Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as spicy as Elon and Sam’s Twitter lawsuit drama 🌶️
In today’s edition:
💡 Solving a +$100B/yr fashion problem
🛠 The investor update template Silicon Valley swears by
🔋 Meet the fastest company to $200M ARR + more
🔍 OpenAI Go, Higgsfield, Replit goes mobile + more
🍻 A product that totally nails it
Let’s goooo 🚀
💸 $1,000 Giveaway: This week at Half Baked we're teaming up with the team over at T-Mobile for Business to support one of you as you build your business. In order to enter simply:
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Get after it!
👕 Imperfect Inventory Platform
Where flaws become features
Available Domain: Secondshelf.com
The Problem
There’s a lot to not like about the fashion industry. Unrealistic beauty standards. Questionable labor practices. The fact that I’m too poor to buy most of what I want to get. But the absolute worst thing about the fashion industry is the waste. Clothing brands destroy over $100B of clothing every year due to defects in the products. And a lot of these defects are pretty minor - a small tear here, a missing button there. It’s such a big problem that the EU has stepped in to pass a law (wouldn’t be like them…) to prevent brands from destroying unsold textiles, called the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). And as we know from previous editions of Half Baked, changes in regulations are incredible opportunities to build startups. Come July 2026 every brand from fast fashion to premium will be caught in the same trap: they can't sell imperfect goods on their main site (brand dilution), can't always push them to discount outlets (margin destruction), and now can't destroy them either. So what can they do? We think we know. Here's what we're thinking.
The Solution
💡 The Idea: A white-label platform that builds private, gated digital stores where brands can quietly sell their defective and deadstock inventory to a curated audience.
🛠️ Product:
Retailers upload inventory and the platform's visual AI automatically grades defects (identifying that 2 mm tear or slight discoloration) and generates standardized disclaimer text - turning a 3-hour manual process into 30 seconds.
Each retailer gets a completely white-labeled, password-protected storefront invisible to the public - accessible only via invite links sent to loyalty program members, email subscribers, or select customers.
The platform handles payment processing, shipping, and packaging - maintaining brand integrity while moving inventory that would otherwise sit in warehouses or head to landfill.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Try the demo | Get the demo prompt
💼 Business Model: SaaS fee of $500-5K/month per retailer (tiered by GMV) plus 5-8% transaction fee. Land with mid-market DTC brands doing $10M+ annually, then expand up to enterprise and down to smaller sellers as the regulation bites.
⭐ End Goal: Acquisition by a major e-commerce platform (Shopify, BigCommerce), recommerce player (ThredUp, Recurate), or sustainability software company for 6-10x revenue.
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📱 Switch Your Team to T-Mobile for Business
Switch your team's mobile plan to T-Mobile for Business and get 10 lines for just $15/mo,* now with a 5-year price guarantee (exclusions like taxes and fees apply).
From reliable connectivity to intelligent network performance, T-Mobile for Business delivers flexibility and seamless satellite coverage.
Switch to T-Mobile for Business - it's better over here.
📝 The Investor Update Template Silicon Valley Swears By
Investor updates are key to maintaining a strong relationship with your investors (along with making them a ton of money of course). But a lot of founders overcomplicate their updates, sending long docs that investors never bother to read. Here’s a killer template you can use instead.
Step-by-step:
Send monthly updates with just 5 sections: asks, key metrics, highs, lows and plans for next month.
Keep each section to 2-3 bullet points max because brevity signals you respect their time.
In the asks section make specific, concrete ask like intros, advice, or resources so they can act immediately
Send on the same day each month (1st or 15th) to build a habit they expect
Get the template here
🚀 Ship Your MVP in 90 Days
We help startups go from idea to launch in under 90 days.
No bloat, no endless sprints - just clean design, sharp code, and a product you can actually launch. Trusted by 100+ founders who shipped faster and smarter with TxLabz.
Ready to turn your idea into reality?
🔋 Founder Fuel
🤑 The Money Shot: Meet the fastest company to hit $200M ARR in history (who we covered before in Half Baked). Here's their story.
📈 Trends with Benefits: The average age of a new hire was 42 years old in 2025, per the Washington Post. The job market is changing…
💬 Prompt Drop: MIT just dropped a technique that makes ChatGPT reason like a team of experts instead of one overconfident intern. It’s called “Recursive Meta-Cognition”. Here’s how it works.
🆓 Free Resource: This aptly named website has a ton of free resources for founders.
💵 Deal of the Day: YC is partnering with over a dozen companies to offer students attending YC events free credits for AI developer tools!
🔍 Founder Finds
🤖 OpenAI just launched ChatGPT Go, an $8 per month subscription that includes ads.
🦄 Higgsfield just raised $80M in a Series A extension to scale their AI video platform. Not a bad week for them…
📱 Replit just launched mobile app creation, letting users build, test via QR code, and publish directly to the App Store.
📖 a16z shared the culture document that every new hire signs. A masterclass in company values from Ben Horowitz.
🔥 Soumith Chintala, the creator of PyTorch, has a remarkable story. If you ever feel like giving up, you gotta read this.
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Smart Nails
Tired of your nail color clashing with your outfit? What if your manicure could match your mood, your dress, or anything else?
Introducing iPolish™, the world's first digital color-changing press-on nails. These smart acrylics connect to your iPhone or Android and let you switch between 300+ colors with a tap. No mess, no salon visits, no regrets when you change your mind 47 times before dinner.
iPolish™ - nailed it.
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👋 That’s All Folks!
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