Acquired, Substack and The Generalist)

Want more growth ideas? Read his full post here.

Now, the part you’ve all been waiting for…

Fresh Startup Ideas 

Who’s the Founder? Joseph Lee is a serial founder that’s scaled Freshline.io, been named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list and is well plugged into the OnDeck community.

Why did he build Supademo? With the looming recession and pressure to do more with less, nearly 90% of SaaS companies plan to invest in product-led growth (PLG) initiatives at their companies.

Popular use cases include: Showcasing value up-front, driving sales, and simplifying customer support. They already have 1,000+ users and would love to have the Kernal community test it out.

Try it here: supademo.com

The Concept: Hubble is a startup idea to let anyone build AI apps without code. Design your app interface, write prompts with AI models, and launch a powerful app in minutes — with no code. More than 10,000 individuals have built useful AI apps from planning trips to writing college essays.

Momentum: Over the past few weeks, we’ve piloted Hubble with early users and have truly been in awe of the sheer creativity that our users have poured into the ecosystem. Here are some of my favourite apps that early users have made with Hubble:

2. Couples Vacation Planner: https://www.hubble.ai/apps/9178d...

3. Press Release Generator: https://www.hubble.ai/apps/26722...'

The Ask: We’d love to have the Kernal community build some apps so we’re here all day if you have any questions: reach out to [email protected] or [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

Macro Trends: E-learning is on the rise, with more students and professionals turning to online education for convenience and flexibility. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are also growing rapidly, making it possible to create intelligent chatbots.

Market Size: The global e-learning market is projected to reach $325 billion by 2025. Additionally, the global chatbot market is expected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 29.7% during the forecast period.

Timing: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of online learning and remote work, creating a greater need for AI-powered tutoring chatbots.

But wait, we’ve got more. Here’s some more ideas that’ll pull you right in.

Got a startup idea of your own?

Share it by tapping below.

📩 Gems In Our Inbox:

🐦 Tweets of the Week

Enough reading. Go and have an awesome weekend.

💚 The Kernal Fam

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