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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 đŠââď¸
Hereâs what weâve got for you today:
Business IdeađĄ: A âone chart businessâ to get excited about
Drunk Business Idea đť: A product combining fitness and freshness
Just The Tip đ: Another field AI is transforming
The Moneyshot đ¤: 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. Thatâs thanks to the support of our sponsors. Weâd love if you could take a moment to check them out.
Letâs get into it.
BUSINESS IDEA | CASH FLOW BUSINESS
Startup Accelerator for MBAs đď¸
A master class
Available Domain: MBAccelerate.io
đĄ TLDR: A startup accelerator exclusively for MBA graduates, providing funding, mentorship, and resources for their entrepreneurial ventures
1. Problem/Opportunityâ
The Problem/Opportunity: At Half Baked weâre big fans of the My First Million Podcast (which youâve probably already worked out). And on the pod Sam and Shaan like to talk about so-called âone chart businesses.â These are businesses that you can explain with a single chart. And today we have one. Hereâs the chart:

So what weâre 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 theyâll 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 clearâŚlots of MBA students have three months after graduating where they arenât doing much. So letâs 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 â
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: Youâll need to engage with high net worths and funds to bring in limited partners to provide funds to invest in the companies
3. How Youâll Get Rich đ°
Hold: Youâre 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 isnât 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 canât resist.
And while the boring part of the ecommerce email marketing report simmers, letâs 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 Beyonceâwho ruled?)
Cats, dogs⌠or chickens? The ultimate inbox animal showdown
The TV shows, movies, and sports that marketers couldnât stop mentioning
Overused marketing phrases, âoopsâ moments, and so much more
Need a break from the usual marketing grind? Youâre in the right placeâthis recap is as fun as it is insightful.
See how 2024 shaped email and whatâs 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 Machineâ˘ď¸. The Bike Washing Machineâ˘ď¸ 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 đ: 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 childâs play for the worldâs leading LLMs, a mildly terrifying trend. Joanna Maciejewska said it best: âI 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 dishesâ. And music is no exception with platforms like Suno pushing the boundaries in the AI music space, where we can see lots of opportunitiesâŚ

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 đ°
The best investors need the information that matters, fast.
Thatâs why a lot of them (including investors from a16z, Bessemer, Founders Fund, and Sequoia) trust this free newsletter.
Itâs 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 founderâs success, in truth entrepreneurship is a skill.
If entrepreneurship was all down to luck then how did this founder launch three +$1bn businesses? Today weâll find out how he created the first.
This is his story.

If youâve never heard of Rich Barton, well at least youâve 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 Microsoftâs 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 tomorrowâs edition).
But despite Richâs 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 Richâs 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 Richâs, which will continue in tomorrowâs edition.
1 - 1 FOUNDER FEEDBACK
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