4 Retirement Economy Startup Ideas

Written by Ricky Nave in Business Ideas, Opportunities, and Risks

The world is aging, and retirees around the world collectively spend well over a $1 trillion each year. Here are 4 startup ideas to serve retirees:

1. Franchised fitness classes for retirement communities

Go to retirement communities, age-restricted 55+ communities, independent living facilities, and assisted living facilities, and pitch them on letting you use some of their space to offer fitness classes. You might be able to get them to let you use the space for free because you are offering something of value to their residents, or you might have to negotiate a fee for use. You can also ask for the community manager’s permission to door knock.

Once you have the space reserved, go knock on doors in the community and tell people about the fitness class you’re going to be hosting. You may want to offer the first one for free or cheap. Alternatively, you could leave door hangers out with a phone number to call to reserve their spot and make payment if you are charging something.

Once you have success in one location, you can hire staff and start adding classes at other locations. After you have 10-100 different locations that are all working, you can start franchising the business.

2. Long-term care insurance

People don’t save enough for retirement (especially since science continues to improve life spans). So, offer a product that let’s people outsource the financial planning with a product that forces them to invest a certain amount each month. This is basically life insurance but instead of paying out a death benefit, it eventually pays for long-term in-home care or the cost of entering an assisted living facility or nursing home.

3. Tech & science classes for seniors

Here are some specific course ideas:

  • Mastering the Smartphone (especially how to use messaging and video call apps, open and exit apps, login using biometrics, search Google, take photos & videos, and use social media)
  • Astronomy for Beginners
  • Chemistry for Beginners
  • DNA for Beginners
  • ChatGPT for Beginners
  • AI for Beginners
  • Mastering AI
  • Programming for Complete Beginners

4. Humanoid robots for care giving

The U.S. (and the world) is aging (meaning the average age is increasing FAST). Yet there are not enough care givers. Care givers are not paid a lot, yet care is already on the edge of affordability for many seniors. Robots can help solve this.

Ricky Nave

In college, Ricky studied physics & math, won a prestigious research competition hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, started several small businesses including an energy chewing gum business and a computer repair business, and graduated with a thesis in algebraic topology. After graduating, Ricky attended grad school at Duke University in the mathematics PhD program where he worked on quantum algorithms & non-Euclidean geometry models for flexible proteins. He also worked in cybersecurity at Los Alamos during this time before eventually dropping out of grad school to join a startup working on formal semantic modeling for legal documents. Finally, he left that startup to start his own in the finance & crypto space. Now, he helps entrepreneurs pay less capital gains tax.

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