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Startup Ideas #398: Eco AI, Seed-Strapping...
Plus Making $30M by Age 17
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as popular as a last minute Amazon Prime day deal 📦️
If you want to read any previous editions of Half Baked, you can check them out on our website.
Let’s goooo 🚀
In today’s edition:
💡 Entering a crazy competitive market, but with a new twist
📈 The new path tech founders are taking to success
🛠️ How to create a super bowl worthy ad with AI
🤑 Making $30M by age 17
🍻 Making use of forgotten city centre real estate
🌳 Eco-conscious AI Tools
Rooting for you
Available domain: Ecovo.ai
The Problem: The “browser wars” are upon us. It’s kinda like Star Wars, but with less nerds. Or maybe more nerds? Hard to tell. Regardless, it’s becoming increasingly clear that AI companies are fighting to replace Chrome as the default browser. Arc. Dia. Comet from Perplexity. Whatever OpenAI’s cooking up. But one angle that I think all of these companies are missing is the environmental impact of AI. Mainly because they don’t want to talk about it. Training and deploying these models has a massive environmental impact, and we think there’s a gap in the market to create AI tooling for the eco-conscious. And in the same way that Ecosia built a great business by being the “green search engine”, someone will do the same for AI tools. Here’s how.
The Solution:
In a line: A suite of AI-first tools (chatbot, web browser) etc. that are focussed on providing eco-friendly AI experiences
Product:
🌳 You begin by setting up as a Public Benefit Corp and start scoring different models for their environmental impact
🤖 You use this as the basis for creating an eco-friendly chatbot, which tracks environmental impact, gives tips to use AI more efficiently and gives options to offset carbon through planting trees or other initiatives
🕰️ Over time you could create and train your own model on carbon-neutral servers, significantly reducing inference energy, and make the model as lightweight as possible
💻 You eventually expand the product line to incorporate an eco-friendly browser, becoming the default tech stack for the environmentally conscious.
🛠️ Demo here (the chat returns random responses, so enjoy!)
Business Model: Free tier for limited usage, paid subscription which includes an automatic element of offsetting
End Goal: Position the business to get acquired by a major browser vendor or a cloud-AI platform.
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💵 Pitch to Win $50K in Cash + Exposure at INBOUND 2025
HubSpot for Startups has just launched The Next Big AIdea, a pitch competition built exclusively for early-stage AI companies.
Here’s what’s up for grabs:
💰 $50K in non-dilutive cash, $25K in AWS credits, 600K in Clay credits
📣 Global exposure through HubSpot’s network
🎤 A live pitch on stage at INBOUND 2025 in SF in front of 1,000+ investors
So if you're an early-stage, US-based AI startup, here's how to enter:
Download HubSpot’s free CRM here
Submit a 60 second video pitch
Deadline to apply is July 25th.
💰 How Seed-Strapping is Rewriting Venture
The Trend: “Seed-Strapping” is the new shortcut to startup glory. Rather than slog through the traditional funding rounds, today’s AI founders are charting a new course. Instead, they’re raising one seed round and then sprinting to profitability as fast as they can, never raising again. This minimizes dilution and ensures over time the founders maximize their control over the business. We back it.
Opportunities:
DIY Fundraising Toolkit: Subscription-based software bundle for managing cap tables, legal docs, and investor updates for sub-€100K rounds.
Micro-Investor Network App: Create a mobile app which connects founders to angel investors who write very small checks (€1K–€10K)
📹 How to Create a Super Bowl Worthy Ad with AI
The Tool: Yesterday we spoke about how AI ads are the future of advertising. Today, Kalshi dropped an ad about as good as anything you’d see at half-time at the Super Bowl. And they made it entirely with AI in just a week. Here’s an overview how they did it.
Step-by-step:
They began by writing the script for the ad (which you could use AI for of course)
They then asked ChatGPT to take the script and convert every shot in the script into a detailed Veo 3 prompt.
