BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Canva for Home Renovation 🏠️  

A window of opportunity

Available Domain: Casanvas.com

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Home renovations are not for the faint of heart. They’re costly, involve hundreds of tiny decisions and when they go wrong…they can go really wrong.

Most homeowners start with a rough vision, a Pinterest board and maybe a sketch on paper of what they want a room to look like. Which is why we think there’s a massive gap for a tool that makes renovation planning as easy as using Figma or Canva, and most importantly to make that tool free. Here’s what we have in mind.

Market Size: The global home renovation market is worth $400bn+ annually

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: An AI-powered, drag-and-drop renovation tool where users design spaces with real, shoppable products

How it Works:

• The homeowner selects a room type (kitchen, bathroom, living room, etc.) and inputs the dimensions of the room

• AI generates different layout options based on use-case (storage, foot traffic, appliances) and suggests products based on the aesthetic and budget the homeowner is working with

• Users can then place real-world products (e.g., Wayfair cabinets, IKEA sinks) into the plan and collaborate in real time with friends, family or even contractors on the design

• The user can then buy these products and costs are automatically tallied up based on product selections and estimated installation fees

Go-to-market: Start by making short videos of rooms being redesigned and link to the platform

Business Model: 5–15% commission on referred product sales

Startup Costs: This will cost a few thousand dollars to get off the ground

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Get acquired by a company like Houzz

Exit Multiple: A realistic target multiple is 6–10x revenue

TOGETHER WITH OMNISEND

Boring Marketing that Delivers Big Results

The thrill of not knowing how something will turn out? That’s what gets your heart racing, right?

But you know where excitement has no place? Marketing.

With marketing, you want predictability. So predictable, it’s almost boring.

That’s why Omnisend is a marketer’s dream. In 2023, for every $1 spent on Omnisend’s email & SMS marketing, merchants made $68 back.

Yes, $68 for every $1.

It’s not flashy. It’s not a gamble. It just works. Every. Single. Time.

At Half Baked, we only recommend tools that actually deliver. That’s why we partnered with Omnisend—because they’re the real deal.

From popups to newsletters to abandoned cart recovery, 125,000+ e-commerce brands use Omnisend to grow their revenue while keeping costs low.

Use code HALFBAKED10N & get 10% off your first 3 months.

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

The Mow-Lounger

• Do you need to up your lawn care game? Tired of being forced to choose between yard work and day drinking?

• Introducing…The Mow-Lounger™, the world’s first self-driving, beer-compatible, lawn care machine. Just sit back, sip, and let the blades do their work.

• Note: If you doze off, The Mow-Lounger™ will keep mowing…possibly into your neighbor’s garden. If so, that’s on you.

Vote

• ✅ Shut up and take my money

• ❌ It’s a no from me dawg

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Pet Parenthood

• Elon Musk aside, birth rates are dropping. More and more people are choosing not to have kids and as less people have kids the pets in their lives take on new significance.

• 82% of U.S. Millennials consider their pets as their children and a recent Harris Poll found that 43% of Americans prefer pets over children. Why? Because they feel that pets are easier to care for and come with fewer financial burdens than children do.

• Even employers are recognizing this shift, with some offering pet-friendly workplaces and benefits like "pawternity" leave to look after their “fur babies”, meaning the market for pet products is growing rapidly and will keep growing for years to come

Business Ideas

• Pet Care Co-Pilot: An app that helps modern pet parents to manage, track, and optimize every aspect of their pet’s life

• Pet Grief Counseling Platform: An online platform with therapists, communities, and resources for coping with pet loss.

TOGETHER WITH KIXIE

Connect with 5X More Leads, Get 10X More Sales

Kixie’s Power Dialer takes the grind out of sales—instantly connecting you with more leads and automating follow-ups.

Multi-line dialing eliminates wasted time, automated call and text sequences keep deals moving, and CRM integration ensures every interaction is logged seamlessly.

“The functionality is unsurpassable.” – Klaus W., one of 10,000+ businesses using Kixie

Book your free demo today and get 10% off when you mention “Half Baked”.

Book free demo.

THE MONEYSHOT

Riding a Wave to a $1.1bn Exit

Riding the right trend at the right time can completely change your life.

Take this guy who built a platform in two weeks which rode a wave which he sold for over $1bn.

This is his story.

Back in 2006, David Karp, a 20-year-old high school dropout, was living in his mom's apartment in New York.

Despite his “dropout” status though, David was a talented web developer, having interned for animation producer Fred Seibert and worked at UrbanBaby, an online parenting forum.

But when UrbanBaby was sold to CNET David decided to work for himself. So he used the money from the sale of his shares to start his own software consultancy company called Davidville. He also hired an engineer to work alongside him, Marco Arment, who joined after responding to David’s ad on Craigslist.

While running his business David got really interested in microblogging, specifically a new blogging format called “tumblelogging” which was bubbling up at the time. Unlike traditional blogs, tumblelogs were lightweight and great for short-form content. But David noticed that no good platform existed for this style of blogging. So, while waiting for a client project to be approved, he and Marco hacked together a prototype of their tumblelogging platform over two weeks.

By February 19, 2007 their site was ready to go live.

Tumblr officially launched.

Within two weeks of launch, Tumblr had 75,000 users. The product was resonating, especially with creatives, artists, and younger users who didn’t vibe with the polished, long-form style of WordPress or Blogger.

Building on his early success, David decided to go all-in. He shut down the consulting business and focused entirely on Tumblr, raising $750k in seed funding that year from Union Square Ventures.

In 2008 Tumblr grew fast and raised $4.5m in Series A funding. By 2010 the site hit 1 billion posts and raised another $5m. Tumblr had gone mainstream and just a year later went on to raise a $30m Series C which was led by Sequoia.

The platform was a rocket ship during an era in tech where social media platforms were taking off. Facebook had just acquired Instagram for $1bn at this time and big tech companies were looking to stay relevant by acquiring burgeoning social platforms.

Which is why in 2013, Yahoo acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash, with David staying on as CEO. This was seen as a bet to make Yahoo "cool" again. And as you can probably tell…it didn’t work out.

Tumblr’s user base didn’t respond well to Yahoo’s attempts to monetize through ads and they had persistent issues with illegal content. Tumblr responded by banning all adult content on the site, a move which decimated its user base.

This all culminated in Automattic (WordPress’s parent company) acquiring Tumblr for a rumored $3 million in 2019, two years after David left the business.

But beneath the rise and collapse lies a timeless startup truth: ride the wave. Because if you catch the right wave at the right time it’ll take you farther than you ever imagined.

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