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- Startup Ideas #428: VA Certifications, The Storytime Recession...
Startup Ideas #428: VA Certifications, The Storytime Recession...
Plus Making £3B from Sending Emails
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as surprising as Apple teaming up with Google to save Siri? 👀
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:
💡 Adding a certification layer to a rapidly growing space
📈 The dramatic decline in a classic parenting activity
🛠️ How to use AI to find a side hustle
🤑 Making £3B from Sending Emails
🍻 Loading up on something many people avoid
🌍 VA Certifications Platform
Certified Fresh
Available domain: VAVerified.com
The Problem: The Virtual Assistant industry is exploding right now, and is expected to reach $25B by 2028. But the market is getting more and more crowded, is unregulated, and has a huge information asymmetry problem. What’s the problem? Well it’s simple…if you’re hiring offshore talent, how do you know the person you’re hiring is qualified? Platforms like Upwork and Fiverr offer ratings, but they don’t prove actual capability or training. Which is where we think there’s a gap in the market. Here’s what we have in mind.
The Solution:
In a line: A certification and credentialing platform that verifies virtual assistants skills, creating trust and credibility for hiring businesses.
Product:
📝 VAs sign up and complete skills-based tests (email management, scheduling, CRM, research, etc.).
🏅 Successful VAs earn digital certificates and badges that can be displayed on LinkedIn, Upwork, or personal websites.
🛠️ These VAs can then sign up with platforms like Somewhere.com or Oceans to get matched with companies looking for offshore talent
📊 VAs also get access to ongoing learning modules and micro-credentials to keep them learning continuously
Business Model: Sell to offshore talent platforms looking to ensure their workers have strong credentials
End Goal: Sell to a freelance marketplace (Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal) or a professional credentialing body (like Coursera) for a 7–9x revenue multiple
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🤝 How Frame AI Got Acquired by HubSpot
Last year, HubSpot acquired Frame AI in one of their biggest acquisitions ever.
And on Aug 28, George Davis, the founder of Frame AI, is giving an exclusive fireside talk on scaling an AI startup from idea to acquisition.
Discover how to build an AI-native company buyers can’t ignore, navigate M&A with confidence, and thrive through AI hype cycles from a founder that's been there and done it.
RSVP today and you'll also unlock a free AI predictions report from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic & more, which is really great.
📖 The Silent Storytime Recession
The Trend: Back in 2012, 64% of parents said they regularly read to their kids. Today? Just 41% do, with the biggest drop-off happening with Gen Z parents. Their excuse? "It's so boring." Why am I not surprised? Now while that may sound trivial, this is a big deal. Reading aloud isn’t just about an age-old bedtime ritual, it’s one of the most proven ways to boost a child’s vocabulary. Kids who are read to daily hear a million more words by age five compared to those who aren’t. So “it’s so boring“ here doesn’t really cut it…
Opportunities:
AI-powered Storytelling App: An app that reads stories to kids in dynamic, character-driven voices and adapts based on the child’s reactions.
Gamified Bedtime Stories Platform: A platform where kids unlock new “levels” or “chapters” each night, turning storytime into a ritual kids beg for.
🤑 How to Use AI to Find a Side Hustle
The Tool: Some founders are out there trying to build billion dollar businesses. Others just want a side hustle to make a few thousand dollars per month alongside their job. And if you’re the latter, then here’s a prompt to help you generate custom side hustle ideas tailored to you.
Step-by-step:
Go to ChatGPT and insert this prompt.
Once you have enter details about your skills (both hard and soft), hours available per week, monthly income goal and personality type (introverted/extroverted).
Scroll down through your list of side hustle ideas, pick one and get to work.
🗄️ Compliance Made Simple for Startups
Achieving SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, or even ISO 42001 compliance can feel overwhelming. But Vanta makes it painless.
Trusted by 12,000+ companies, Vanta automates up to 90% of the compliance process, offers real-time monitoring, and streamlines audits so you can get certified in weeks, not months.
And we've teamed up with Vanta to offer a collection of resources for startups, including step-by-step compliance checklists and case studies from fast-growing startups. It's an incredible resource.
📧 Making £3B from Sending Emails
The Idea: Back in 2008, three Techstars founders, Isaac Saldana (middle), José López (left), and Tim Jenkins were building different startups when they all ran into the same nightmare…email. Not sending personal emails, but the transactional ones - sign-up confirmations, password resets, shipping notifications. Deliverability sucked, servers got blacklisted, and scaling email infrastructure ate up engineering time. So instead of fighting the same battle over and over, they decided to solve it once and for all, by building a dedicated cloud email delivery service. This was the idea for Sendgrid.
The Execution:
2009: The trio joined the Techstars Boulder accelerator, launched the MVP, and pitched “SendGrid: Email Delivery. Simplified.” Early adopters loved not having to run their own mail servers.
2010: They raised a $750K seed round. Early growth was fuelled by giving every Techstars company free credits, then expanding that offer to other accelerators.
2012: Raised a $21M Series B led by Bessemer. By now, SendGrid was powering email for Uber, Airbnb, and Pinterest.
2014: Surpassed 10 billion emails/month delivered. Developers adore the APIs and marketing teams start lobbying for a marketer-friendly UI too.
2017: SendGrid IPO’d on the NYSE under ticker SEND, raising $131M.
2019: Twilio acquired SendGrid for $3B, uniting two developer-first powerhouses of communications (SMS + Email).
The takeaway? The pain you feel as a founder can be your biggest opportunity. By solving the boring, messy problem of email deliverability, SendGrid became the invisible backbone behind billions of emails and billions of dollars of value creation.
🔍️ Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: Genie 3, Google’s latest interactive world simulator, is insanely cool.
📚 Must-Read: “Building AI Products In The Probabilistic Era”. It’s long, but seriously good.
📹 Must-Watch: Check out Marc Andreessen’s argument that the correct analogy for AI is the microprocessor (not cloud or the internet).
✖️ Trending Tweet: Chris Dixon’s 2009 essay "Climbing the Wrong Hill" is still super relevant today.
💬 Founder Quote: “Grow so fast people think you’re lying.” Patrick Collison (Stripe)
🔦 Reader Spotlight
🛒 Kaynix AI: Ashwin K is building the first page-aware shopping copilot
🗓️ epoch: Steven S is building a calendar app that prioritizes a unique full-year view.
🎨 BrandReady: Ivan is working on a tool that generates a complete branding toolkit in minutes.
📝 Guide to Docs: Sergey Wide is working on a Chrome extension that effortlessly captures your browsing actions to create professional how-to guides with screenshots.
🥗 Feedbun: Fred Wu is working on a browser extension that helps users decode food labels and recipes for healthier eating.
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Extra Gluten Bread
Ever thought your bread just wasn’t…gluteny enough? Wondering how much gluten your body can really handle?
Introducing Full Grain Forge’s Extra Gluten Bread™ - the only loaf forged in the fires of Mount Starchmore. Each slice is so packed with gluten you could rob a store in LA with it.
Full Grain Forge’s Extra Gluten Bread™ - it’s weapons-grade glutonium.
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👋 That’s All Folks!
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