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- Startup Ideas #404: Cluely for X, Digital Treatments...
Startup Ideas #404: Cluely for X, Digital Treatments...
Plus The 25 Year-Old Running a $1B Business
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as Tesla’s new diner in LA 🥞
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:
💡 Bringing Cluely’s functionality to a brand new domain
📈 Why people are plugging in to detox
🛠️ Using AI to validate your startup ideas in minutes
🤑 The 25 year-old running a $1B business
🍻 Bringing some tech to your beach trip
👩💻 Cluely for Coding
Getting clued in
Available domain: Cachely.co
The Opportunity: The story of Cluely and Roy Lee has quickly become the stuff of Silicon Valley legend. Their viral marketing campaigns have been epic, all in service of promoting their AI meeting assistant that gives feedback and prompts during calls. It’s a pretty cool tool, which got us thinking. Is there another area where real time feedback from AI would be super helpful? Like…learning to code? Imagine an AI that analyzes your code in real time and gives you hints, tips or tricks to become a better programmer. That’s what we have in mind.
The Solution:
In a line: A real-time AI code coach that helps you become a better programmer as you write
Product:
🧠 Chrome extension or IDE plugin that activates when you write code in supported editors (like VSCode, Replit, or CodePen).
🧵 Real-time feedback with hints, explanations, and style tips, tailored to your language and skill level.
🔍 Detects bad patterns, recommends best practices, and even suggests micro-improvements as you type.
🎯 Optional "learning mode" that explains why certain changes are suggested, turning each session into a mini lesson.
Business Model: Freemium model with paid tiers for advanced AI, career prep tools, and team learning dashboards.
End Goal: Get acquired by a dev platform (like GitHub, Replit, or Cursor) at a 10–15x ARR multiple to become their learning layer.
Rate this idea: |
🔍️ Be seen by the right people...even before they reply
With over 1B users, getting seen on LinkedIn by the right people can be almost impossible. Unless you have Dripify.
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You can automate hundreds of engagement actions per week, growing your presence on LinkedIn without logging in daily or manually engaging with each profile - freeing you up to create meaningful content or network strategically.
Start your free trial today and use the code HALFBAKED for a 10% discount, no credit card required.
🧘 Immersive Digital Treatments
The Trend: We’re overwhelmed, overstimulated, and desperate to unplug. But the latest relaxation trend leans into tech, not away from it. Immersive digital treatments, like VR escapes, light shows, and sound baths such as The Circle, try to soothe our brains. In fact these experiences can help with stress, anxiety, and even chronic pain. Turns out, disconnecting might just mean plugging into something else.
Opportunities:
Postpartum Digital Recovery Room: Experiences for new mothers offering mental health support, pelvic floor rehab, and guided bonding activities via immersive mobile experiences.
Digital Psychedelic Therapy: A safe, trippy visual journey powered by AI and music therapy principles, designed to mimic the benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy…without drugs.
✅ Using AI to Validate Your Startup Idea in Minutes
The Tool: If you’re anything like us, you have endless startup ideas you’re itching to start. But how do you know which ideas to prioritize? Well here’s how you can use AI to start validating your ideas in minutes.
Step-by-step:
Go to ChatGPT or Claude and enter the prompt we have detailed here
This will scrape data from sources like Twitter or Reddit to discover if the problem your product is seeking to address is being felt by real users
Decide whether or not you want to pursue the idea
🪄 Magically Create AI Video Documentation with AI
Tired of writing training materials, how-to-guides or other internal docs that rarely get read?
Meet Guidde, the AI tool that turns your workflow into a step-by-step video guide in seconds. Here's how:
Download the Chrome extension and hit record before doing a task
Guidde creates a video tutorial and adds voiceover, highlights clicks, and creates chapters
Share the guide instantly with your team
Perfect for onboarding, support, training and more. Join 100,000+ users already saving 12+ hours a week.
🧑🍳 From Dog Grooming to a $1B Business
Adam Guild (right) is an incredible founder. By age 12 he had grown a Minecraft server to more than 7m users. He even dropped out of high school in the 10th grade to work on scaling up that server. But his big break came in 2018 not when Adam started a business, but his Mom did. She started a local dog grooming business, but as Adam saw her struggling with marketing, he built tools to help her get more customers. This was his first taste of building software for local businesses. He made it his mission to build software to help small businesses to thrive, starting with restaurants. That’s how Owner.com was born.
The Execution:
2019: Adam initially launched Placepull, a platform to help restaurants get more dine-in customers through online marketing. Adam cold emailed 400 restaurant owners a week and interviewed 1,000+ customers.
2020: When the pandemic hit Adam pivoted Placepull into ProfitBoss, now focusing on online ordering, direct websites for restaurants and commission-free delivery
2021: Adam brought on Dean Bloembergen as his co-founder, they rebranded to Owner.com and raised a $10.7M Seed round led by Jason Lemkin of SaaStr.
2022: The team raised a $15M Series A and expanded the product suite
2024: Owner raised a $33M Series B from Redpoint Ventures. Notable angels like Naval Ravikant and Kimbal Musk joined. Valuation crossed $150M.
2025: Raised a $120M Series C, led by Meritech Capital. The company is now valued at $1 billion+.
When it comes to entrepreneurship, you need to find your why. Sure making money is great, but you need something deeper to push you forward.
🔍️ Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: Freepik is offering 1 week of free, unlimited video generation. Get it while it’s hot!
📚 Must-Read: This article maps out the potential progress of AI towards superintelligence over the next two years. It’s wild.
🎁 Free Resource: This tweet from Nikita Bier (Head of Product at X) on building consumer apps is an oldie but a goldie
🎟️ Event: We’re giving away two free tickets to INBOUND in San Francisco in partnership with HubSpot. Enter today for free!
💬 Founder Quote: “Startups are not a career path. They're a call to adventure.” Naval Ravikant (Co-founder of AngelList)
🔦 Reader Spotlight
📝 Ponder: Marco Gancitano wants to change how you journal. Calmer, deeper, and with a little help from AI.
🎥 RenderCut: Suraj Mahadev Kadam is turning boring videos into scroll-stopping content in seconds. Creators, don’t miss this.
🛡️ Trueguard: Carel Martten Lechtmets is quietly helping SaaS founders sleep better at night…
📊 Supadex: Guillermo Olcina Martinez is building a way to track your data, metrics, and projects, all from your phone.
📈 DataDyno: Gavin Smith is building a tool for newsletter creators to turn Amazon links into cash
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Solar Parasol
Planning on sipping a few cold ones while on vacation this summer? Think using a cooler full of ice to keep your beers cold is a bit…outdated?
Introducing the SolBrella™, the sun lounger with built in solar panels that charge your smart cooler to keep your family cool, and your beers even cooler.
SolBrella™ - where sunlight meets Budlight.
Vote
👋 That’s All Folks!
Before you go just a few public service announcements:
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See you soon,
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