Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as modest as Elon’s latest insane SpaceX prediction 😅
In today's edition:
💡 An idea to supercharge tradespeople’s productivity
⛽️ Noah Kagan’s pre-publish prompt, Making $10m by 19 + more
🔍 Elizabeth Holmes’ desk, Musk’s deadline rule + more
🍻 An idea for anyone who’s ever hit the 3pm slump
Let's goooo 🚀
FYI: We’re giving four founders $500 each to grow their new business this week through START. Here’s what you need to do:
Pick a business idea (stuck? grab one from our idea database)
Claim your business email with Google Workspace
Introduce yourself and your business in our Discord
Simple as that. Entries close Sunday at midnight PT
💡 Smart Safety Glasses for Tradespeople
Specs appeal
Name.com Domain: SiteLens.com
👤 Source: Todd Saunders shared a concept for smart safety glasses built for the trades. He reckons whoever gets it right could build a billion-dollar business…
❌ Problem:
I’m useless at any DIY or repair work. Genuinely. That’s why I live in awe of people with far more practical skills than I have - plumbers, electricians, builders, the list goes on.
But even the best tradespeople can get stuck on what to do next, never-mind all the paperwork that comes with the job. There’s clearly a giant opportunity to supercharge their productivity using the right tech. Here’s the idea.
✅ Solution:
Build smart safety glasses with a camera, microphone and open-ear audio for tradespeople. They can capture photos, dictate notes and call a colleague who can see the job from their perspective, without putting down their tools.
Pair them with software that turns those recordings into a draft job report. Say “capture the serial number” or “note that we replaced the pump”, then review the photos, parts and work completed before sending anything to the customer.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Demo
💡 The Half Baked Take: The other exciting part about this product is the fact that it could help people without these skills to start to develop them in a really practical way. I’d buy one for that alone…
Rate this idea
🤖 Still hand-holding AI through BFCM prep? So much for saving time.
Be honest. How long does it take to pull last year's data, paste it into AI, then keep clarifying what you want? If one useful answer takes endless back-and-forth, you might as well do it yourself.
Or use Omnisend's BFCM AI playbook: 12 prompts for last year's performance, deliverability, segmentation and campaign planning. Omnisend connects with Claude or ChatGPT, so it's all one chat.
Not yet an Omnisend user? It's an email and SMS marketing platform for ecommerce used by more than 150,000 brands, generating an average of $79 for every $1 spent. Migration is free, takes up to five business days.
Use code HALFBAKED30 and get 30% discount for Omnisend paid plans.
💡 Ideas to Inspire You
💻 SaaS: One developer hated planning his wedding seating chart so much, he built the 3D wedding planner he wished he’d had. Really cool.
📱 Mobile App: Some of the greatest books ever written are free to use. Here’s how to turn them into an AI-narrated audiobook app people actually want to listen to.
🤖 Hardware: Wherever there’s a Facebook group, there’s a business to be built. Here’s ours: Amazon Prime, but for your neighbourhood. Prime location.
💵 Side Hustle: Tim Denning’s 17-step blueprint for a side hustle that pays more than your salary. No millions of followers required.
⛽️ Fuel for Taking Action
🎓 Founder Tutorial: Here’s how to get Claude to rank your pages and get you cited by ChatGPT, step by step.
💬 AI Prompt: Noah Kagan runs every X post through this one prompt before hitting publish. It took one of his posts from 6/10 to 9.5/10.
📘 Playbook: Greg Isenberg’s full guide to becoming a marketing engineer is super cool, the new 10x hire most startups don’t have yet.
🤑 Money Shot: This guy went from selling an unblocked-games site for $100K at 16 to raising $10M at 19. Here’s how.
📦 Before You Place That Next Business Order…
Got work essentials on your shopping list? Create your free Amazon Business account and get 35% off your first order, up to $125.
The offer ends Oct 12, 2026, so now could be a good time to tick a few things off. Terms and conditions apply.
🔍 Everything Else from Today
📰 Breaking News: Anthropic’s latest policy update means being rude to Claude could cost you your account. Wild.
📚 Must-Read: Want to know how Cal AI grew to 15M users and exited for >$50M? Jake Castillo spills it all in Operator’s Notebook.
📺 Must-Watch: Elon Musk explains how he moves so fast, and his deadline rule is the opposite of what you’d expect. Under two minutes, worth every second.
✖️ Trending Tweet: Someone just built a website where you can sit at Elizabeth Holmes’ desk and snoop through everything on it. The wild part? It’s all real.
⭐️ Reader's Pick: A well-known investor just publicly begged someone to build this product, and promised to back whoever does. Consider this your sign. (Top link from yesterday)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Spinning Chair
Hitting the 3pm slump harder than your keyboard? Wish your desk chair did something more useful than lean back?
Introducing HeadSpin™, the world’s first office chair that spins vertically. A seat-mounted sensor detects your first slow blink and flips you through a full 360° loop at 40rpm, five-point harness included. It’s shockingly effective.
HeadSpin™ - Rise and spin.
Vote
👋 That’s All Folks
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