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• Daily Idea - Reclaim Lost Items

• The Stadium Boardroom

Lost It? We Find It.

Inspired by the Startup Ideas Podcast

Want to build the lost & found system every venue needs? NTE Zero to One can get you started.

The One Liner

Lost it at the game? This system gets it back.

The 140 character tweet (or X) version

Arenas and stadiums lose thousands of items every month. This tool turns lost & found chaos into a streamlined, customer-pleasing machine.

The Longer Story Version

The Problem

Stadiums are great at selling nachos, not finding your iPhone.

Every night, hundreds of jackets, wallets, and AirPods go missing at concerts, games, and events. Multiply that across hundreds of venues? You’ve got a mess.

Most venues “manage” lost & found like it’s 1994:

• Pen and paper logs

• Random boxes in a back office

• No communication with the person who lost the item

It’s frustrating for guests and a nightmare for staff.
And when people do try to get their stuff back? Crickets. Zero confidence anything will ever be found, let alone returned.

The kicker? Every lost item is a customer touchpoint. You can either win them back or lose them forever.

The Solution

A dead-simple platform for managing lost & found, built for the chaos of live events.

Here’s how it works:

1. Staff Intake
   After each event, employees log items via mobile. Quick photo, short description, auto-timestamped and geotagged.

2. Guest Reporting
   Attendees scan a QR code at the venue (or visit a branded URL) and describe what they lost. Smart AI matching kicks in, think of it like Clearbit for your backpack.

3. Smart Matching
   The system uses GPT-style semantic search to auto-match lost items with found ones based on description, date, and location.

4. Claim + Ship
   Guest confirms identity, selects pickup or shipping, and boom, reunited with their phone or sunglasses.

5. Bonus Touchpoint
   Automated thank-you emails with a link to leave a review or buy tickets again. Turn a pain point into brand loyalty.

How We’d Build It

Stage 1 — MVP for One Arena
Goal: Make one ops team say “holy sh*t this saves us.”

• Build a simple web-based intake form (use Tally.so or Jotform)

• Store items in Airtable or Ninox with images, time, section, category

• Use Algolia or Weaviate for fuzzy matching on guest reports

• Test fulfillment via EasyPost API for shipping + tracking

• Run first pilot at a minor league stadium or university arena

GTM

• Go local: pitch one ops director and win them over with a no-code demo

• Offer to staff the lost & found booth with your team for the pilot

• Collect before/after stats: time saved, items returned, CSAT score bump

Stage 2 — Enterprise Ready
Goal: Become the default for mid-size venues.

• Fully branded portals for each client

• Roles/permissions for different staff types

• Advanced matching logic with LLMs fine-tuned on object descriptions

• CRM integration (Zendesk, Salesforce) to pipe in guest inquiries

GTM

• Go to event ops conferences (like INTIX, VenueConnect)

• Create “lost & found” horror story case studies for cold outreach

• Partner with venue management software (e.g., Momentus, Everi)

Stage 3 — Network Effects Mode
Goal: Build the universal lost & found network.

• Centralized database across all partner venues

• Guests can log in and search across events they attended

• Add item insurance ($2 protection add-on)

• Give venues analytics on item categories, timing, staffing needs

GTM

• Sell to national venue groups (AEG, ASM Global, Oak View Group)

• White-label API for stadium app builders

• Become the “Postmates of your missing stuff”

Why It Needs to Exist

Because losing your stuff sucks and fixing it is free customer love.

This isn’t just a backend tool. It’s a reputation engine.

And in an industry where fans are one bad experience away from bouncing, this tiny touchpoint turns into a loyalty loop.

The arena may forget about your hoodie.
But the fan who gets it back? They never forget that.

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You’ve got ideas for days.

Notebooks full. Whiteboards stacked. Brainstorms? Elite.

But turning one into something real? That’s the leap.

