Startup Ideas #361: Tiny Gyms, Grip Strength...

Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as surprising as OpenAI acquiring Jony Ive’s company for $6.5B 💰️ 

Want to check out any of our previous editions? You can on our website.

Let’s goooo 🚀 

In today’s edition:

• 💡 Our take on the "Tiny Home“ movement

• 📈 What your handshake can tell you about your lifespan

• 🛠️ Google’s latest tool for designing software

• 🤑 Turning faith into a +$500m business

• 🍻 A truly viral product idea

🏋️ Modular Gym Pods

This is the whey

The Problem: Going to the gym kinda sucks. Not working out, that part’s great. But everything else about it is rough. The commute, fighting to use overcrowded machines, having to talk to that one dude in the locker room who's waaaay too comfortable with his own nudity. Meanwhile, backyards across the country are underused. Companies like Joe Gebbia’s (Airbnb co-founder) Samara are trying to put tiny houses in back gardens. So why not tiny gyms? Hear us out…

The Solution:

• In a line: Beautiful, modular, turnkey gym pods designed to go in people’s back gardens

• Product:

  • 👆Customers choose from 2 - 3 different pod sizes and decide what equipment they want in their pod, such as cardio machines, free weights or even recovery equipment like saunas or cold plunges.

  • 💪 A few months later they receive their gym which is fully installed for them, generally requiring limited permits/approvals (will depend on jurisdiction).

  • 📱When their gym pod is fully functional they can choose to offer friends or neighbors use of the gym through an app. Users can book in to use the gym when it’s free, either for free or a fee, so over time the pod could pay for itself.

• Business Model: Charge per pod ($40k - $100k per unit) with financing available too

• End Goal: To become the Peloton of physical wellness spaces, owning the premium modular gym category globally

🏠️ The $200B Smart Home Gold Rush

If smart homes are such a bust, why are tech giants spending billions to get in?

NRG bought Vivint for $5.2B. Resideo snapped up Snap One for $1.4B. Siemens just paid $10.6B for Altair.

The reason? Data.

Americans spend 125 hours a week in their homes, triple their phone time. That’s a goldmine of untapped, tariff-proof data.

One little-known company holds 10+ patents, is in 100+ Best Buy stores, and launches in Home Depot next year. It’s dominating a $200B smart home niche. Oh and early investors are already up 300%.

This week is your last chance to get in at $1.90/share before the price jumps. Click to learn more and claim up to 25% in bonus shares.

Learn more

🖐️ Why Grip Strength Matters

The Trend: Grip strength used to matter only for a solid handshake. Today, it signals something far more important: how long you might live. In a study of nearly 140,000 adults, researchers found that grip strength was a stronger predictor of premature death than even traditional markers like blood pressure. In other words, your handshake might say more about your health than your heart monitor, opening up lots of business opportunities for us.

Opportunities:

• "Grip Gains” Brand: A YouTube channel and content brand entirely focused on grip-related training

• Branded Grip Strength Challenges: Host local or virtual grip strength competitions, called the “Grip Games”, with prize pools, live leaderboards, and fun formats

Poll: Given these findings, will you test and try to improve your grip strength?

• ✅ Absolutely, I gotta make some grip gains

• ❌ Hell naw, I don’t have time for that

Google’s New Tool To Design Apps for Free

The Tool: Google just launched Stitch, a 100% free tool that allows you to design web and mobile apps just through prompting. Think ChatGPT, but for web and app design. It’s perfect for wireframing or creating fully-fledged designs. Here’s how it works.

Step-by-step:

1. Go to Stitch.withgoogle.com

2. Simply prompt exactly what design you want it to build. We recommend giving as much detail as possible, ideally screen by screen, so you don’t get hit with any nasty surprises

3. Export your design to Figma and get a designer to make final touches if you like

Give it a try

👀 You don’t need funding, cofounders or a pitch deck

You need a website. Start a waitlist. Pre-sell your product. Just move.

That’s why every founder starter pack includes Bluehost:

• 1-click WordPress setup

• Free domain + SSL

• 24/7 expert support

• Just $1.99/month (83% off - Half Baked readers only)

Zero excuses. Maximum momentum.

Claim your discount

✝️ Turning Faith into a +$500m Business

The Idea: Alex Jones (no, not that Alex Jones) grew up as a Catholic. But during high school and college he started to drift from his faith. Later though, while exploring secular meditation apps, Alex felt a persistent spiritual longing. This led him to discover ancient Catholic contemplative practices like Lectio Divina and Ignatian spirituality. Realizing there was no modern app that combined mindfulness with Christian prayer, Alex decided to team up with friends Erich Kerekes (middle) and Alessandro DiSanto (right) to create one. They founded Hallow.

The Execution:

• The MVP: In late 2018, the trio quit their jobs and launched the first version of Hallow. The app featured guided audio sessions rooted in Catholic tradition, including meditative prayer, the Rosary, and Scripture-based reflection.

• The Launch: The app quietly debuted in December 2018. Early users were drawn by its authenticity and the founders' personal faith journeys. Within three months, Hallow was earning about $6,500 per month

• Growth & Traction: By early 2021, it had surpassed 1 million downloads. By May 2023, it had over 10 million downloads. In February 2024, Hallow became the first religious app to reach #1 on Apple’s App Store, surpassing giants like Netflix and Spotify

• Investment: Hallow has raised over $100 million across six funding rounds, including a $50 million Series C round completed in May 2023.

• The Result: As of 2025, Hallow has over 18 million downloads and more than 500 million prayers prayed through the app .

The Lesson: The Hallow team isn’t building a company, they’re on a mission. Find your mission and turn that into a business.

Get the full story

🦠 Disease Plushies

• Tired of boring plush toys that don’t represent deadly diseases? Wish you or your kids could cuddle with something educational and mildly horrifying?

• Say hello to Microbe Mates™, the only stuffed friends that are so contagious you’ll have to buy one. Chlamydia, Covid-19, herpes, you can catch them all…by buying these amazing products.

• Microbe Mates™. Because these cooties are cuties.

Vote

• ✅ Yes this actually exists

• ❌ Nope you totally made this up

💰️ Raise Radar

• Filed, an AI tax preparation platform, raises $17.2M (Read more)

• Siro, a platform to record and analyze in-person sales conversations, raises $50M in a Series B round (Read more)

• Greenlite AI, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI agent platform for financial crime, raised $15M in Series A funding. (Read more)

• Zoca, a Phoenix, AZ-based provider of an AI-first growth platform supporting local service businesses, raises $6M in funding (Read more)

🔍️ Founder Finds

• ✖️ Trending Tweet: Sundar Pichai gives a great rundown of all of the big announcements from Google I/O

• 📚 Must-Read: Back in 2019 Sam Altman wrote a killer blog post called “How to be Successful”. It’s still as relevant in 2025. Check it out.

• 💬 Quote of the Day: "Don't worry about failure; you only have to be right once." Drew Houston, Dropbox Founder

👋 That’s All Folks!

Before you go we have a few public service announcements:

• If you want to talk to us about sponsoring Half Baked (or earn a $500 referral fee for sending a partner our way), you can reach us here.

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• We’d love to know what you thought of today's newsletter:

See you soon,

John and Darragh | The Half Baked Team