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- Startup Ideas #432: Startup Graveyard, Vending Machines...
Startup Ideas #432: Startup Graveyard, Vending Machines...
Plus Pivoting a $50M Startup to Build AI Agents
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as often as Lovable is raising money 😱
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:
💡 Creating assets from ashes
📈 The Thai trend that’s coming West
🛠️ Using AI to create your elevator pitch
🤑 Pivoting a $50M startup to build AI agents
🍻 The health tech you need in your life
🪦 Failed AI Startup Data Marketplace
Putting the AI in fail
Available domain: Graiveyard.co
The Problem: The AI industry is in an interesting spot right now. Some are saying that we’re in a bubble that’s starting to pop (mainly driven by Sam Altman’s comments). But on the other side, Nvidia earnings are ripping. But one thing’s for sure, bubble or no bubble, a lot of AI startups are going to go to zero. That’s just the game. In 2023 alone, over 1,000+ AI startups shut down or went dormant after failing to compete against incumbents. And when an AI startup goes under they leave behind valuable proprietary datasets, models, and training assets. It’s time to help find these assets a new home. Here’s what we’re thinking.
The Solution:
In a line: A marketplace where shuttered AI startups can sell their abandoned datasets and models to researchers, corporates, and new builders.
Product:
📝 Startups sign up, verify ownership, and upload their dormant datasets/models securely
🔍 Buyers can search, preview, and purchase datasets/models (tagged by domain: healthcare, NLP, robotics, etc.)
🔐 Smart contracts + licensing agreements handle compliance, ownership, and usage rights
Business Model: 20% marketplace commission on dataset/model sales
End Goal: Sell to a large AI infra player (Hugging Face, Databricks, Snowflake) or a marketplace aggregator for a 7–12x revenue multiple.
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🩺 Your Health is Your Wealth
As a founder, you obsess over company's metrics. Revenue, run rate, churn. But what about your most valuable asset? Your health.
That's where Function Health comes in.
Function Health is a tech unicorn that offers a groundbreaking health membership that gives you access to 160+ lab tests and advanced, FDA-cleared MRI scans, all designed to detect diseases before symptoms appear for a few hundred dollars per year. Oh and scans take just 22 minutes.
Because no amount of wealth matters without your health.
☕ Smart Vending Machines
The Trend: Vending machines aren’t just about Coke and chips anymore - they’ve gone premium, smart, and hyper-convenient. Companies like Tao Bin in Thailand now operate 7,500+ smart machines cranking out delicious powdered-drink concoctions. Each Tao Bin machine can sling 100+ drinks a day at $1.30 a pop, putting them on track for $80M+ in revenue this year. It won’t be long before we see more of these in the USA.
Opportunities:
Wellness Vending: Smart machines that sell protein shakes, adaptogen lattes, or functional snacks, with personalization via an app
Event Vending Business: Pop-up machines at concerts/sports games selling merch, snacks, or collectibles.
🗣️ Using AI to Create Your Elevator Pitch
The Tool: Every startup needs the perfect elevator pitch. It needs to be short, snappy and engaging all at the same time, which is why they’re so hard to write. Here’s how you can use AI to make yours.
Step-by-step:
Go to ChatGPT or any LLM you choose
Enter this prompt and fill in the blanks where required
Refine your elevator pitch and then use voice mode to practice giving your pitch
💰️ Pipeline to Payday: Fundraising Secrets for Startups
Tired of vague advice and recycled startup clichés? So are we.
This 3-hour virtual event is where founders get real answers from top investors, operators, and those who’ve actually built, raised, and scaled.
In just 3 hours, you’ll:
See what today’s investors actually want (and what gets ignored)
Watch founders pitch live and get expert feedback in real time
Build your investor pipeline using AI, automation, and scalable tools
💰 And enter to win $75,000+ in cash prizes and startup resources.
Secure your spot now and learn what the top 1% of founders are doing in 2025 to raise capital, build investor momentum, and close your next funding round in the next 90 days.
🤖 Pivoting a $50M Startup to Build AI Agents
The Idea: Back in 2020, Flo Crivello was running Teamflow, a virtual office startup that raised over $50M and scaled to 50+ employees during the pandemic. But when the world reopened, usage flatlined. Flo had to make the brutal call to lay off two-thirds of his team. But during this tumultuous time, a simple but painful problem hit Flo’s desk. His sales reps hated updating Salesforce and asked, “Can’t AI just do this for us?” So Flo started building a tool that could. First it updated Salesforce fields, then any CRM, then any tool. He realized he wasn’t just solving a sales ops problem, he was building an AI agent platform. This was the beginning of Lindy.
The Execution:
2023 (Early): Flo hacked together a demo video and launched Lindy’s waitlist. The product was rough. But people didn’t care. They bought into the vision.
2023 (Mid): Lindy grew to $100K+ MRR, but Flo knew it wasn’t good enough. He scrapped it and spent half a year rebuilding from scratch.
2023 (Late): The breakthrough came with a new positioning: “Zapier for AI.” Suddenly, everyone got it. Flo raised a $15M seed round led by Sequoia Capital around this time.
2024–2025: Lindy scaled to high seven figures in revenue with just 25 employees, is lean, profitable, and one of the fastest-growing players in the AI agent race.
Flo’s story is a masterclass in founder persistence. He pivoted after a $50M failure, rebuilt from scratch when early traction wasn’t enough, and turned a scrappy demo into a category-defining company.
🔍️ Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: Lindy just launched their AI app builder. This space is heating up.
🚨 Raise Alert: Framer (friends of Half Baked) just raised $100M at a 2B valuation. Legends!
📚 Must-Read: Want to know exactly how much Alex Hormozi is worth? He just shared it.
✖️ Trending Tweet: “One of the truest paragraphs ever written”
💬 Founder Quote: “If you wait until you’re ready, you’ll be too late.” Kevin Systrom (Instagram)
🔦 Reader Spotlight
🤖 Persona: Krish is building a platform for creating custom AI models using a no-code flow editor
🪙 Swappiq: Joseph is building a sophisticated cross-chain trading platform that enables users to seamlessly swap cryptocurrencies across multiple blockchain networks
📱 Siteti: Christian is working on a platform that provides businesses with remote teams an alternative solution for customer support via WhatsApp.
💸 AirCash: Victor is working on a decentralized cryptocurrency enabling anonymous, off-ledger Bitcoin transfers with a focus on privacy and simplicity.
💻 iShowAds: Eren is working on this startup provides an innovative ad network tailored for websites and blogs frequently rejected by major platforms
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Whoop for Stool
Ever wonder what health insights lie inside your stool? Wish someone would invent WHOOP for your #2’s?
Introducing Throne™, the smart device that gives you dozens of biomarkers every single day by analyzing your excrement. From gut health to hydration to early warnings on chronic disease, it turns your bathroom break into a daily health check-up.
Throne™ - because the future of health tracking isn’t on your wrist, it’s in your bowl.
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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