Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads clowning OpenAI 🤡
In today’s edition:
💡 Making prediction markets even more mainstream
🛠 Using AI to get feedback on your pitch deck
🔋 From a blog post to a $1.3B acquisition + more
🔍 Gemini users, ElevenLabs raise + more
🍻 A product every bed sorely needs
Let’s goooo 🚀
💸 The Baked44 Challenge: We've teamed up with Base44 to give away $5K to one founder who ships their product this February. More details here and later in the newsletter.
Happy building!
🎰 Private Prediction Market
Bet friends forever
The Problem: Polymarket has exploded - over $27 billion traded globally, 30 million users betting on everything from elections to whether Bad Bunny would win Album of the Year. But here's the thing: most of the bets we actually care about aren't on Polymarket. They're the ones we make with friends in group chats that never get settled. "I bet you $20 you won't hit your January sales target." "No way you finish that marathon under 4 hours." These micro-predictions happen constantly, but there's no clean way to create them, track them, or ensure people actually pay up. Here's what we're thinking.
The Solution:
💡 The Idea: A private prediction market platform where friend groups can create, bet on, and settle custom markets on literally anything.
🛠️ Product:
Create a private "market" in seconds - type the question, set the resolution criteria, invite your group, and everyone locks in their prediction with real stakes (or bragging rights).
The app holds funds in escrow and auto-resolves clear-cut markets (sports scores, stock prices, public events) or triggers group voting for subjective outcomes.
Leaderboards track your prediction accuracy over time, so you can finally prove you're the smartest person in your friend group.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Try the demo (built with Base44) | Get the demo prompt
💼 Business Model: Freemium with real-money markets taking a 2-5% rake on winnings.
⭐ End Goal: Acquired by Polymarket, DraftKings, or a fintech player looking to add social betting infrastructure. 8-15x revenue multiple.
Rate this idea
🤑 Build a full-stack app in February. Win $5K
Base44 is the fastest way to turn an idea into a working product - no coding required. Describe what you want, and their AI builds databases, APIs, and interfaces in minutes.
Here's the deal:
🛠️ Build a working product using Base44 by February 28
📹 Submit a 2-minute demo video showing what you built
💰 Win $5,000 cash (one winner, judged by the Half Baked team)
Whether it's a SaaS tool, marketplace, or internal dashboard - if you can describe it, Base44 can build it.
📊 Using AI to Get Feedback on your Pitch Deck
The Context: Getting feedback on your pitch deck usually means sending it to 10 people, getting 3 responses, and hearing "looks good!" which helps no one. This framework gives you structured, VC-lens feedback instantly, so you can make changes before you burn real investor meetings on a weak deck. Here’s how it works.
Step-by-step:
Export your deck as images or paste the text from each slide.
Run it through this prompt, specifying your stage and raise amount.
Address the red flags first, then optimise the yellow flags.
Re-run after revisions to check if the deck has improved.
📢 Join 100+ Founders Who Found Remote Talent That Actually Cares
Finding remote talent that actually cares about your company is nearly impossible.
That's exactly why 100+ startup founders trust Noxlumyn to find A-players who treat your business like their own.
Here's what makes Nox different:
Full-time, dedicated associates – No freelancers juggling 5 clients. Your talent works for YOU only.
Pre-vetted and ready in 1 week – Skip months of bad hires. We've already done the screening, training, and vetting.
CSM-backed performance guarantee – Your dedicated Customer Success Manager ensures your associate delivers, or we actively replace them. Zero risk.
All without long-term contracts or upfront fees.
🔋 Founder Fuel
🤑 Money Shot: These founders read a blog post which turned into a $1.3B business. Here's how.
📈 Trends with Benefits: Goldman Sachs says AI agents will eat 60% of software economics by 2030. Here's what that means for SaaS.
💬 Prompt Drop: Check out these 50 design prompts from a ex-Warner deisgner for Gemini.
🆓 Founder Resource: Here’s a playbook to get your first 1,000 users for free on Reddit. Very useful.
💵 Founder Deal: Get 55% off Incogni using code HALFBAKED today to remove your personal data from the web.
🔍 Founder Finds
📈 Google’s Gemini app has just surpassed 750M users. Getting closer and closer to OpenAI…
🤑 ElevenLabs just raised $500M from Sequoia at an $11B valuation. A generational run.
💰 Positron just raised $230M Series B to take on the mighty Nvidia. Brave souls.
🚀 Higgsfield just launched the first AI motion design tool that generates pro motion graphics without coding. Very cool!
📼 Palmer Luckey explains why he likes to keep his teams small (just like the Founding Fathers did). Great analogy.
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Self-Making Bed
Sick of making your bed every morning? Wish your bed would just…make itself?
Introducing SmartDuvet™, the world's first self-making bedding system. An inflatable layer pumps air through your covers, forcing them back into position like a camping mattress returning from the dead. Genius.
SmartDuvet™ - Get your sheet together.
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👋 That’s All Folks!
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See you soon,