NTE Zero to One is your startup SWAT team, strategy, design, copy, and tech, all pointed at your idea.

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The Stadium Boardroom: Where Ideas Go to Get Tackled

Scene:
A fluorescent-lit conference room deep inside a major stadium. Crumpled hot dog wrappers in the trash. A whiteboard that just says “DON’T FORGET THE BANNER.”

The founder steps up. Clicks the remote.
Slide 1: “Lost & Found, Rebuilt.”

Founder:
“Every night, thousands of fans lose their phones, wallets, jackets.
Most never get them back.
Why? Because your lost & found is a cardboard box under a folding table.”

Security Guy (arms crossed):
“Yeah. It’s labeled ‘STUFF.’ What’s the problem?”

Founder:
“The problem is… that ‘stuff’ is $300 AirPods, $1,200 iPhones, and a signed jersey someone would cry over.”

CFO (tightens tie):
“And your plan is to spend money to give people back their stuff? That’s… not really revenue.”

Founder (grinning):
“No, it’s loyalty. It’s 5-star reviews. It’s fans saying, ‘They actually cared.’
And bonus, once it’s digital, you can offer shipping, insurance, upsells. You’re sitting on an untapped micro-economy of forgetfulness.”

Intern (scrolling TikTok):
“Wait, can I DM the lost & found? Or like… track it like a DoorDash order?”

Founder:
“Yes. QR codes posted around the stadium. Guests file a claim in 30 seconds.
Staff logs items via phone, photo, section, timestamp.
Our system matches them. AI does the work. Guests get notified. Choose pickup or shipping.”

Events Manager (raising an eyebrow):
“Hold on. Can your system ID the owner of twelve identical black North Face jackets?”

Founder:
“Yes. If one has AirPods in the pocket and the other smells like nachos, the system tags the difference.”

Security Guy (muttering):
“Still feels like extra work for me. I barely have time to yell at drunk people, let alone play photographer with scarves.”

Founder:
“Let me ask you something. Last year, how many complaints did you get because someone didn’t get their phone back?”

Events Manager:
“Forty-two. Three chargebacks. One almost lawsuit.”

Founder:
“And how many good reviews did you get because someone did get their phone back?”

CFO:
“…Zero.”

Founder:
“This system flips that.
We take what’s been a cost center—lost & found—and turn it into a fan loyalty engine.”

Intern (suddenly engaged):
“What if you could message them like: ‘Hey Sarah, we found your glitter phone case in Section 109. Want us to ship it?’ That’s wild.”

CFO:
“Cost to implement?”

Founder:
“$299/month. That’s two stadium beers and a foam finger.”

Security Guy (still skeptical):
“And what do I get out of this?”

Founder:
“You stop being the guy who says, ‘Sorry, we didn’t find it.’
You start being the hero who reunites people with their phone. Their purse. Their faith in humanity.”

Events Manager (smiling):
“If this gets us even one more 5-star Yelp review, I’m in.”

Founder (clicks final slide):
“Let’s make ‘lost’ a feature. Not a failure.”

These Startup Ideas Sound Stupid. They’re Not.

Some ideas sound straight-up dumb.
Until you realize they’re wildly smart.

Here are 3 that shouldn’t work… but totally could:

🎮 “Build-A-Game for People Who’ve Never Touched Code”
Sounds like a joke. But AI makes it real. No Unity. No downloads. Just prompts → games.

🎥 “Let SMBs Make Super Bowl Ads (on a Taco Bell Budget)”
AI can now turn $10 and a Canva template into something ad agencies charge $50K for. It’s absurd. And it works.

📸 “A Prompt Marketplace for Video Creators”
Wait, people buy prompts? Yup. When you’re trying to get the perfect AI-generated shot, a great prompt is worth more than a camera.

These all came from NTE Pro, our 4,000+ idea database built to spark your next move.

Because the best startup ideas often sound dumb…
right up until someone builds them.

👉 Click to get access now.

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