Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as hotly anticipated as OpenAI releasing their always-on-agent tomorrow 👀
In today’s edition:
💡 An idea to fix an ageing platform
⛽️ Motion design, billion-dollar playbook, $10B assistant + more
🔍 Phil Knight's philosophy, a reader built our idea + more
🍻 An idea to keep your private business extra private
Let’s goooo 🚀
FYI: What could you build in 30 days? Applications for START are now open, our free programme that gets you from no idea to a launched business, with playbooks, live sessions, a founder cohort and cash prizes. The cohort starts 5 October and spots are limited. Go go go!
💡 AI Book Discovery App
Turning over a new page.
Name.com Domain: Margins.io
👤 Source: Sam Parr (Founder of The Hustle and Hampton) is a real bookworm. And he thinks one of the biggest reading apps in the world is ripe for disruption. We agree.
❌ Problem:
If you’re a bookworm then you’ve almost certainly used Goodreads before. It’s a cool way to find what to read next, see what others are reading and so on. The problem? The platform was launched in 2006 and feels like it hasn’t been updated since…eh…2006.
Meanwhile, Sam Parr loves certain aspects of Goodreads, like the reviews and community, but reckons search, list-making and AI integration leave plenty of room for improvement. We reckon he’s onto something. Here’s the idea
✅ Solution:
Launch the ultimate AI-powered book social discovery and cataloging app for book lovers. Readers import their own reading history, ratings and reviews, then chat with their personal AI librarian: “Find me a business biography as entertaining as Shoe Dog, but under 300 pages.”
Users can follow friends and favorite reviewers, turn recommendations into shared reading lists and find people with similar tastes to discuss their favorite books with. The possible features here are endless.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Product Demo
💡 The Half Baked Take: A prettier Goodreads won’t be enough. This platform needs to consistently recommend books people actually enjoy and deep AI integrations here could come in clutch here to build a 10X better product.
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🧢 Founder. Salesperson. Reluctant Note-Taker.
You started a business. Somehow, you also became its entire sales department.
Pipedrive gives you an easy-to-use CRM to keep prospects and deals organised. Its AI-powered Meeting Intelligence briefs you before calls, records the conversation, creates summaries and transcripts, and updates your CRM automatically.
You’ve still got plenty of hats to wear. Taking notes through every sales call doesn’t need to be one of them.
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💡 Ideas to Inspire You
💻 SaaS: Greg Isenberg believes that there’s a $5T opportunity hiding in plain sight in 2026. Here’s the breakdown.
📱 Mobile App: The average American spends around 60 minutes per day commuting to work. This app idea could make them use that time to learn…
🤖 Hardware: This founder wanted chess for his kids with no screens, no phones and no internet. What turned up from Kickstarter is straight out of a sci-fi film. Very cool.
💵 Side Hustle: This woman is in the navy and launched a laundry side hustle that brings in $100K per year. Cool to see!
⛽️ Fuel for Taking Action
🎓 Founder Tutorial: Here’s an incredible guide on how to build a full motion design studio with Opus 5.5. Perfect for any promo videos you need to create.
🛠 AI Tool: Tapkit is a Mac app that lets your agents use your iPhone. Tell it to do anything and it can use your phone to do it. Sweet.
📘 Playbook: If Tom Bilyeu (founder of Quest Nutrition) had $500 and 90 days to build a real business, here’s the exact playbook he’d use.
🤑 Money Shot: This 23-year-old dropout's AI assistant became a $10B business in under two months, without an app. 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.
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🔍 Everything Else from Today
📚 Must-Read: Check out these six standout articles everybody in tech needs to read this week.
🎧️ Must-Listen: Nike founder Phil Knight sums up his entire brand philosophy in one line. It's the reason one of Nike's most controversial ads worked. Brand building 101.
✖️ Trending Tweet: Need some inspiration? A founder who scaled to 100+ staff and a 9-figure exit just made a very bold claim about what AI can build today. We truly live in extraordinary times…
💬 From the Community: We recently floated the idea of an Acquired-style sports podcast on our podcast. Reader Arvind has only gone and built it. How They Became tells the stories behind the identities of iconic sports franchises. Show him some love!
⭐️ Reader's Pick: Chris Koerner reckons sport courts are the new pools, at a fraction of the cost. He's shared his full cost breakdown, line by line. There’s a fantastic opportunity here. (Top link from Friday’s Edition)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Noise Cancelling Toilet
Sick of paper-thin bathroom walls turning every trip to the loo into a public performance? Wish your throne came with a bit more privacy?
Introducing HushFlush™, the world's first noise-cancelling toilet. Six outward-facing mics and a memory-foam protein leather seat block 99.7% of sound, and built-in speakers even let you play your own soundtrack if you so desire. Includes a Spatial Audio flush that sounds like distant applause. Smell cancellation not included.
HushFlush™ - Drop the bass.
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👋 That’s All Folks
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