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- Startup Ideas #413: Kaggle for X, Coffee Buckets...
Startup Ideas #413: Kaggle for X, Coffee Buckets...
Plus Making +$1B from Selling Pizza
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as impressive as OpenAI’s latest multi-billion dollar raise 💰️
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:
💡 An idea inspired by Netflix’s $1M competition
📈 A trend that could 10x your productivity (but shorten your life span…)
🛠️ Using AI to check your website’s health
🤑 Making +$1B from selling pizza
🍻 An area where we smell an opportunity
💼 Kaggle for Hiring
Hire Scores
Available domain: Skillstackd.com
The Problem: We’ve all experienced just how good Netflix’s recommendation algorithm is, right? Well what you may not know is the reason it’s so good is because of a platform called Kaggle. That’s because a few years back, Netflix launched a $1M competition on Kaggle to see if anyone could improve their recommendation engine. “BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos” (which sounds like the name of a heavy metal band) won the prize. Which got us thinking…why don’t companies hire in this way too? The classic resumé review and interview format rewards people who can sell themselves the best, not those who can actually do the best job. It’s time to reimagine hiring. Here’s what we have in mind.
The Solution:
In a line: A competitive job platform where candidates complete real company challenges to get hired based on skills, not résumés.
Product:
📝 Users sign up, create a profile, and pick target industries or roles.
🎯 Companies post real-world challenges, coding tasks, case studies, or creative briefs instead of traditional job posts.
🏆 Candidates submit solutions, get scored, ranked, and receive public skill badges to boost credibility.
💌 Top performers are automatically fast-tracked in hiring pipelines.
Business Model: Charge companies a subscription or per-challenge fee to post skill challenges and access top candidates.
End Goal: Sell to a jobs platform like Indeed or Handshake as a next-gen hiring platform for a 7–10x revenue multiple.
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📦️ Tariffs Got You Tense? Take Back Control With Direct Shipping and Tariff Deferment
Recent tariffs have majorly delayed the selling season for DTC brands that waited for the tariff cuts or ran out of inventory.
And for the next 90 days, tariffs have been reduced, but this might not be enough time to get inventory where you need it, plus, you’re still dealing with a 30% tariff.
Portless is here to help. While competitors' inventory sits on a boat for 60-90 days, you could be:
Restocking best-sellers in 3-5 days
Freeing up more working capital
Paying tariffs only after customers pay you
Turn 6-week delays into 6-day deliveries directly from China.
Portless lets you take back control of your inventory and start leveraging tariff deferment today.
☕ Coffee Buckets
The Trend: Short, Tall, Grande, Venti. If you’re a coffee drinker you know exactly what these refer to. But it turns out we have a new coffee size above venti…bucket. That’s right, for some reason across the United States, cafes are serving jumbo-size coffee drinks in plastic buckets. Still probably has less caffeine than a charged lemonade did though.
Opportunities:
Functional Drink Co-Creation Platform: Let creators or micro-influencers design and sell their own functional bucket blends (caffeine + creatine + collagen, etc.).
Branded Collab Buckets: Partner with influencers or micro-celebs to release limited-run coffee buckets with their logo, slogans, or custom brews.
🏥 Using AI to Check your Website’s Health
The Tool: Your company’s website is your gateway to the world. It’s like your storefront, and in the same way that stores are cleaned daily you should be checking your website daily for any issues. Here’s how you can use AI to do exactly that.
Step-by-step:
Go to Zapier Agents and select the Website Daily Health Checker template
Connect your different apps to Zapier (Google Docs, Gmail and Slack for this automation to work)
Hit the test agent button on your screen, provide the website domain and a list of sample paths you want monitored
Check daily for any issues flagged by the automation
⬛️ Turn your Idea into Reality with Squarespace
Here at Half Baked, we're all about ideas. But while ideas are great, they only matter if you make them real.
That's where Squarespace comes in.
Squarespace’s tools help you to transform your business from an idea to a reality, from launching a stunning website to securing your brand name or even creating a logo.
One platform to bring your idea to life.
Get 10% off with code HALFBAKED (along with your 14 day free trial).
🍕 Making +$1B from Selling Pizza
The Idea: Ilir Sela’s grandfather, uncle and father all ran pizza places in Manhattan when he was a child. Ilir therefore saw firsthand how independent shops struggled against the likes of Domino’s and Pizza Hut as they moved online. So after selling his first tech services firm for $500K in 2008, he decided to turn his attention to helping pizza shops, like those in his family, to digitize and deliver pizzas just like the big players in the market. This was the beginning of Slice.
The Execution:
2010: Ilir launched MyPizza in Pittsburgh (later New York), charging far less per order than third-party platforms. He famously wrapped a car in ads and parked it outside target pizzerias to get early customers
2015: MyPizza processed $40 million in orders and closed its first seed round on the strength of demonstrated traction.
2016: The company rebranded as Slice, rolled out a white-label, mobile-optimized ordering widget for independent pizzerias.
April 2021: Raised a $40 million Series D led by Cross Creek with participation from KKR, GGV Capital, and Primary Ventures
February 2022: Revenue surpassed $100 million and the platform has facilitated over $1 billion in sales.
Today: Slice handles millions of orders monthly, continues private growth and is exploring an IPO to cement its position as the “operating system” for independent pizza places.
The lesson we can take from Ilir? Use scrappy, low-cost tactics to validate demand. Once you see the demand is there, go for it.
🔍️ Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: This AI photo editor is like photoshop, only it’s free
📚 Must-Read: Why AI assistants prefer to cite “fresher” content
✖️ Trending Tweet: Why the day this founder made millions was the worst day of his life.
🎟️ Free Event: Join top founders for an afternoon of pickleball in San Francisco on August 7th, powered by HubSpot. Sign up here to see if you’re eligible (+ to get 90% off HubSpot)
💬 Founder Quote: “I didn’t know the rules, so I wasn’t limited by them.” Sara Blakely (Spanx)
🔦 Reader Spotlight
📈 HeadsUp: Dru Riley is working on a real-time competitor tracking that actually works. Stay one step ahead without lifting a finger.
🔒 Plox: Aryan Pereira is building a tool for sharing sensitive docs with full analytics and zero complexity
🧪 Data Bridges: Abenezer Megersa is building an AI workspace built for researchers. Everything from analysis to report writing, in one clean flow.
🤖 ConCapture: Deivydas Daugela is working on a smart conference assistant that transforms photos of slides and business cards into structured notes and contacts
🖼️ MagicEraser AI: MagicEraser AI makes anything disappear from a photo in seconds. No Photoshop skills required.
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Dog Perfume
Ever caught a whiff of your dog and thought that something needs to change? Wish your pup smelled less like…well…wet dog?
Introducing Fefé’s Pawfume™, the world’s first luxury fragrance for dogs. With just a few sprays your furry little friend can smell fresher than five-star hotel lobby. Choose from scents like “Vanilla Pupcake,” “Citrus Fetch,” and “Woody Walks”. Mix and match for best results!
Fefé’s Pawfume™ - because your dog deserves to smell like a good boy, not a dumpster diver.
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👋 That’s All Folks!
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