• Half Baked
  • Posts
  • Business Ideas #276: MBAccelerator, AI Music...

Business Ideas #276: MBAccelerator, AI Music...

Plus The Founder Who Started Three Unicorns (Part 1)

Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up business ideas as often as Trump and Biden have been dishing out pardons over the last few days đŸ‘Šâ€âš–️ 

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

  1. Business Idea💡: A “one chart business“ to get excited about

  2. Drunk Business Idea 🍻: A product combining fitness and freshness

  3. Just The Tip 📈: Another field AI is transforming

  4. The Moneyshot 🤑: The founder who started three unicorns (part 1)

P.S: If you want to read any previous editions of Half Baked you can on our website and if you were forwarded this email you can subscribe here.

P.P.S: Half Baked is free. Half Baked will always be free. That’s thanks to the support of our sponsors. We’d love if you could take a moment to check them out.

Let’s get into it.

BUSINESS IDEA | CASH FLOW BUSINESS

Startup Accelerator for MBAs 🎓️  

A master class

Available Domain: MBAccelerate.io

💡 TLDR: A startup accelerator exclusively for MBA graduates, providing funding, mentorship, and resources for their entrepreneurial ventures

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: At Half Baked we’re big fans of the My First Million Podcast (which you’ve probably already worked out). And on the pod Sam and Shaan like to talk about so-called “one chart businesses.” These are businesses that you can explain with a single chart. And today we have one. Here’s the chart:

So what we’re seeing is that on average 10% - 20% of MBA graduates from top schools are still looking for jobs three months after graduating. Now you could read into this data a lot of ways. Maybe graduates are getting more picky about the jobs they’ll accept. Or are there less consulting/banking jobs to go around that MBAs usually go for? Regardless of the underlying cause though one thing is clear…lots of MBA students have three months after graduating where they aren’t doing much. So let’s give them the option to put those three months to use by starting a business.

Market Size: There are approximately 200,000 MBA graduates annually in the US

2. Solution âœ…

The Idea: A startup accelerator exclusively for MBA graduates, providing funding, mentorship, and resources for their entrepreneurial ventures.

How it Works:

  • Newly graduated MBAs apply to participate in the accelerator

  • They pitch an idea or can join the program without an idea if they so choose

  • The students spend the summer going through an intensive program to refine, validate and build their ideas by using AI tools or getting matched with engineers

  • They end the program with a Demo Day pitch and ideally continue on with the business by raising funding

Go-to-market: After you have some limited partners on board to fund these ideas start reaching out to universities with strong MBA programs about the initiative

Business Model: This operates like a VC fund where high net worths and institutional investors invest in the fund and the business takes a 2% management fee and 20% of the gains from investing in the MBAs businesses

Startup Costs: You’ll need to engage with high net worths and funds to bring in limited partners to provide funds to invest in the companies

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: You’re unlikely to exit here, but once you get a few big exits this could be incredibly lucrative

TOGETHER WITH OMNISEND

Year in Email 2024

This isn’t your average report!

Omnisend analyzed 23+ billion emails to bring you everything from usual opens and clicks to the quirkiest and cheesiest insights that marketers can’t resist.

And while the boring part of the ecommerce email marketing report simmers, let’s jump into Year in Email | The Fun Edition!

Here is what inside:

  • Top 10 most-used emojis (Is it time to mix things up?)

  • Most mentioned artists (Tailor, Drake, or Beyonce–who ruled?)

  • Cats, dogs… or chickens? The ultimate inbox animal showdown

  • The TV shows, movies, and sports that marketers couldn’t stop mentioning

  • Overused marketing phrases, “oops” moments, and so much more

Need a break from the usual marketing grind? You’re in the right place—this recap is as fun as it is insightful.

See how 2024 shaped email and what’s in store for 2025.

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Bike Washing Machine

Looking to get in shape for summer? Need a new way to motivate yourself to consistently exercise?

Well now you can with this Bike Washing Machine™️. The Bike Washing Machine™️ is a stationary bike fused with a front-loading washing machine, where your pedaling powers the machine. Every morning, hop on the padded seat, load up your laundry, and watch your dirty clothes swish around as you sweat.

