Minimum Viable - Oct. 2, 2025

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🚁 🧊 Hyper Local Drone Delivery

IDEA: Imagine you are on the lake with your buddies and it’s been a long, hot day. All you want is a bottle of water and some shade. But, you open the cooler and realize that the only beverages that got packed were Busch Lights and White Claws. Or you arrived at the stadium at the crack of dawn to set up your tailgate. There is absolutely no way you are giving your spot to pick up the ice your girlfriend reminded you to get. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could open an app and have a drone deliver your needed goods in an instant? Well, the FAA is clearing the way for drone delivery.

PRODUCT: Create a drone focused logistics company that serves hyper localized locations like stadium tailgates, lakes, beaches, or other outdoor events. Develop an app that users could interface with to purchase items and use GPS tracking or other markers for delivery. A small storage area near the location will be needed for inventory or you could partner with a local convenience store.

MVP: iPhone app with virtual storefront and drones capable of carrying ~25 pounds.

REVENUE MODEL: Transactional, users pay a premium for drone delivery.

EXIT STRATEGY: Sell to large retailer or logistics firm for 7x revenue.

Publication: CrunchBase

Link: Trucker’s Son Bucks Logistics Funding Decline with $40M Raise For Startup Alvys

Summary: Alvys, an AI logistics software startup, just closed their Series B round securing an additional $40 million in funding. Founded in 2020, Alvys offers a “transportation management system” aimed at consolidating fragmented freight operations. Its platform handles dispatch, load management, tracking, driver management, billing, and payroll, with AI and automation reducing manual tasks and accelerating decision-making. So far, Alvys claims to have over 1,000 clients and have tripled their revenue for the last two years.

CEO Nick Darman is the son of a truck driver who started Alvys after reflecting on difficulties and inefficiencies he witnessed his father deal with.

Spin: Everything is going digital. However, until we figure out teleportation, the logistics business of moving physical objects from one place to another is not going anywhere. The biggest logistics companies are, in some cases, a century old. They’re massive and will take forever to fully implement AI which in lies a huge opportunity.

Publication: Exploding Topics

Link: 25 Fastest Growing Companies & Startups (2025)

Summary: #1 - Perplexity AI. Here is how the rest of the rankings turned out.

Spin: As I am sure you could imagine, all of these are startups have raised millions and millions of VC dollars. And as expected, 9 of the 25 companies are based in San Francisco. However, funding and location are not requirements for success. The article lists several companies for outside the Valley like Tailwind from Oklahoma City, Adalo from St. Louis, Oura from Oulu, Finland, and Shiprocket from New Delhi, India. Bootstrapping, or not taking outside investment, is also a perfectly viable way of running a business. Just ask MailChimp about their $12 billion acquisition.

Today’s Motivation comes from an episode of Founder’s Journal. This podcast series serves as an audio diary for former Morning Brew CEO, Alex Lieberman. In 2020, he decided to sell his business newsletter company for an 8-figure exit. Besides freedom, it is stories like this that excite me the most about entrepreneurship.

Episode: Why We Sold Morning Brew

IDEA: I type practically all day at work then come home and work on this newsletter. I don’t know about you, but my fingers can get a bit frosty. Space heaters shouldn’t go on top of the desk, typing with gloves would just be strange, and lord knows my boss isn’t about to crank up the thermostat. What if there was a way to warm your digits while you work? Maybe in a similar way that Burger King keeps Whoppers toasty? Introducing fast food heat lamp technology for the office.

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