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Startup Ideas #365: Japanese Concepts, Content Engineers...

Plus Turning a School Nickname into a $150m Exit

May 27, 2025

Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as surprising as Salesforce acquiring a company for $8bn 💰️

We want to start sharing what ideas and businesses our readers are working on. So if you’re building a business right now, whether it’s a Half Baked idea or not, let us know through this form so we can start shouting you guys out!

Let’s goooo 🚀 

In today’s edition:

  • 💡 Bringing some Eastern culture to the West

  • 📈 The latest job title that’s taking off in Silicon Valley

  • 🛠️ Making long podcasts much more digestible

  • 🤑 Turning a school nickname into a $150m exit

  • 🍻 Ensuring great ideas don’t go down the drain

🈳 Japanese Concepts Newsletter

A zensational idea

Available domain: Satoridaily.com

The Opportunity: Western audiences are fascinated by Japanese culture. We love their food, get Japanese characters tattooed on our skin and binge watch anime late into the night. And who doesn’t love an ancient Japanese concept? Kintsugi. Kaizen. Wabi-Sabi. Mugenkai. The list is endless (particularly since I totally made up one of those…). TikTok videos tagged #Ikigai have amassed over 180M views, and Google searches for “Wabi-Sabi” have doubled in the past 5 years. Which got us thinking, why not create a media brand around this concept? Here’s what we’re thinking.

The Solution:

  • In a line: A daily email newsletter delivering one beautifully explained Japanese concept per day.

  • Product:

    • 🧠 Each email focuses on a single Japanese idea, what it means, where it comes from, and how to apply it.

    • ✍️ The newsletter is a simple, 3-minute read, with quotable wisdom that begs to be forwarded or screenshotted.

    • 🇯🇵 The content is curated by Japanese researchers, translators, or advisors to avoid “ikigai-washing” and ensure accuracy

    • 📈 You use this as the basis of a media brand which could expand into other mediums over time

  • Business Model: Free newsletter and monetize through selling ads

  • End Goal: Hold onto the newsletter for distribution purposes, build an audience over time and launch other products to that audience

Rate this idea:

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⚒️ Content Engineer

The Trend: It feels like tech companies love investing new roles. The data scientist role was famously invented at Facebook. Prompt engineering of course. But there’s a new kid on the block: the Content Engineer. Sitting between content strategy and engineering, they are a builder of systems and standards that enable scalable, high-quality, AI-powered content experiences. Take Meta who are looking to hire content engineers, and for $189k - $258k per year sign me up!

Opportunities:

  • New Role Type Tracker: A platform that identifies and tracks the rise of new role types in companies over time (e.g., Content Engineer, Prompt Engineer, Developer Advocate)

  • Content Engineer Bootcamp: A cohort-based course or micro-certification for content engineers focused on structured content, headless CMS, API design, and automation.

🎧️ Turn any Podcast into a Mind Map

The Tool: There are a lot of great podcasts out there. Joe Rogan’s, Andrew Huberman’s, and Chris Williamson’s all come to mind. But what do all of these podcasts have in common beyond the hosts being able to kick all of our asses? They’re long. Really long. Like 3+ hours. And finding the time to listen to 3+ hour podcasts can be tricky at the best of times. But using Google’s Notebook LM you can transform any podcasts into Mind Map for quick consumption. Here’s how.

Step-by-step:

  1. Go to Google’s NotebookLM product and add your YouTube video transcript as a source via YouTube link

  2. Select the “Mind map” option above the prompt window and click to see it once it has been generated

  3. Explore the mind map and transfer key learnings to notion or anywhere you track learnings

🚨 Last Day to Invest

Apple’s entry into the smart home market with its new Smart Display signals a $158B future for connected homes.

One company has been quietly preparing for this moment. With smart shade technology already integrated across major platforms, it’s positioned to capture the wave of new consumers Apple will bring.

While others scramble to catch up, this startup is shifting production to a new facility in the Philippines, ready for surging demand.

With 200% YoY growth and distribution in 120 Best Buy locations, this company is set to thrive.

Shares are just $1.90. Invest before big tech makes its move!

🐷 Turning a School Nickname into a $150m Exit

The Idea: Back in the late 1990s, UK-native Nick Jenkins was about as corporate as it gets. Commodities trader? Check. MBA? Check. But Nick decided to take a chance and go all-in on a far less prestigious industry…greeting cards. Nick saw an opportunity to create a service where customers could personalise cards online and have them printed and mailed, cutting out the high-street middleman. With his idea in hand all he needed was a name. So he turned to his old school nickname which he was anointed thanks to his round face. Ouch. He had just founded Moonpig.

The Execution:

  • The MVP:

    Moonpig’s first version launched in 2000 with basic customisation features. Users could add names and short messages to pre-designed templates. He partnered with a local printer in the UK and outsourced fulfilment.

  • The Launch:

    Nick bootstrapped the launch, marketing Moonpig through early search engine ads and press mentions. It was a dot-com era gamble, and just months after launch, the bubble burst. Many startups folded, but he kept Moonpig lean.

  • Growth & Traction:

    The big turning point came when Moonpig ran its first TV ad in 2006. It featured a catchy jingle that became a cultural earworm in the UK. Suddenly, awareness exploded. Combining low CAC from TV with a strong repeat purchase rate, Moonpig built a powerful brand.

  • Investment:

    Moonpig raised around £1 million in its early years from angel investors. The business remained capital-efficient and grew steadily without large VC rounds.

  • The Result:

    In 2011, Moonpig was acquired by Photobox Group for £120 million ($150m). Ten years later, in 2021, Moonpig went public on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of over £1.2 billion.

The Lesson: Don’t let perceived status discourage you from following your dreams. Nick left a seemingly “high status“ career to sell greeting cards, but I can think of 150 million reasons that was a great idea.

🚿 Shower Curtain Whiteboard

  • Do you do all your best thinking in the shower? Looking for a way to capture these life-changing thoughts?

  • Enter ShowerThoughts™, the whiteboard shower curtain that turns your shower from a tub into a think tank. It comes with erasable markers and enough space to draw out a nobel prize winning idea.

  • ShowerThoughts™, where every rinse is a revelation.

Vote

🔍️ Founder Finds

👋 That’s All Folks!

Before you go we have a few public service announcements:

  • If you have content ideas you think we should cover on the newsletter, let us know here!

  • If you want to talk to us about sponsoring Half Baked, you can reach us here. Or if you refer a brand to us that sponsors the newsletter we’ll pay you a cool $500. For real.

  • If you want to speak to one of Half Baked’s founders about the newsletter or even your own startup idea we’re opening up Half Baked Office Hours. Book here.

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

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See you soon,

John and Darragh | The Half Baked Team

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