🗂 Overview

Unlocking the right opportunities often hinges on having the right information at your fingertips. That's why today we will dive into the world of databases as a digital product.

Databases aren’t just repositories of information; they're tools that can drive decision-making, offering high value to end-users across multiple industries. They’re rich in possibilities for scalable, recurring revenue.

By creating databases, you're combining data with demand. This isn't just about collecting information; it's about organizing it in a way that makes it actionable, whether that's for a business seeking new leads or an individual planning their next travel adventure.

Let’s jump in!

👀 Things worth checking out

💡 Opportunities

Decided to try something different this week and put the opportunities at the top of the email as the trends and stats will be more relevant after you’ve read about the opportunities.

Travel Itinerary/Information Database

Create filterable databases & itineraries for every city you can think of, including things like:

Best tourist attractions - include best times to go, prices, opening hours, tips
Money-saving advice - like the best way to get around, best areas to stay
Best cafes, restaurants, bars, and clubs
Local tips - like areas to avoid, how to act, what not to do, etc
Common phrases - like how to order in the language, how to ask for directions, etc
Best places to stay
Cool experiences

You could do quite a lot with this:

You could make it like NomadList but for vacations
Create a weekly newsletter that sends updates about a user’s location preferences - for example; new events, attractions, deals, etc
Paid digital downloads with full PDF itineraries with everything they need to know about the location.

You could also add a premium done-for-you service which is essentially you being their travel agent and booking the entire itinerary for them or you could even create custom itineraries for clients.

Investing Strategies/Resource Database

There are loads of trading strategies out there, just a quick search on Google or YouTube will show you that. Check out Davidd Tech on YouTube for example. He creates videos where he explains and then back-tests various trading strategies.

You could create a database detailing every trading strategy you can find, how they performed on a back-test, would you recommend them, optimal settings to run them via automated trading bots, and so on. You could even create and sell access to bots on top of this or even trading courses.

Alternatively, you could create a database for technical analysis, explaining each type of chart formation and so on.

Or if you check out QuiverQuant, you could sell automated dashboards/tables of web-scraped information that could impact certain trades - like government contracts, etc.

Lead Database

Businesses will always need leads. There are obviously lots of tools and databases out there in this market but there’s always an opportunity to niche down - Cyberleads is a great example of that.

It’s especially lucrative if you offer services on top of the lead database. Such as appointment setting, cold emails or even sales calls. You could add a premium done-for-you service as the top tier like Cyberleads.

Niches for lead generation databases could be:

Out-dated websites (compiled using builtwith) for website developers. Filter by estimated tech spend.
Newly funded companies (similar to Cyberleads).
E-commerce websites (but niche down further, for example, you could go for ones that have seen a recent increase in volume that might need outsourcing).
Cannabis brands (add more info to this like what they might need outsourcing, etc)
New Patent Filings
Restaurant Openings
Poorly Rated Businesses on Google Maps/Google My Business or Businesses not using it effectively
Newly Listed Homes
UGC/Social Media Content Creators (a database of creators all in one place that brands can access - similar to Billo or Trend but global not just USA and free to use - the users just pay the creators via the platform and you take a small cut like Fiverr or Upwork)
Remote Job Listings
Government Contracts Awarded
New Mobile Apps
Renewable Energy Projects
Non-Profit Grants Awarded
Healthcare Facility Openings
Bankruptcy Filings
New Etsy Sellers
New Franchise Opportunities
New Government Policies
New Scientific Research Projects

📊 Stats

53% of marketers spend approximately 50% of their budget generating leads. (source)
The US digital lead generation market will reach approximately $3.2 billion by 2023. (source)
Retail investors account for nearly 20% of stock market activity in the United States. (source)
In 2022, the global retail market generated sales of over 27 trillion U.S. dollars, with a forecast to reach over 30 trillion U.S. dollars by 2024. (source)
The travel and tourism market worldwide is projected to grow by 4.42% (2023-2027) resulting in a market volume of US$1016.00bn in 2027. (source)

📈 Trends

TikTok Trend - the dotted line means incomplete data as it’s too recent.

⭐️ Examples

Apollo.io is a B2B lead database with over 256m filterable leads. It is valued at around $1.6b according to Dealroom.
BuiltWith is a website profiler, lead generation, competitive analysis and business intelligence tool. It allows you to build databases based on website tech. It is estimated to do over a million a year, but I think it’s more.
Cyberleads sells a database of 1,000+ newly funded companies looking to outsource to agencies. He says it makes around 500k/year.
Crunchbase offers a database of startups to help investors find investment opportunities and leads. They are valued between $200-300m.
AngelMatch is a database of investors for your startup. Meaning you spend less time searching for investors. Another option is this investor database.
Futurepedia is a directory of AI tools and as of February 2023 was getting over 3m page views a month according to the founder’s comment on Indie Hackers.
Trend Rocket is a D2C research tool and a database of trending products. It gets over 90k views a month according to similarweb

👎 The Problems

Time-Consuming Research: Manually gathering data is time-intensive and often not up-to-date.
Lack of Reliable Sources: Finding credible, consistent, and comprehensive data can be challenging.
Ineffective Networking: Traditional networking can be hit or miss. A database provides a focused list of contacts.
Market Entry: Businesses entering a new market need data on potential customers, competitors, and partners.
Sales Pipeline: Sales teams need a continuous influx of qualified leads to meet quotas.
Investment Scouting: Investors need data to find promising startups or companies to invest in.
Talent Acquisition: Companies and recruiters need access to a pool of qualified candidates.
Content Creation: Bloggers, journalists, and content creators often need data for research or articles.
Strategic Planning: Business leaders need data for market analysis, competitive analysis, and strategic decision-making.
Product Development: Companies need data on consumer preferences, competitor products, and market trends for effective product development.
Compliance and Regulation: Businesses need to stay up-to-date with laws and regulations affecting their industry.
Niche-Specific Needs: Some professionals require highly specialized data not readily available elsewhere.
Skill Gap: Lack of in-house expertise to gather and analyze data.

🛠 How to build it

Do Research: Research your niche or market and learn what else is out there, how you can provide more value, who your ideal customer is, etc.
Collect the Data: You can use tools like Airtable, Google Sheets or even a CMS like Webflow or WordPress to compile the data into one place.
Create a Front-End: Create a good-looking website and user experience using Webflow or WordPress.

🚀 How to grow it

Make Content: Make videos about your niche on TikTok, Reels, Shorts, YouTube, Twitter & Linkedin. For example, make videos about investing or about travel if you choose either of those ideas.
Build a Community: Build a community on top of your content. Give them access to a discord or circle group and let them help each other. For example, NomadList has a community of other nomads that meet up, help out, etc. This is great particularly for the Travel and Investing ideas but could also be done on the leads database through partnerships, and so on.
Run Ads: Run Google Ads on relevant search terms and Social ads to get in front of a new audience.
Start a Free Newsletter: Give out free content in a weekly newsletter to keep prospects or customers engaged regularly and to help them understand the value your databases can provide.
Cold Email: If you’re selling leads to businesses you can also contact them using cold email strategies outlining the value they will get from using your leads - offer guarantees if they don’t find business using your leads.

👍 Tips

Start small first. Create an MVP or find people who want the type of database you’re selling before you make it.

🚦 Signals

Want to see interesting trends that I’ve noticed this week not related to this week’s newsletter topic? Get a sneak preview of 10 emerging trends I’m looking into for future emails.

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