Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as monumental as Tim Cook handing over Apple after 15 years 🍎
In today's edition:
💡 A voice-first idea for new parents
⛽️ 6.2M impressions in 30 days, a $1.8B juice bar + more
🔍 GoPro's $285M sale, a $21B bet, Elon's AI call + more
🍻 An idea with some serious baggage
Let's goooo 🚀
We're teaming up with ActiveCampaign to run an AI marketing masterclass this Wednesday to help our readers turn strangers into customers. It's gonna be epic - save your spot here!
👶 Voice-First Parenting Companion
Coopilot
Name.com Domain: Pacivoice.com
👤 Source: Ajay Mehta, founder and president of Tolan, appeared on My First Million to discuss their voice-led AI companion. This is a focused version based on a big use case of theirs.
❌ Problem:
New parents have approximately 8,000 questions a day, usually while holding a screaming baby, half a bottle of milk and zero desire to type “is this normal?” into a search engine again.
Parenting apps track feeds and naps, but they do not remember that your baby hates naps after 3pm, your mum is visiting tomorrow or that you have already tried the obvious things. Here’s the idea.
✅ Solution:
A voice-first AI parenting companion that becomes a new parent’s calm co-pilot.
Parents talk naturally while feeding, walking or driving; it remembers routines, logs the useful details and turns the chaos into a gentle daily plan.
Start as a non-medical “first 100 days” companion, then partner with antenatal classes, doulas and baby brands for distribution.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Product Demo
💡 The Half Baked Take: The companion category is pretty crowded, that’s why this is all about brand and marketing. If you build a product hyper-fixated on this particular niche you can win big.
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📱 Your Phone Bill Shouldn't Need Its Own Spreadsheet
Running an 11 to 99 person business usually means someone's already doing IT on the side, so the last thing you need is a phone plan with hidden fees and price creep.
CoreMobile from T-Mobile for Business guarantees your rate for 5 years on talk, text and 5G data — no annual contract needed.
Get $20 per line when you switch 10 or more lines to the T-Mobile for Business CoreMobile plan. Plus, you can bring your current devices, keep your current numbers.**
*5-Year Price Guarantee applies to monthly price on-network talk, text, and 5G data. Exclusions like taxes & fees apply. *10 lines for $200/mo; each additional line $20/mo./line with Autopay; plus taxes & $35 device connection charge. $150/line credit via one-time bill credits.
💡 Ideas to Inspire You
💻️ SaaS: Someone built the entire universe in a browser tab. Scroll out from Earth until you hit the black hole at the centre of the galaxy. Sick!
📱 Mobile App: Here’s a cool idea to help people explore their city. You could do a lot with this…
🛍️ E-commerce: Everyone loves a good discount. Here’s an idea from our archive that gamifies the discount process.
🤖 Hardware: Dyson are launching a $499 toothbrush with a camera in it. Yeah, you read that right. Is this a new category of device (or more of a drunk idea…)
💵 Side Hustle: This guy makes $41k a month from his faceless Youtube channel. Here’s the playbook on how you could do the same.
⛽️ Fuel for Taking Action
🎓 Founder Tutorial: This guy got 6.2M impressions from X articles in 30 days. Here’s exactly how.
🛠️ AI Tool: Paper lets you design it, ship it and skip the developer. Free to try, and already used by designers at Vercel and Perplexity.
📘 Playbook: A top 0.001% redditor broke down how to get your first 100 users without getting banned.
💸 Founder Deal: Granola captures action summaries for every meeting. They're giving Half Baked readers 100% off their first month. Claim the deal.
🤑 Money Shot: This guy turned a juice bar squeezed inside a Copenhagen clothes shop to a $1.8B business. Here's how.
🧠 You Are The Marketing Team Now
No marketer, no designer, no copywriter. Just you, a few hundred early users and a nagging sense you should be talking to them more often than you are.
Describe who you want to reach in plain English and Active Intelligence finds those people, writes to them in your voice, makes an image when you have no asset to hand, and sends when each one is most likely to open it.
ActiveCampaign reckon that is around 10 hours a week back.
🔍️ Everything Else from Today
📰 Breaking News: Two months ago GoPro warned it might go out of business. Today it sold for $285M. Crazy times.
💰 Bag Secured: Polymarket is raising $1B at a $21B valuation, up 40% since April. The lead investor is an interesting one…
📚 Must-Read: Think SaaS is dead? beehiiv co-founder Tyler Denk says the everyone has it wrong.
✖️ Trending Tweet: Elon just made a slightly terrifying prediction about AI development over the next 12 months. Buckle up!
⭐️ Reader's Pick: Alex Moore reckons a laptop, Wi-Fi and some spare time are all you need to make $500 a day. Here are the 10 Claude prompts he'd start with. (Top pick from yesterday’s edition)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: AirPods Luggage Case
Tired of your AirPods case looking like a boring white pebble? Wish your earbuds travelled in style?
Introducing Lugcase™, the world's first 1:12 scale aluminium spinner case for your AirPods. Ribbed shell, telescopic handle, four silent 360° wheels, and a sticker pack of 40 luxury brands. It’s everything you could ever want.
Lugcase™ - Ear we go.
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👋 That’s All Folks
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