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- Startup Ideas #433: Birchbox for X, Trade Jobs...
Startup Ideas #433: Birchbox for X, Trade Jobs...
Plus How a Flyer Inspired a $10B Business
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as hot as Build-A-Bear’s incredible stock performance 🐻
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 Birchbox’s model to a new vertical
📈 The great shortage threatening the AI revolution
🛠️ Using AI to create video stock footage
🤑 How a flyer inspired a $10B business
🍻 A product for all the Dads out there
📦 Birchbox for Health Foods
Chews wisely
Available domain: Boostcrate.co
The Problem: The health food market has to be one of the most competitive out there. Every week it feels like a new adaptogen drink, gut-health snack, or “better-for-you” bar hits the market. For consumers it’s overwhelming, and pretty expensive to try all of these different products. On the flip side, emerging brands burn cash on Meta/Google ads just to get noticed, while landing in Whole Foods or Erewhon takes months (if not years). Birchbox solved this problem in the beauty space, so why not do something similar for healthy foods? Here’s what we’re thinking.
The Solution:
In a line: A monthly subscription box which contains new functional food & beverage brands, helping consumers explore new healthy products
Product:
📦 Users subscribe and get a monthly box with new functional snacks, drinks, and supplements to try.
🔎 Each box highlights new and upcoming brands, with info cards, discount codes, and QR links to buy full-size.
⭐ Members rate products in-app/online, creating community reviews + data on what’s hot.
🛒 Best-performing products are sold via an integrated e-commerce shop (full-size upsells).
Business Model: Subscription revenue from customers + brands pay a fee to get their products included in the box
End Goal: Sell to a major CPG conglomerate (Nestlé, Unilever) looking for consumer insights at a 5–8x revenue multiple.
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💰️ Keep Your Deal Alive
Big deals die slow, painful deaths. First, it’s the “quick security questionnaire.” Then, “We’ll need to see your SOC 2 report.” Suddenly, weeks turn into quarters, momentum fades, and your champion stops replying.
Delve flips the script. Our AI-powered platform gets you audit-ready in just 15 hours. No late nights, no armies of consultants, no derailed roadmaps.
It’s working for founders like:
Lovable — zero to SOC 2 in days.
Bland — $500K ARR unlocked in 7 days.
11x — $1.2M ARR closed faster, 143 hours saved.
Don’t let compliance be the deal-breaker. With Delve, it’s done before your deal starts to flatline. Save Your Deal.
Book your demo now and get 1k off with code HALFBAKED1KOFF.
👷 The Great Tradespeople Shortage
The Trend: Everyone’s talking about AI taking our jobs, but there are some industries where we can’t hire people fast enough. BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink says that the U.S. will need 500,000 electricians to power AI and data centers. That’s on top of a nationwide shortage of 400,000 plumbers, 330,000 welders, and tens of thousands of HVAC techs. We need people with hands-on skills to build the future.
Opportunities:
AI Trade School: A hybrid bootcamp that fast-tracks electricians, welders, and HVAC techs with VR/AR simulations and guaranteed placement.
Fintech for Tradespeople: A platform offering income-smoothing, benefits, and equipment financing for gig-economy trades workers, making trades more financially attractive.
📹 Using AI to Create Video Stock Footage
The Tool: If you’re producing video content for your business, you’ll inevitably need some stock footage to pad out your video. Here’s how you can use AI to generate it in seconds.
Step-by-step:
Go to ChatGPT or your LLM of choice.
Copy and paste this prompt into the LLM and fill out what kind of content you want to be made.
Fire up Sora, VEO 3 and/or Runway ML, and paste in the relevant prompt you’ve generated.
Download the videos and add them to your edit
😵 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.
🥄 How a Flyer Inspired a $10B Business
The Idea: Back in 2005, a Turkish immigrant named Hamdi Ulukaya was living in upstate New York. He had come to the U.S. in the 1990s, studied English and business, and started a small feta cheese company. Then one day, Hamdi saw a flyer that a large Kraft Foods yogurt plant in South Edmeston, New York, was up for sale. Growing up in Turkey Hamdi loved eating Greek-style yogurt, a product that hadn’t reached the States yet. This was a sign. So he bet on himself and decided to start his yogurt business. This was the beginning of Chobani.
The Execution:
2005: Hamdi buys the shuttered Kraft yogurt plant for $1m (via an SBA loan) and hired four of the laid-off Kraft workers from the plant to join him. For two years, they quietly experimented on different recipes.
2007: Hamdi launched Chobani in a Long Island grocery store. Its higher protein, lower sugar, and thicker texture stood out immediately compared to the incumbents.
2010: Sales exploded. Chobani opens its own distribution center to keep pace. Word-of-mouth and free samples primarily fuel growth.
2012: Chobani becomes the #1 yogurt brand in America, hitting $1B+ in annual sales, all without a cent of VC funding.
2014: Chobani raises a $750m loan from TPG Capital to scale even further.
2016: Hamdi shocks the industry by giving 10% ownership of Chobani to his employees as a thank you for their dedication. Great move.
2021: A confidential IPO filing values Chobani near $10B, though it later withdraws due to market conditions.
Today: Chobani is still private, still founder-led, and has now expanded into oat milk, creamers, and more.
In the end the story of Chobani proves you don’t need Silicon Valley money to disrupt an industry. You need a differentiated product, a crazy work ethic and the ability to back yourself.
🔍️ Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: Google is testing “AI Mode”, an advanced, experimental search feature right now
📰 Headline: Time released their list of the 100 most influential people in AI.
📚 Must-Read: This guide from a16z on hiring a strong founding team is great
✖️ Trending Tweet: Startups are staying leaner for longer per Carta data
💬 Founder Quote: “The dirty little secret of every successful startup is that it was partly luck.” Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot)
🔦 Reader Spotlight
🍽️ Easy Meals: Ben is building an android app designed to simplify the process of making meals.
🖥️ Keyn: Daniel is building an AI desktop assistant that invisibly monitors your screen and audio to provide real-time prompts.
🗣️ Hedy: Julian is building an AI-powered meeting coach that revolutionizes how professionals and students engage in conversations online
💲WalletFinder.ai: Juan is building a DeFi analytics platform designed for traders to track and analyze wallets and trades
🗺️ Country Profile: Marco is building a Next.js web application for side by side country comparisons
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: DadPad
Ever been blindsided by your toddler’s accidental roundhouse kick? Looking to protect the family jewels from your…well…family?
Introducing the DadPad™, the world’s first wearable cup designed exclusively for dads under siege. Built with state-of-the-art” impact absorption, it’s the only cup that’s guaranteed to protect the most important part of you.
DadPad™ - turning nut shots into “not shots.”
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👋 That’s All Folks!
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