Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as often as companies are announcing big IPO plans (OpenAI this time) 😮💨
In today’s edition:
💡 Solving a problem that 73% of Americans struggle with
🛠 Web scraping with Claude Code (the finale of our 5-day mini course)
🔋 From Google Engineers to a $650M Robotics Company + more
🔍 Moltbook, Apple acquisition, Amazon investment + more
🍻 The product that's taking over the shower industry
Let’s goooo 🚀
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💰 Behavioral Finance App
Fiscally fit
Available Domain: Moneyminded.ai
The Problem: 73% of Americans rank finances as their number one source of stress, yet the average budgeting app gets abandoned within three weeks. Why? Because money isn't a math problem - it's a behavior problem. We know we should spend less and save more. We've heard it a thousand times. But then Friday hits, the week was brutal, and suddenly you're three drinks deep at a restaurant you can't afford. Mint can track that you overspent, but it can't tell you why. Noom figured this out for weight loss - the answer isn't another calorie counter, it's understanding your triggers and having someone in your corner. Nobody's done this for your wallet yet. Here's what we're thinking.
The Solution:
💡 The Idea: A behavioral finance app that treats your spending habits like Noom treats eating habits - daily check-ins, AI-powered trigger detection, and human accountability.
🛠️ Product:
Complete a 5-minute financial psychology assessment to get your baseline Financial Fitness Score, then connect your accounts to start tracking spending patterns against your goals.
The AI surfaces your spending triggers in real-time ("You tend to overspend on weekends after stressful work weeks") and sends gentle nudges before you fall into patterns.
Get matched with an accountability buddy - either a peer in a similar financial situation or a certified coach - for weekly check-ins that keep you on track.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Try the demo | Get the demo prompt
💼 Business Model: Freemium model with a free Financial Fitness Score and basic tracking. Premium tier at $19/month unlocks AI-powered insights, trigger alerts, and accountability buddy matching.
⭐ End Goal: Acquisition by a consumer fintech (Chime, SoFi), neobank looking to deepen engagement for a 5-8x revenue multiple.
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📱 "Hi, This Is Your Bank..."
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💻 Web Scraping with Claude Code
The Context: It's the final day of our Claude Code mini course, and so far you've built a landing page, a mobile app, and created videos with code. Today we're covering one of the most practical skills for any founder - web scraping. Whether you need to monitor competitor pricing, collect leads, or gather market data, Claude Code can write scrapers for you in minutes. Let's finish strong.
Step-by-step:
Create a new project folder by running
mkdir my-scraper && cd my-scraper, then start Claude Code withclaudeand ask it to "Set up a Python project with the requests and BeautifulSoup libraries."Tell Claude what data you need by typing something like "Write a script that scrapes the top 10 posts from Hacker News and saves the title, URL, and points for each one to a CSV file."
Run your scraper by asking Claude to "Run the script" and watch it fetch the data and save it to your CSV file in seconds.
Take it further by asking Claude to "Modify this to run every hour and append new results" or "Add error handling in case the website structure changes."
P.S. That's a wrap on our 5-day Claude Code mini course! Full course available here.
🤖 100+ ChatGPT Prompts to Revolutionize Your Day
Supercharge your productivity with HubSpot's comprehensive guide. This free resource is your fast track to AI mastery:
Industry-Specific Use Cases: 15+ real-world applications across various sectors
Productivity Guide: 21 best practices to 10x your efficiency with AI
Prompt Powerhouse: 100+ ready-to-use prompts for immediate implementation
Plus, in-depth sections on email composition, content creation, customer support, and data analysis.
🔋 Founder Fuel
🤑 The Money Shot: These Google Engineers built a $650M Robotics Company. Here's how.
📈 Trends with Benefits: We’re at the beginning of K-shaped divergence in the software field. But is this just limited to software? Only time will tell…
💬 Prompt Drop: Check out these 10 essential prompts to get started with Claude Cowork.
🆓 Free Resource: Here’s a great video from YC Startup School on how to get your first customers.
💵 Deal of the Day: Get up to $350,000 in Cloud credits through the Google for Startups Cloud Program. Details here.
🔍 Founder Finds
🤖 Moltbook, the social media site for AI agents, launched less than 24 hours ago. The bots are already doing some wild stuff…
🍎 Apple just acquired q.ai for a reported $2B price tag. Another quiet acqui-hire or something bigger brewing?
💰 Amazon is reportedly in talks to invest $50 billion in OpenAI. They’re putting a lot of faith in Sam Altman.
🚀 Tom Blomfield, a YC Partner, just revealed how much traction do you need to get into YC.
📺 Super Bowl ads now cost $8M for 30 seconds, but do they actually work? Check out the economics of them here.
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Human Washing Machine
Tired of having to shower all the time? Wish there was a better way to clean yourself?
Introducing BodPod™, the world's first fully automated human washing machine. Just climb in, press start, and let AI-powered jets, micro-bubbles, and 300 massage balls scrub you clean, You'll emerge 15 minutes later sparkling clean, completely dry, and questioning every shower you've ever taken.
BodPod™ - rinse and recline.
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👋 That’s All Folks!
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