Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as unexpected as Anthropic and OpenAI both dropping new models today 🆕
In today’s edition:
💡 An idea to help me solve a personal problem
⛽️ Adding $140m ARR, $550m valuation in 16 months + more
🔍 Grok 4.7 lands, how to replace your salary by Christmas + more
🍻 An idea to jazz up your home life
Let’s goooo 🚀
FYI: We've just opened applications for START, a free 30-day programme that gets you from no idea to a launched business. Playbooks, live sessions, a founder cohort and cash prizes included. The cohort kicks off 5 October and spots are limited. Go go go!
💡 AI Speech Therapy Platform
Say(fe) space
Name.com Domain: Wordworks.app
👤 Source: This one’s fully from me. Something I’ve been trying to solve for years, maybe now is the right time for someone to build this.
❌ Problem:
Something you may not know about me - I have a lateral lisp. Luckily that’s the sort of thing that doesn’t really come through in a newsletter. But it’s something I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about.
That’s why a few years ago I embarked on some (very pricey) speech therapy lessons to help me correct it. In the end I never fully got rid of it, but there are very clear paths to fixing these kinds of impediments that I think AI could really help with. Here’s the idea.
✅ Solution:
Build an AI speech therapy platform that recreates the structure of speech therapy lessons for a fraction of the cost. Speak to the AI and complete guided speaking tasks to identify patterns you may need help with, flagging anything that needs a qualified therapist’s assessment.
Using those results, the platform creates a personalised plan of drills and exercises, developed with speech therapists. Practise through short daily sessions, with feedback tailored to what you’re working on.
Check in each week to review progress and adjust your plan. Charge a monthly subscription for ongoing practice and weekly reviews, with optional paid sessions with a qualified therapist when needed.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Product Demo
💡 The Half Baked Take: If someone built a great version of this, I would literally be your first user. Hit me up!
Rate this idea
🧠 “I’ll Remember That After the Call”
A bold strategy when you’ve got three more calls, a product bug and a pitch deck to finish.
Pipedrive’s AI-powered Meeting Intelligence records your sales calls, creates summaries and transcripts, and updates your CRM automatically. It also briefs you before the next conversation.
So when a prospect explains what’s stopping them from buying, you can listen without scrambling to write everything down.
It’s built into Pipedrive’s easy-to-use CRM and now included in all plans, at no additional cost.
💡 Ideas to Inspire You
💻 SaaS: Jev is taking Twitter by storm. Steal an idea from these 11 wild use cases.
📱 Mobile: These guys created a genius way to play Pokémon. Could you do this with other games?
🛍️ E-commerce: If you know anything about the ticketing industry, you'll know how broken it is. We reckon there’s an opportunity to innovate in this area.
💵 Side Hustle: Chris Koerner reckons there’s never been a better time to start a profitable home services business. Here’s how to get your first client without paid ads.
⛽️ Fuel for Taking Action
🎓 Founder Tutorial: Check out this guide on how to get 25,000+ paying customers from Ben Cera, founder of Polsia.
🛠️ AI Tool: Akai watches you do a repetitive task once, then builds an agent to do it for you. Deel says it helped add $140M ARR without new hires. Wild.
📘 Playbook: Here’s how to build an AI agency that signs one client a month, in just 180 days. Super cool read.
🤑 Money Shot: This founder went from a list of 200 dream angels to a $550M valuation in 16 months. Here's how.
P.S. Got an idea you're ready to take seriously? Our Founder pack has the deals, playbooks and exclusive content to get you moving, and it's 100% free.
📋 The Pallet’s Ready. The Paperwork Isn’t.
Products packed. Order checked. Someone’s still hunting for the right document.
ShipStation automatically generates freight paperwork when you book, including bills of lading and pallet labels.
Give your next wholesale order a smoother send-off. A loading dock is an expensive place for your business to stand still.
🔍 Everything Else from Today
📰 Breaking News: Grok 4.7 is here, and SpaceXAI says it's twice as fast and half the price of the competition. Your move, OpenAI.
📈 Trends-with-Benefits: Everyone's a vibecoder now, but almost nobody is downloading the apps. Distribution is the new moat.
📚 Must-Read: Here’s a guide on how to replace your salary by Christmas. Some real gems in this.
✖️ Trending Tweet: Jon Brosio reckons the future of work isn't a job at all. It’s something a little different.
⭐️ Reader's Pick: We keep waiting for someone to build this e-commerce site, so we're putting it out there. Go on, take it. (Top pick from yesterday’s edition)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Keyboard Doorbell
Sick of the same two-note ding-dong announcing every Amazon driver? Wish your visitors could express themselves a little?
Introducing Knocturne™, the world's first doorbell with a fully weighted three-key piano. Every guest can compose their own ringtone on arrival, from a jaunty two-note knock to a 14-minute improvised jazz odyssey.
Knocturne™ - Make a grand entrance.
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👋 That’s All Folks
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