Lose your spare tire while washing your attire. So simple.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: AI Music

Creative domains like art, writing, and music were previously thought to be off-limits for machines. But it turns out that these are child’s play for the world’s leading LLMs, a mildly terrifying trend. Joanna Maciejewska said it best: “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes”. And music is no exception with platforms like Suno pushing the boundaries in the AI music space, where we can see lots of opportunities…

Business Ideas

  • Voice-to-Song Service: A platform which converts spoken melodies into fully arranged songs

  • AI Generated Music Copyrighting Service: Create a platform which enables musicians who create music with AI to copyright that work

TOGETHER WITH CONFLUENCE VC

Get your news where Silicon Valley gets its news 📰

The best investors need the information that matters, fast.

That’s why a lot of them (including investors from a16z, Bessemer, Founders Fund, and Sequoia) trust this free newsletter.

It’s a five minute-read every morning, and it gives readers the information they need ASAP so they can spend less time scrolling and more time doing.

THE MONEYSHOT

The Founder Who Started Three Unicorns (Part 1)

Some say that entrepreneurship is mainly down to luck. And while luck does play a role in a founder’s success, in truth entrepreneurship is a skill.

If entrepreneurship was all down to luck then how did this founder launch three +$1bn businesses? Today we’ll find out how he created the first.

This is his story.

If you’ve never heard of Rich Barton, well at least you’ve heard of him now.

Rich studied engineering at Stanford, graduating in 1989 and went on to work for Microsoft for eight years after graduating.

While at Microsoft Rich worked on a number of different products, but in the mid-90s he noticed that Microsoft was developing a travel guidebook to be distributed on CD-ROM (remember those?). But Rich had a better idea.

He wanted to create an online travel booking platform that would allow everyday travelers to book their own flights and hotels through direct access to previously hidden reservation systems. He pitched the idea directly to Microsoft executives, including Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, and they agreed it was a great idea.

Rich assembled a team around him and built out his travel platform which was ready to launch in 1996.

He founded Expedia.

The platform initially gained users through Microsoft's existing user network but also grew through other means, including partnerships with airlines and hotels and aggressive marketing campaigns. Through these growth strategies the platform quickly gained popularity and completely revolutionized the travel industry in the process.

By 1999 Expedia was a throwing off $100m in revenue and Microsoft’s leadership team decided to spin-off the business as its own public entity. So that year Expedia went public on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol EXPE which Rich serving as the CEO. The business raised around $75 million during the process and was valued at around $472m at the time.

Rich continued to lead Expedia until 2003 when his ambitions took him elsewhere (which you can read about in tomorrow’s edition).

But despite Rich’s absence the company kept growing. Over the years Expedia acquired several other travel-related companies, including Hotels.com, Orbitz, and Trivago and by 2019, the company's revenue had ballooned to $12 billion annually.

The business survived the pandemic, which decimated the travel industry and as of January 2025 Expedia's market capitalization is approximately $24 billion.

This was Rich’s first big success in business and his focus on bringing transparency to consumer markets was a theme that ran through every business he went to start after Expedia. One insight. Three unicorns.

So keep searching for that killer insight, because your story could unfold just like Rich’s, which will continue in tomorrow’s edition.

1 - 1 FOUNDER FEEDBACK

We Need Your Help

We're on a mission to become the world's #1 entrepreneurship newsletter, but to do that we need your help. Got feedback, ideas, or thoughts on what you’d love to see next? This is your chance to help shape Half Baked. Darragh (our Head Baker) is opening up his calendar just for you. Click here to book a 15 minute call.

Have a Business Idea?

Get feedback on it from the Half Baked team

Send us an outline of your business idea and we'll get back to you with our thoughts on it. We won't share your idea anywhere, this is 100% confidential. We just want to do our bit to help our readers to start badass businesses!

Fan Feedback

Rate Today’s Edition

What did you think of today's edition?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Want to Sponsor this Newsletter?

Your brand wants customers.

Our particularly attractive audience wants to hear about cool products.

We want to be able to pay our rent.

Let’s dance.

Reach out to us here to talk about sponsoring the newsletter!

Reply

or to participate.