They pasted the prompts into Veo 3 and edited shots as needed within Veo 3
Finally they pulled it all together in a video editing platform (like Premiere Pro)
💰️ Connect with Top Investors on LinkedIn using Dripify
As a founder, whether you're raising money right now or plan to raise in the future, you should be talking to investors right now. But how do you find them?
They're on LinkedIn. And Dripify can help you reach them.
Dripify pinpoints high-potential leads, nurtures relationships through personalized outreach, and tracks performance in real time. No manual prospecting required.
Start your free trial today and use the code HALFBAKED for a 10% discount, no credit card required.
📰 Making $30M by Age 17
The Idea: Back in 2009 Nick D’Aloisio was a London schoolboy obsessed with coding. Having taught himself to program by age 12, he tinkered with text‐processing algorithms in his bedroom (as most kids do of course). By early 2011 though, at 15, Nick was dealing with a problem we’re all too familiar with…information overload. So Nick dreamed up a way to turn long articles into bite-sized snippets for mobile screens. This was the beginning of Summly.
The Execution:
March 2011: Nick shipped the initial version of his app, which he called Trimit. It was a scrappy MVP that condensed emails, blog posts or news into 1,000/500/140-character bites. It racked up 100,000 downloads in just weeks.
December 2011: Armed with early traction, he rebranded to Summly and secured $300k in seed funding from Li Ka-Shing, a Hong Kong billionaire, to pivot toward news.
Mid 2012: Summly hit 200,000 users. Nick brought on Natural Language Programming specialists (some from Israel) to sharpen the AI summarizer.
November 2012: Closed a $1 million Series A with backers like Yoko Ono, Ashton Kutcher and Stephen Fry.
March 2013: Yahoo! acquired Summly for around $30 million, folding the tech into Yahoo News Digest and mobile apps.
The lesson? Nick, at age 17, managed to build, scale and sell a business in just two years. So whatever age you are or wherever you are in life, if you don’t think you’re ready to start a business just yet…you are. You just have to take the plunge.
🔍️ Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: This tool turns text scripts into lifelike AI avatar videos for business communication, training, and marketing.
📚 Must-Read: Marc Lou’s guide to getting your first 1,000 followers on Twitter is something I’ve been thinking about all week
📹 Must-Watch: This interview with Maor Shlomo (sold Base44, his 6 month old startup, for $80M) is worth the time investment
🏷️ Founder Discount: Mike from Plugin Studio has kindly offered a 50% discount on his product to our readers, use code HALFBAKED. Thanks Mike!
💬 Founder Quote: “You need to be the designer of your destiny, not just its consumer” Tony Hsieh, late CEO of Zappos
🔦 Reader Spotlight
🧑🏫 Reverse Mentorship Platform - Charlie Poznek (Former Hedge Fund and Private Equity COO) is looking for a technical cofounder to start this idea. Reach out to him on LinkedIn if you’re interested!
🛡️ ScamIQ - Brian Coleman is sharing daily scam tips, real-time alerts, and tools to stay safe online.
🚀 LeadBuckets - Nathan Denholm is boosting lead gen by scoring sites and building mockups for devs and designers.
📹 Virlo - Nicolas Mauro is building a short-form video platform that aggregates and creates data-rich content.
⚙️ Modern Operators - Mark Malian is creating an OS for founder-led teams to streamline work and scale faster.
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Phone Booth Office Space
Ever walked past a phone booth and thought “why do those even exist anymore”? Well we’ve come up with the perfect use for them…office space.
Introducing WeBooth™. For a few hundred dollars a month you can work from these prime locations, immersing yourself in the sights and sounds of the city while you work. Each booth comes kitted out with Wi-Fi, a fold-out desk, but ironically no phone. You gotta bring your own I’m afraid.
WeBooth™ - answer the call…of productivity.
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👋 That’s All Folks!
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