October 27, 2026 | Read online | Listen to our podcast
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as impossible as the maths proof AI cracked overnight 🧮
Welcome to the 387 new readers who joined yesterday. In today's edition we’re covering:
💡 An idea to mash your favourite games together
🛠️ How to make ads that don’t look like ads
🤑 3,000 job applications turned into $250k MRR
⛽️ Insurance for AI agents that go rogue + more
🍻 An idea to get your caffeine from a mixologist
Let's goooo 🚀
💡 Game Remixing Platform
Mixed multiplayer
Name.com Domain: GameMash.ai
👤 Source: John from the Half Baked team, inspired by Mixy, which blends songs into mashups. What if you could do something similar with games?
❌ Problem:
Growing up, I played everything from FIFA to Call of Duty. Different games, different obsessions…the same arguments with friends about what we should play next.
Gaming feels like it’s having a creative renaissance. But what if you could combine your favourite elements? Football on an obstacle-course pitch. A racing game where your mates build the track as you drive. Here’s the idea.
✅ Solution:
Launch GameMash, a platform for remixing game mechanics into something new. Pick a template, describe your twist and let AI build a playable version to share with friends.
Start with simple multiplayer party games and original assets. Make playing free, then charge for advanced creation tools and private hosting.
🧪 How to Validate: Test three mashups with a few gaming groups. See whether they return, invite friends and pay to create their own.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Demo
💡 The Half Baked Take: With a little bit of hard work, you could probably get this out before GTA 6 launches 💀
Rate this idea
📝 Imagine Beating a Month’s Email Revenue with One Send
Thank you for supporting our sponsors, they keep this newsletter free!
You’d probably double-check the numbers.
Enflow Digital did exactly that for a skincare client ahead of BFCM. A plain-text email, an offer just for VIPs, and 1,676 recipients brought in nearly $18,000. More than the previous month’s broad-audience campaigns combined.
Co-founder Karolina shares how they pulled it off with Omnisend, from choosing the audience to making the offer worth opening. Worth a read (or a watch) before you hit send on your own BFCM campaigns.
New to Omnisend? 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.
🛠️ How to Create Ads That Actually Perform
The Tutorial: You don’t need a big budget or a designer to make ads that work. In fact, the less it looks like an ad, the better. Here’s how to make your first batch in an afternoon.
Step-by-step:
Open the free Facebook Ads Library, search for a competitor and see which ads they’re running right now. Use the ones that keep running as inspiration.
Build 4 to 5 different versions in Canva (it has ready-made Facebook ad sizes). Call out the problem, the outcome and your offer. Screenshots and simple selfie-style videos often beat polished designs.
Launch them all on Meta with a small budget and let the results tell you which one to back.
🤑 From 3,000 Job Applications to $250K MRR
The Idea: Two international students sent 3,000+ job applications by hand, then built Tsenta, an AI agent that does it for you. It went from $15K to $250K MRR in 12 weeks at YC.
The Execution:
After 3,000 internship applications and a dozen callbacks, Agnay and Pulkit built a tool that matches you to jobs, tailors your resume and applies via Workday and Greenhouse.
Users jumped from 1,100 to nearly 8,000 in two months while still in college. Then they paid trusted creators in Indian expat communities, using each campaign as a feedback loop.
Now handling 150,000+ applications a day, Tsenta has added a recruiter-finding tool and is building the employer side next.
⛽️ Fuel for Taking Action
💡 Software Idea: Big insurers are quietly carving AI out of their policies while AI lawsuits jumped 137% in a year. That’s why insurance for rogue AI agents could be a massive gap.
📱 Mobile App Idea: Textbooks haven’t changed in 100 years. This pop-up physics book you can actually play with shows what a learning app could look like.
💸 Side Hustle Idea: The next wave of millionaires might be AI book publishers. This thread breaks down a four-step system for publishing AI books on Amazon.
📘 Playbook: After 20+ years launching products, the Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics founder shared the early access playbook he wishes he’d had. Six plays, zero fluff.
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.
🧠 Test The Idea. Keep The Job.
Still waiting for the perfect moment to test that startup idea? Your resignation letter can wait.
Forum Ventures’ five-week Foundry sprint helps you test customer demand while keeping your job. Work with its Venture Studio team on customer conversations and market-demand testing, with no cost to participate.
Applications for the next cohort close 4 November. Explore the programme and check whether it fits your idea.
🔍 Everything Else from Today
🛠️ AI Tool: Dubbed the Cursor for video, Cardboard turns raw footage into a finished edit when you describe what you want. Type “make a 60s launch video” and watch it cut, caption and export.
📚 Must-Read: Replit’s CEO predicts every Fortune 500 company will be a “self-driving company” run by AI agents by 2030. Check it out.
📈 Trends-with-Benefits: AI is making it normal to never read or write again, and one investor thinks it’s this generation’s smoking habit. Is he right?
📺 Must-Watch: Paul Graham on why great startup ideas start as a lazy inkling, not a eureka moment. Best 41 seconds you’ll spend today.
⭐️ Reader’s Pick: This startup got laughed out of its YC interview. Three years later, it’s worth $8.8 billion. Here’s how. (Top link from yesterday’s edition)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Energy Drink Bar
Flat white not cutting it anymore? Wish your barista could pour you a heart condition?
Introducing Buzzista™, the world’s first artisanal energy drink bar. Our mixologists hand-blend single-origin taurine, small-batch guarana and 600mg of caffeine into a 1L tumbler. Cardiologist on site.
Buzzista™ - Pour decisions.
Vote
👋 That’s All Folks
We hope you enjoyed today’s edition, shoot us a reply if you have any feedback. We read every single one!
Before you go:
Looking to sponsor Half Baked? Just fill out this form and we’ll get back to you asap.
We recently launched the Half Baked Podcast. If you like this newsletter, you’ll love the podcast. Check it out!
See you soon,
