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- Startup Ideas #437: Lovable for X, AI Interviews...
Startup Ideas #437: Lovable for X, AI Interviews...
Plus From the White House to a $610M Exit
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as often as AI labs are raising billions of dollars (that’s right, another one) 💵
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:
💡 Taking Lovable’s UI to a new vertical
📈 The surprising efficacy of AI interviewers
🛠️ How to add payments to your Lovable app
🤑 From the White House to a $610M exit
🍻 Making motorcycles 10x safer
❣️ Lovable for Chrome Extensions
Chrome sweet Chrome
Available domain: Pluginprompt.com
The Problem: Chrome extensions are everywhere. The average user has 8 installed, and there are over 200,000 in the Chrome Web Store. But here's the thing: most people have ideas for simple extensions they wish existed, but building one requires JavaScript knowledge, understanding Chrome APIs, and navigating Google's submission process. Meanwhile, 67% of developers say they've avoided building Chrome extensions because the setup is "too much hassle for a simple idea." It's the classic problem: high barrier to entry for what should be simple solutions. So why not lower the barrier to entry? Here’s how.
The Solution:
In a line: An AI platform that builds Chrome extensions from natural language descriptions, just like Lovable does for web apps.
Product:
💬 Users describe their extension idea in plain English: "I want an extension that automatically mutes tabs playing audio" or "Build me something that highlights all email addresses on a page."
🤖 The platform generates the complete extension code, including manifest files, popup interfaces, and all necessary Chrome API integrations.
🚀 The platform handles the entire Chrome Web Store submission process, including screenshots, descriptions, and compliance checks.
Business Model: $19/month subscription
End Goal: Potential acquisition by an AI builder like Lovable, Bolt.new or Replit looking to expand into browser extensions.
Rate this idea: |
📹️ We’re interviewing a 9 Figure Founder…
At Half Baked, our mission is to inspire and educate the next generation of founders. And what better way to do that than to learn from one of the best founders in the e-commerce space?
That’s why next Monday, September 8th, we’re teaming up with Shopify to do an exclusive fireside chat with Ryan Bartlett, the founder of True Classics.
Ryan scaled a simple idea (better-fitting, affordable t-shirts) into a powerhouse brand doing 9 figures in revenue and valued at over $850M. Ryan will share hard-won lessons on scaling DTC, building a loyal community, and teach you exactly how he would start an e-commerce business in 2025.
This one is not to be missed.
👔 AI Interviewers Could Be Better Than Humans…
The Trend: Everyone assumes job interviews need that "human touch." But a new study just proved them wrong. When 70,000 people applied for customer service roles in the Philippines, half got human interviewers, half got AI. Human recruiters predicted the AI would bomb. Instead, AI candidates got more offers, better retention, and 8 out of 10 applicants preferred the robot. Turns out AI interviewers could be the future.
Opportunities:
AI Interview-as-a-Service: Standardized AI interviewers that reduce hiring bias and improve candidate experience.
Robot Interview Prep: Training that teaches job seekers how to excel with AI interviewers instead of trying to build rapport.
💳 How to Add Payments to your Lovable App
The Tool: Adding payments to your Lovable app doesn't have to be complicated. With the right AI prompt, you can generate production-ready Stripe integration code that handles checkout, subscriptions, and webhooks. Here's how you can monetize your app in minutes.
Step-by-step:
Open up your Lovable app
Paste in the prompt you require to get payments set up (we have different prompts depending on your need)
Lovable will generate the required payments solution for you
🏃 How Running Saved My Sanity…
Last year was chaos. I was leading new products at a tech company and building Half Baked. Then a friend signed me up for a marathon… and my ego meant I had to do it.
My boss (a 2:30 marathoner, insane) told me about this app called Kaizen. No spreadsheets, no rigid plans. Just one number; how far to run this week. Push harder and the target drops. Take it easy and it climbs. Every run updated my fitness across 5k, 10k, half, and marathon. By race day, I was ready.
Running kept me sane. Fast forward to today. I’m all in on Half Baked, still running. He’s all in on Kaizen. Turns out it was his app the whole time.
Try it out here.
The first 50 people who use HALFBAKED get a 14-day free trial.
🌐 From the White House to a $610M Exit
The Idea: After the 2016 election, Josh Miller was devastated. The former Obama White House appointee felt technology had contributed to their election loss, and he wanted to fight back. But instead of starting another app, Josh realized something crucial: "If you’re not an operating system, you don't really have leverage to change society's relationship with technology." So while everyone accepted that browsers were for "browsing," Josh saw them as the foundation for how knowledge workers actually live. This was the beginning of The Browser Company.
The Execution:
2019: Josh left politics to co-found The Browser Company with Hursh Agrawal, initially incubated at Thrive Capital as an EIR project.
2020: Started building the Arc browser, a "ground-up rethinking" of browsers designed for productivity rather than content consumption.
2021: Launched their Arc browser focused on "laptop people" - knowledge workers whose livelihood depends on web-based tools.
2022: Raised early funding rounds, attracting investors like LinkedIn's Jeff Weiner, Figma's Dylan Field, and Notion's Akshay Kothari.
2024: Closed a $50M Series B at $550M valuation, total funding reached $128M across multiple rounds.
2025: Pivoted from Arc to developing Dia browser, “a chatbot-browser hybrid” that integrated AI-powered features for web productivity.
September 2025: Atlassian acquired The Browser Company for $610M, recognizing browsers as critical productivity infrastructure.
The $610M exit here proves that when you reimagine fundamental tools that billions use daily, even incremental improvements can create massive value.
🔍️ Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: This guy analyzed 25,000 comments to find out which AI tools are actually making people money or saving them time
🚨 Raise Alert: Exa just raised $85M in Series B funding at a $700M valuation, led by Benchmark.
📚 Must-Read: This guy quit his venture-backed startup to make $300k/yr from small bets
💰 Exit Alert: CoreWeave just acquired agent-training startup OpenPipe
💬 Founder Quote: “Big visions are worthless without execution.” Jason Fried (Basecamp)
🔦 Reader Spotlight: Meet Joshua & Lola
What are you building? Living Well Daily, a bite-sized daily newsletter with science-backed mental well-being and longevity tips you can apply right away.
How did you come up with the idea? We’ve worked in wellness for years and saw people still struggling after the pandemic, so we made a simple way to share helpful tools every day.
Biggest challenge right now? Growing our subscriber base through ads and optimizing our sign-up page for conversions.
How can Half Baked readers help? Subscribe, share with friends, and help spread the word so more people can benefit.
Connect with Joshua & Lola: Joshua’s LinkedIn | Lola’s LinkedIn
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Motorbike Training Wheels
Does your motorcycle scare you a little? Tired of choosing between street cred and staying upright?
Introducing Easy Riders™, retractable training wheels for motorcycles that make the experience 10x safer. No more panic when the road gets slick, these extra wheels are here to help.
Easy Riders™ - be wheelie safe.
Vote
👋 That’s All Folks!
Before you go just a few public service announcements:
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