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Startup Ideas #371: Fridge Air, Invisible SaaS

Plus Two Brothers, One Idea, and a $2B Business

June 04, 2025

Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as hotly anticipated as the OpenAI boardroom drama movie 🎬️ 

If you want to read any previous editions of Half Baked, you can here.

Let’s goooo 🚀 

In today’s edition:

  • 💡 Attempting to solve a 1.3B ton problem

  • 📈 SaaS is dead. Long live ________ SaaS

  • 🛠️ How to work at the speed you think

  • 🤑 Two Brothers, One Idea, and a $2B Business

  • 🍻 Protective gear for your furry friend

🍓 Fridge Smart Air Purifier

It nose best

The Problem: Every year 1.3 billion tons of food around the world is wasted. And no, that’s not just people throwing out their two-day-old Taco Bell. The biggest culprit? Fresh food. A 2023 study found that the average household throws away 30% of its refrigerated food, often due to spoilage. But what causes spoilage? Well gases like Ethylene build up in your fridge and accelerate the spoilage process. So why not create a fridge specific air purifier which not only helps to keep food fresh for longer, but also keeps track of what food you actually have so it doesn’t go to waste? Here’s what we’re thinking.

The Solution:

  • In a line: A smart air purifier that eliminates odors and tracks food in your fridge

  • Product:

    • 💸 The user buys the device and hangs it on their fridge door.

    • 🌬 The device contains air sensors which track the quality of the air in the fridge and uses built-in filtration to filter out harmful gases from your fridge

    • 📷 The device has a built in camera which logs food items as you put them in the fridge, tracking them based on an approximated expiry date

    • 🧠 The App notifies you when food is likely going bad, suggests recipes, or nudges you to eat what’s in there

    • 🔋 The product is rechargeable and you get the air filter changed periodically

  • Business Model: Hardware ($79–$99) + charge for periodic air filter changes

  • End Goal: Exit to a smart home brand (e.g. Samsung or LG) at a 4x–8x revenue multiple

Rate this idea:

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📞 Why Phone Calls Still Outperform Every Other Channel

If you sell B2B, you’ve probably noticed inboxes are getting harder to crack. Email response rates are down, DMs are noisy, but phone calls still cut through.

It’s direct. It’s human. And when done right, it converts.

Kixie is built around that idea. It helps sales teams scale calls without burning out. With smart local presence dialing, automatic CRM logging, and a power dialer that calls up to 10 numbers at once, it takes the most effective sales channel and makes it efficient.

Thousands of teams already use it. If you’re even a little bit curious, book a demo. It’s free. You’ll get a trial too, so you can try it yourself.

You’ve got nothing to lose. And if it clicks, it might just become your most valuable sales tool.

Book your free demo here.

😶‍🌫️ The Rise of Invisible SaaS

The Trend: Back in 2024 Naval famously said “the promise of AI is no UI”. Well in 2025 the Invisible SaaS trend points to that. Invisible SaaS is software that operates within AI agents, chat interfaces, or prompts, delivering value without a traditional user interface. Take AskPerplexity for example which provides comprehensive answers to questions directly within Twitter threads. Dan Goikhman wrote a great article on the topic if you want to learn more about the future of SaaS.

Opportunities:

  • “Invisible by Default” SaaS Studio: A startup studio focused only on building Invisible SaaS tools that work via APIs, browser extensions, or embedded automations.

  • Ghostwriter API for CRMs: An invisible AI that integrates with CRMs (like HubSpot or Salesforce) and auto-drafts personalized follow-up emails based on call notes, meeting recaps, or deal stages.

✍️ Microsoft’s Copilot Prompt Gallery is a game-changer

The Tool: Did you know that Microsoft has an official Copilot Prompt Gallery? Well you do now. Or maybe you already knew. Who knows? Regardless…here’s everything you need to know.

Step-by-step:

  1. Go to this link.

  2. Filter based on the Microsoft program you’re using and what task you need to complete.

  3. Save the prompts you want to use later (You need a free Microsoft account if you want to save them FYI.)

👀 Have a killer business idea but no clue where to start?

That idea in your head? It’s not going anywhere until you make it real.

That’s where Ade’s (OG Half Baked reader) FromToStudios comes in. They’ve worked with Nike, NASA, FedEx and countless other brands to help them bring their ideas to life. And today, they’re doing the same for our readers.

Their team will help you move from a vague concept to clear wireframes, clickable UX, and strategic flows in under a week.

No guesswork. Just a structured sprint that turns your thoughts into a product you can build, test, or pitch. Ready to get moving?

🧊 Two Brothers, One Idea, and a $2B Business

The Idea: Back in 2006, two Texas-born brothers, Roy and Ryan Seiders, had a problem. The pair were avid outdoorsmen. Roy was a custom fishing rod maker and Ryan had just sold a hunting gear business. And as self-respecting outdoorsmen they rarely travelled anywhere without a cooler full of cold brews. The problem? Any cooler they used sucked. Cheap lids, broken hinges, and busted latches plagued their fishing and hunting trips. Which is why they decided to build the toughest, most overbuilt cooler imaginable. This was the beginning of YETI.

The Execution:

  • The MVP: The first YETI was a $300 roto-molded cooler, a massive 10x price leap from the standard $30 coolers of the day. Their justification for the price? Theirs was indestructible. They sourced manufacturing from the U.S. and focused on ruggedness over cost.

  • The Launch: YETI didn’t go direct-to-consumer at first. Instead, they sold through local mom-and-pop outdoor retailers and hit the road themselves to demo products at fishing expos, rodeos, and hunting events. Their “from-the-truck-bed” sales approach helped build credibility fast.

  • Growth & Traction: Word-of-mouth spread like wildfire in outdoor communities. Their high prices became a badge of honor. The “YETI lifestyle” quickly outgrew the product, eventually expanding into drinkware, bags, and merch. It became a status brand for the rugged elite.

  • Investment: For years the company was fully bootstrapped until 2012 when YETI sold a majority stake to private equity firm Cortec Group for an estimated $67M. By 2016, YETI filed to go public and continued to grow aggressively.

  • The Result: In October 2018, YETI went public (NYSE: YETI). As of 2024, the company generates over $1.5 billion in annual revenue and today is valued north of $2B.

The Lesson: Competition is often treated as a race to the bottom on price. But actually, going more premium can be an even better way if competing in some markets. It worked for Roy and Ryan. It could work for you too.

🐈‍⬛ Pet Helmets

  • Does your dog think he’s Evel Knievel every time he jumps off the bed? Has your cat started parkour training on your kitchen cabinets?

  • Introducing Pet Helmets™, the revolutionary protective headgear designed specifically for your four-legged friends. From tiny hamster hard hats to Great Dane motorcycle gear, we've got every pet covered from ears to snout.

  • Pet Helmets™ - finally giving "safety first" some serious paws for thought.

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🔍️ Founder Finds

👋 That’s All Folks!

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See you soon,

John and Darragh | The Half Baked Team

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