Startup Ideas #378: ScaleAI for X, Tongue Scraping...

Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as impactful as yesterday’s Google Cloud outages 😵 

By the way, if you want to read any previous editions of Half Baked, you can on our website.

Let’s goooo 🚀 

In today’s edition:

• 💡 An idea born from a $15B deal

• 📈 A trend we’re “scraping” the bottom of the barrel covering

• 🛠️ Turning screenshots into prototypes in seconds

• 🤑 Turning tragedy into a $3.7B business

• 🍻 The must-have tool for all those chip lovers out there

🤖 Scale AI for Robotics Data

iSpy with my little eye

The Opportunity: This week Alexandr Wang and the ScaleAI team had a huge win, with Meta investing approximately $14–15 billion for a 49% stake in the business. But what exactly did Meta get for their investment? Well ScaleAI is primarily a data-labeling company that provides training data for AI systems. And we’re betting that the next frontier where training data will be needed is in robotics. And here’s the thing - robots don't just need data, they need human perspective to truly understand and interact with the real world. So let’s build a business to capture that data, like ScaleAI but for robotics. Here’s how.

The Solution:

• In a line: Cheap, wearable glasses that crowdsource real-world, first-person POV video to train robots and AI agents.

• Product:

  • 🕶️ Users order a lightweight, stylish, and ultra-cheap pair of POV-recording smart glasses (~$39) that sync with a mobile app.

  • 📹 The glasses record anonymized first-person video during pre-approved tasks (like car repair, assembly line work etc.)

  • 🔁 Footage is uploaded securely to the cloud, where it’s tagged and labeled using AI and sent to robotics companies for training.

  • 🎁 Companies are incentivized to get workers to wear these in order to build their own in-house robotics training datasets. Meanwhile end users can be incentivized to wear them on a pay-per-minute basis for high-quality, usable footage.

• Business Model: Sell the glasses at cost ( $25 - $35 per pair) and sell access to the labeled POV dataset via subscription or per-minute licensing to robotics and AI firms.

• End Goal: Sell to a robotics company (like Boston Dynamics, Figure AI, or Nvidia) or a data infrastructure giant for a 10–15x revenue multiple.

👀 What kind of founder are you, really?

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If you’re an entrepreneur, building a team, or just curious to learn more… try the survey here (it’s freakishly accurate). Half Baked readers will receive a free 15-minute debrief from Predictive Success.

Take the test

👅 Why Tongue Scraping is Taking Off

The Trend: Tongue scraping, an ancient Ayurvedic oral hygiene practice, is having a modern moment. Driven by TikTok influencers, wellness bloggers, and a growing focus on aesthetics (like breath and tongue color), it's now part of many people's daily routines. The appeal? Fresher breath, better taste, and something else for influencers to add to their morning routine videos.

Opportunities:

• Habit-Tracking App for Oral Wellness: Reminders to scrape, brush, floss, rinse.

• Tongue Health Diagnostic Tool: App or device that analyzes tongue color/texture to suggest potential health insights

⚒️ Turn Screenshots into Prototypes in Seconds

The Tool: Claude (Anthropic’s answer to ChatGPT) is an incredibly powerful tool which can do almost anything. But one killer use of the LLM is to create functional prototypes directly from screenshots or photos. Here’s how.

Step-by-step:

1. Access Claude through your browser or mobile app.

2. Take a clear screenshot or photo of your design.

3. Upload it with a prompt requesting a prototype with specific features and styling as you require.

Check it out

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🧑‍⚕️ Turning Tragedy into a $3.7B Business

The Idea: Back in 2005 Saeju Jeong experienced a personal tragedy. His father, a respected physician in South Korea, died of lung cancer at just age 51. So that year Saeju decided to drop out of college and moved to New York with a bold vision - to reimagine healthcare. He partnered with Artem Petakov, a former Google engineer, who shared his passion and together they started building a smart stationary-bike accessory (kind of like an early Peloton). Unfortunately though the product didn’t get much traction. So they then pivoted to creating a calorie-counting app, which gained more traction but struggled to scale. So in 2011 they decided to launch a platform centered on weight-loss, underpinned by psychology and behavior change, not just calories. They founded Noom.

The Execution:

• The MVP: They spent the next few years building, testing and refining the product. Noom’s breakthrough feature was including certified health coaches working alongside AI and algorithm-driven insights, quizzes, and CBT-inspired lessons.

• The Launch: In 2016, they launched the Noom app publicly. The blend of personalized tech and empathetic human support proved transformative, leading to strong engagement and retention.

• Growth & Traction: Noom's unique approach led to rapid user growth, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic as people turned to digital solutions to stay in shape as the world fell apart. Fun times…

• Investment: Noom raised over $650M in funding over the years, including a $58 million Series E in 2019 and a $540 million Series F in 2021, led by Silver Lake.

• The Result: Noom has become one of the leading weight loss apps in the world. By 2020, Noom reported $400 million in revenue and the company was last valued at $3.7B.

The Lesson: If at all possible tie your business to a personal mission. That means you’ll push yourself harder to succeed.

🧀 Finger Protectors

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• ✅ Yes this actually exists

• ❌ Nope you totally made this up

🔍️ Founder Finds

• 📖 Playbook: Check out Dropbox’s data-backed insights into startup fundraising.

• 📚 Must-Read: The Mom Test is one of the shortest, best books for a founder to read.

• ✖️ Trending Tweet: The a16z team’s take on the future of consumer is worth checking out.

• 💬 Founder Quote: “If we waited until we were ready, we’d be waiting forever.” Mel Perkins, Canva.

👋 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!

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

See you soon,

John and Darragh | The Half Baked Team