November 11, 2026 | Read online | Podcast
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as valuable as the average Anthropic employee’s stock (we wish) 💰
Welcome to the 298 new readers who joined yesterday. In today’s edition we’re covering:
💡 An AI back office for busy investors
⛽️ Side hustles, Grok Bot, an OpenAI acquisition + more
🔍 A Jeep hack, AI archaeology, founder growing pains + more
🍻 An idea taking running to new depths
Let’s goooo 🚀
💡 AI Back Office for Investors
Less admin. More alpha.
Name.com domain: backalpha.io
👤 Source: Investor and Invest Like the Best host Patrick O’Shaughnessy says he knows a solo investor running a whole firm with Grok bots. Which got us thinking…
❌ Problem:
You became an investor to find great investments. But investing comes with a ton of admin work - chasing statements, organising invoices, updating spreadsheets and pulling together reports.
AI can take plenty of that admin off your plate. But building the agents, connecting your tools and fixing things when they break becomes another job. There’s an opportunity to package the whole thing. Here’s the idea.
✅ Solution:
Launch BackAlpha, an AI back office that handles the paperwork, reporting preparation and operational admin for independent investors and small funds.
Connect the firm’s inbox, shared drive and accounting tools. The agents collect statements, organise invoices, flag missing documents and prepare reporting packs from approved figures.
Charge a setup fee plus a monthly subscription based on the entities and workflows covered. Start with a hands-on service, then turn the jobs customers repeatedly buy into software.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Demo
💡 The Half Baked Take: AI is creating a lot of solo investors, making this a growing market!
Rate this idea
📍 Give Your Business A Place To Be Found
An idea in your head is hard to share. An idea with an address is rather easier to send to a potential customer.
Find a domain on name.com and take advantage of the Half Baked .io offer: 50% off an eligible registration with HALFBAKED. One per account, applied at checkout. Then put something useful at that address. Even a very unglamorous first experiment.
⛽️ Fuel for Taking Action
💡 Idea Inspo
Startup Idea: This guy asked the world’s most advanced frontier model to come up with the best 3 consumer apps to build over the next 3 years. This is what it said.
Side Hustle Idea: Websites for local businesses, launch videos for startups and reports for agencies. Shmidt rounds up eight ways to turn Claude into paid client work. Pick one service, make a sample and find someone who already pays for it.
🛠️ 10xecution
AI Tool: SpaceXAI/Cursor (whatever they’re called) just released Grok Bot 1.0. Huge!
Playbook: Mau Baron says he grew Prayer Lock to $25k/month. His distribution playbook shows exactly how he did it.
🤑 Money Shot
Bag Secured: This company went from inception to being acquired by OpenAI in under a year. Here’s how they did it.
Comeback Story: This founder went over $1m into debt building software for debt collectors (ironic) before turning it into a $5m ARR business. Here’s how he turned it around.
🎁 Give Your Thank-You Something To Unwrap
A thank-you email is nice. A gift doesn’t get buried under calendar invites.
Say thanks with MOO’s branded Notebooks, Water Bottles and Pens. Choose a useful gift for the team who kept things moving or the clients who kept you busy. Add your brand and get the year-end gift list underway before it becomes another last-minute founder task.
🔍️ Everything Else From Today
🚀 Just Launched: Ring has announced a flying home-security camera and a patrol robot for businesses. Sick.
📚 Must-Read: Brian Moran just broke down how a founder’s job changes as revenue grows. Super insightful piece.
📺 Must-Watch: This builder says Claude helped reverse-engineer and control his 32-year-old Jeep. One of the best real-world AI use cases I’ve seen.
✖️ Trending Tweet: This guy used AI to find an unmapped Mayan site. No, really. We need way more of this in the world.
⭐️ Reader’s Pick: Ryan Hoover’s high-school eBay hustle was one of yesterday’s top links. Here’s another look at his idea for automating the legwork.
🍻 Drunk Idea: Underwater Treadmill
Big fan of working out in your local pool? Wish you could recreate that experience at home?
Introducing Hydrotrek™, a treadmill that lets you walk or run while immersed in water. Walk or run against the natural resistance of the water while standing in a tank. Don’t ask us how to empty it…
Hydrotrek™ - Sink or sprint.
Vote:
👋 That’s All Folks
We read every reply. Let us know what you think!
Before you go:
Looking to sponsor Half Baked? Just fill out this form and we’ll get back to you asap.
We also have the Half Baked Podcast. Give it a listen!
See you soon,
