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- Startup Ideas #418: Athlete Content, A Generational Trend...
Startup Ideas #418: Athlete Content, A Generational Trend...
Plus Turning a Race into a +$100m/yr Business
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as GPT-5’s rocky rollout 👀
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 to help athletes take their career to the next level
📈 Why turning 30 isn’t the same as it used to be
🛠️ How to use AI to generate a detailed terms of service
🤑 Turning a race into a +$100m/yr business
🍻 Combining an ancient Chinese tradition with a common object
🏈 Content Copilot for Athletes
The Reel MVP
Available domain: Reelbounds.com
The Problem: Being a professional athlete is a hell of a job. You get to do what you love, hopefully make bank doing it and live a life most of us dream of. But sports careers are tricky. They’re short-lived and you’re always one injury away from hanging up your boots forever. So it’s no wonder that most athletes these days are building their personal brands during their playing days to earn some extra cash and more importantly, set themselves up for life after they stop playing sports. So why not build a tool to help athletes do exactly this? Here’s what we’re thinking.
The Solution:
In a line: An AI-powered content copilot that helps athletes to build their personal brands, without hiring a social team.
Product:
🏁 Athletes sign up via app or web, connect their socials, and input their sport, schedule, and brand goals.
🧠 The app generates ready-to-post content (captions, carousels, clips) using game data, stats, and clipped highlights
📅 A smart content calendar syncs with game days, media appearances, and travel, suggesting content based on real-time performance and trends.
🏷️ The platform contains tools for tagging sponsors, tracking engagement, and auto-generating post-game content packs (highlight clips, “thanks fans” posts, milestone graphics).
Business Model: Monthly subscription
End Goal: Sell to a NIL platform (like Opendorse or INFLCR) or a creator tooling company (like Jellysmack or Playbook) for a 5–8x revenue multiple.
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😵 Bad Passwords Kill Startups
As a founder, you're used to taking risks. But some risks just aren’t worth it - like leaving your company exposed to weak or reused passwords.
That's because just one leaked password can nuke your business. It’s not worth the risk.
That's why smart teams (and even dumb teams like ours) use 1Password, the industry leader in password management. It keeps your credentials safe, your team in sync, and your business protected.
Take big swings with your product, not with your security.
🏡 This Generation is Falling Behind
The Trend: When you were a kid, and you met someone who was 30, you may as well have been 50, since back then being 30 seemed super old. That’s because back then if you met someone who was 30 they were likely married, maybe with kids and owned a home. But times have changed. Over the last 50 years economic pressure, shifting priorities, and cultural changes mean the % of 30 year-olds that are married and homeowners has fallen off a cliff over the last few decades. It’s an incredible chart, and explains a lot about where we’re at today as a society.
Opportunities:
Co-Investment Real Estate App for Friends: An app that makes it easy for friend groups or chosen families to invest in property together without needing to get married.
Adult Friend-Finding App: Focused on building deep, long-term platonic relationships for adults in their 30s navigating life without the traditional couple structure.
📃 How to Use AI to Generate a Detailed Terms of Service
The Tool: Every business needs to generate a detailed terms of service before launching. Will anyone ever read it? Probably not. Do you still need to have one? Absolutely. So here’s how you can use AI to generate a detailed ToS for your product or service.
Step-by-step:
Begin by defining your product and user base in ChatGPT or Claude
Then use this prompt to generate the user rights and responsibilities section
Then create the liability and warranty disclaimers and develop your privacy and data handling policies. We’ve shared prompts for this too.
Compile and finalize your Terms of Service
⏱️ Get Compliant in 15 Hours, Not 6 Months
Delve helps fast-growing companies get compliant with an AI-automated platform. SOC 2, HIPAA, and any other certification in just 15 hours.
The proof is in the pudding:
Lovable → From zero to fully SOC 2 compliant in just days
Cluely → Unlocked millions in enterprise contracts within just days
Bland → Switched over, got SOC 2 compliant and unlocked $500k ARR within 7 days
If you’re suffering elsewhere, they’ll even migrate you off another platform all included
Half Baked readers get $1,000 credit using code HALFBAKED1KOFF + Free Airpods Pros when you get compliant
Getting compliant in days >>> quarters.
🏋️ Turning a Race into a +$100m/yr Business
The Idea: When Olympic field hockey gold medallist Moritz Fürste retired from elite sport, he still had that competitive spirit within him. But he and his friend, endurance race expert Christian Toetzke, couldn’t find a fitness challenge that excited them. Marathons weren’t their thing. CrossFit felt too niche. So they thought, what if there was a race that combined endurance and functional fitness in a standardized, mass-participation format? Something measurable, repeatable, and global. This was the idea for HYROX.
The Execution:
2018: The first HYROX event was held in Hamburg with around 650 participants. The format of the event? 8 rounds of 1 km running and after each run you complete a functional workout station. It was scrappy but legit.
2019: They partnered with Puma as the first major sponsor. Events expanded across Germany and the U.S., testing demand and refining the race format.
2020: COVID hit. Live events paused, but they doubled down on community-building and affiliate gym partnerships to keep the brand alive.
2021: Resumed global events. Grew to 20+ races across Europe and North America. Word of mouth in fitness communities proved to be their viral loop.
2022: HYROX exploded in popularity. Their affiliate program grew to 1,000+ gyms. Elite and amateur athletes alike embraced HYROX as a legit competitive sport.
2023: HYROX saw 600,000+ participants across 65+ races. They added Red Bull and Amazfit as sponsors. Now a legit sport with global rankings.
Today: Revenue each year is north of $100M and HYROX has become a lifestyle brand, not just an event company.
All of which proves that you don’t always need an app or software to build a scalable business. HYROX did this by building an experience and a community around it. This is another viable path to success.
🔍️ Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: College students are getting access to Google’s top AI tools for a year. Go go go!
📚 Must-Read: OpenAI’s product lead reveals the new playbook for product-market fit in AI startups.
✖️ Trending Tweet: The Thiel Fellowship is 10x better at producing unicorns than YC is. There’s a lesson in there.
📹 Must-Watch: This hour-long interview with Sam Altman released yesterday is super interesting.
💬 Founder Quote: "The most successful startups often come from ideas that make you slightly embarrassed to tell your friends.” Ben Silbermann (Pinterest)
🔦 Reader Spotlight
📚 Savant: Raiko Colakovic is working on helps med and grad students learn faster by converting dense PDFs and Anki decks into high-quality flashcards and quizzes.
🎬 The Next Great Show: Aaron Rowe-Jardine is working on this platform fosters a community for storytellers to collaborate, receive feedback, and connect with industry experts
📈 Trending Content: Keven H. Galolo is working on this platform helps you create timely, engaging content by tapping into popular sources like Reddit and YouTube.
📝 Repomind AI: Trusten Lehmann-Karp is working on leverages artificial intelligence to transform projects into professional portfolios and resume-ready summaries.
🎮 Dare2Trade: Kris Waters is working on this interactive trading game simulator allows users to enhance their trading skills using real historical data.
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Acupuncture Slippers
Feel like your feet have had it too easy lately? Is your energy flow not where you want it to be at presently?
Introducing Slippuncture™, the revolutionary acupuncture slippers that turn every step into an opportunity for self-improvement. Designed by monks (who have clearly never worn shoes before), these stylish foot traps realign your chi by violently assaulting your arches. Nice.
Slippuncture™ – they hurt like heel.
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👋 That’s All Folks!
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