Conversation

Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
There’s a multibillion dollar startup opportunity waiting to be built in religion. 1. Large Market: 6B+ users w/ lifetime stickiness 2. Highly Fragmented: 1M+ communities 3. Low NPS: Terribly subpar product experience Here’s how I see it playing out…
80
1,662
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
First, let’s level set. Most articles you read today talk about how less and less millennials adhere to religion. What these articles miss is how large the existing base already is. Religion contributes $1.2T+ to the US economy. That’s a ~top 15 global economy on its own.
2
66
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
So how does this break down? The top 4 religions alone constitute ~6B individuals. 1. Christianity - 2.3B 2. Islam - 1.8B 3. Hinduism - 1.1B 4. Buddhism - 500M Even "smaller" religions (<1%) like Sikhism have 30M+ people.
4
71
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
One company has quietly attacked the space and figured this out.
@MinistryBrands
is a PE rollup of 32 church related software companies. Last public reporting said it did $100M in EBITDA in 2017. Yes, you read that correctly. One hundred million in pure profit.
3
97
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
Replying to
@RomeenSheth
A lot of the 32 brands overlap in functionality (e.g. 50% help with donations). Now that Ministry Brands has been acquired (for $1.5B!), it’s doing more to consolidate/tie the brands together. For example, they just launched MinistryID - SSO across all their products.
3
43
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
As they focus all their energy on tying together their brands, it opens a big opportunity to build better product. So how might you do it? 3 different attack points Level 1 - “Core to Run the Shop” Level 2 - “Increase Engagement” Level 3 - “Accelerate into 21st Century”
3
51
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
Level 1 - Core to Run the Shop There’s a lot of low hanging fruit in helping institutions come online - e.g. no code tools, website templates, event scheduling, etc. Existing software is old, janky and can't integrate. Easy opportunity to build 10x product here.
3
42
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
Level 2 - Increase Engagement I found
@tarteelAI
the other day. Perfect encapsulation of tech reimagining a specific use case broadly applicable in Islam - improving recitation of religious text. Old = 1x/week sunday school New = everybody gets a teacher in their pocket.
3
65
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
Level 3 - Accelerate into 21st Century Lot of cool B2B enterprise SaaS out there that’s helping companies improve knowledge management. Someone should build this for religious institutions - capture inputs and surface them more elegantly and intelligently. Huge value add.
3
32
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
There’s a ton of opportunity to build in this space, but it’s also easy to get sloppy. If you go too broad initially, you dilute impact. Who’s building the next Ministry Brands or disrupting it?
4
34
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
I missed religion yesterday as a "big trend" I'm excited about in 2022. Here are 10 other trends / ideas I'm looking out for next year.
Quote Tweet
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
2022-2030 will be a Renaissance Decade. I’m investing $3M in 2022. Here are the 10 biggest opportunities I’m most excited about. If you’re building in any of these areas, let’s chat:
Show this thread
10
64