• Half Baked
  • Posts
  • Startup Ideas #383: Meditation Companion, Social Simulations...

Startup Ideas #383: Meditation Companion, Social Simulations...

Plus Turning a Pub Napkin into a $1.7B Exit

June 20, 2025

Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as often as Meta is trying to acquire billion-dollar AI startups 👀 

If you want to read any previous editions (which of course, you should) of Half Baked you can on our website.

Let’s goooo 🚀 

In today’s edition:

  • 💡 Giving “MedTech” a whole new meaning

  • 📈 The boring businesses that are skyrocketing right now

  • 🛠️ Using AI to Track YC Startup Launches

  • 🤑 Turning a pub napkin into a $1.7B exit

  • 🍻 The best way to eat your veggies

🧘 Meditation Companion

Stone cold chiller

Available domain: Zenpeb.com

The Problem: We’ve all gone through a “meditation phase” in our lives. We download a meditation app, commit to a daily meditation practice, but after about 3 days we realise that TikTok or YouTube are much more exciting than practicing mindfulness. And that’s the problem, right? Using your phone (the most exciting and addictive product ever designed) to meditate is a bit like asking a gambling addict to chill in a casino lobby. That’s why we need a new device designed specifically for meditation. No screen. No app. No distraction. Just peace. Here’s what we have in mind.

The Solution:

  • In a line: A minimalist, screen-free, pebble-shaped device that guides you through meditation using breath, vibration, and sound.

  • Product:

    • 🌀 No screens, no apps, you just pick it up and press. A built-in sensor knows when it’s in your hand and activates.

    • 🎵 The device gently pulses to guide inhale/exhale timing, with optional ambient tones or chimes. There’s also an optional voice mode which can lead you in guided meditations

    • 🔋 The device has 30-day battery life, magnetic wireless charging, and a tactile outer shell that feels like a real stone.

    • 📉 The app only tracks a single data point - minutes meditated, which it calls out after each session. No leaderboards or other distractions

  • Business Model: Direct-to-consumer single purchase ($40 or $50 for the device)

  • End Goal: Sell to a wellness brand like Calm or Headspace at a 5–8x revenue multiple.

Rate this idea:

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

❌ No, you don’t need to raise $500K to build a to-do list app.

Back in edition #377 of this newsletter, OG Half Baked reader and all around great guy Mat Gordon shared his guide on how to know if your startup idea doesn’t suck.

Mat himself has launched and helped others to launch 100+ online businesses and startups over the past 11 years. In fact 4 of his own startups were acquired and most made 6 figures or more in profit.

And since Mat’s first guide was so popular he’s back again with another, this time a free 23 page eBook called "Build It Lean, Launch It Fast" where Mat shares his secret formula for launching an MVP.

🧹 Home Cleaning Service

The Trend: Owning a home, while a privilege in this economy, is also a pain. There are all those jobs you mean to get around to but never do, like air duct cleaning, dryer vent clearing, carpet steaming, and so on. But recently there’s been a surge in traffic for all of these types of services, presenting huge opportunities to build a so-called “boring business”, or even better, software that serves these businesses.

Opportunities:

  • Shopify for Boring Businesses: A Shopify-style platform that provides everything needed to launch and run a “boring” service business (from edition #212)

  • Teen Jobs Platform: A platform where people in a neighborhood can post jobs or work they need done suitable for teenagers to complete (from edition #188)

💰 Using AI to Track YC Startup Launch

The Tool: YC is the most successful startup accelerator of all time. Period. Which is why it’s always cool to keep an eye out for what YC companies are up to. Here’s how you can use AI to track YC companies that have launched recently.

Step-by-step:

  1. Go to Lutra.ai and find their YC Launches Data Extractor playbook

  2. Run the automation and wait a few minutes (play some snake or something)

  3. The last 30 YC launches are populated in a Google Sheet for you to peruse

🛠️ The easy-to-use CRM tool

Pipedrive is the sales CRM that’s simple to set up, easy to use, and powerful where it counts.

Designed by sales pros, it helps you manage leads, track deals, and automate tasks, so you can spend less time clicking and more time closing.

Whether you're a team of 1 or 100, Pipedrive scales with your growth.

Sign up today to get an extended 30-day free trial + 20% off your first year.

✈️ Turning a Pub Napkin into a $1.7B Exit

The Idea: Back in 2001, Edinburgh-based programmer Gareth Williams (pictured) had a problem. Gareth, a frequent skier, was tired of cobbling together cheap flight options across dozens of airline websites just to hit the slopes without emptying his wallet. So, one evening over beers, Gareth roped in his two mates (Bonamy Grimes and Barry Smith) and said, “What if we just built a tool that searched all flights, everywhere, at once?” They sketched out a solution on a pub napkin and got to work. This was the beginning of Skyscanner.

The Execution:

  • 2001: Gareth built the first prototype of Skyscanner in Excel. That spreadsheet got a little out of hand though so they decided to turn the spreadsheet into a website.

  • 2002: While developing the website Gareth focused full time on the code while the others kept their day jobs, actually sharing their salaries so Gareth could code full-time. Bonamy and Barry worked evenings and weekends on Skyscanner. Talk about commitment.

  • 2003: Skyscanner’s first website officially launched, operating from a spare room in Edinburgh. It allowed users to compare flight prices across different airlines. It was clunky, ugly but immediately useful, so thousands of travel nerds started using it.

  • 2008: After bootstrapping for years, they raised £2.5m from Scottish Equity Partners to scale up and moved beyond flights.

  • 2011: Skyscanner hit 100 employees and launched a mobile app, fuelling major international growth.

  • 2013: The company hit profitability, Sequoia invested and valued Skyscanner at around $800 million, they opened offices in Singapore and Beijing, and acquired Chinese travel search engine Youbibi. Quite a year!

  • 2016: Skyscanner was acquired by Chinese travel giant Ctrip (now Trip.com Group) for a whopping $1.75B, one of the UK’s largest tech exits.

The lesson? Sometimes the best way to start a company is to go to the pub with your mates, talk about a problem you have and turn it into a business. Happy Friday everyone.

🥦 Flavor Spray

  • Hate eating your greens? Wish your quinoa tasted more like a Quarter Pounder?

  • Introducing FlavrSpray™, the revolutionary scent-based flavor hack that makes your boring health food smell like fast food. Spray some “Bacon Cheeseburger” on that sad broccoli and trick your brain into thinking you’re dining on a delicious burger. Genius.

  • FlavrSpray™ – Because you can have your kale and eat fries too.

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:

What did you think of today's edition?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

See you soon,

John and Darragh | The Half Baked Team

Reply

or to participate.