Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as valuable as Apple’s new $2M bug bounty reward 🪲
Let’s get into it 🚀
In today’s edition:
💡 Stepping outside the AI bubble…kinda
📈 Why “cameo” has taken on a whole new meaning
🛠 Using AI to build a trend radar
🤑 From $0 to $5M ARR in 2 years
🍻 Bringing the cinema experience to wherever you want
🎓 IRL AI Academy
Think outside the bot
Available Domain: Aissembly.co
The Problem: The AI hype train is full steam ahead right now. Adoption though, is not as ubiquitous as you might think. Believe it or not only 34% of U.S. adults have ever used ChatGPT, meaning most people still lack hands-on skills to apply AI at work or in their lives. There are huge numbers of people out there who want access to guided, practical, in person training to understand how to get the most out of AI. Someone needs to own this space. Here’s what we’re thinking.
The Solution:
In a line: An education business that provides local, in-person, AI workshops for professionals and small business owners to learn AI
Product:
🗓️ Customers sign up for a 3-hour workshop at a nearby school/library and pick a track (General, Marketing, Ops, etc.).
🤖 Attendees learn ChatGPT/Claude prompts, image/video tools, and workflow automation, getting to practice with real use cases.
🧰 Participants also receive template packs, prompt libraries, and local WhatsApp/Slack group support to continue on their learning journey.
The goal is to build a huge education brand and eventually sell to an education platform (Udemy/Coursera) at 4–6× revenue multiple.
Rate this idea:
📦 The Easiest Way to Start your E-commerce Business in 2025
In our recent webinar with Ryan Bartlett, founder & CEO of True Classic (+$850M brand), we asked what he’d do if he were starting an e-commerce business today.
His answer? Dropshipping.
It’s the fastest way to test products, gain traction, and scale without big upfront costs. And the easiest way to start is with AutoDS. One-click imports, automated fulfillment, and trend-spotting tools are just some of the reasons why it's trusted by 8,000+ founders.
🎭 Lights, Camera, AI-ction!
The Trend: Once upon a time, cameos were something you spotted in movies or sitcoms. But in 2025, the word got a full reboot. OpenAI’s Sora 2 just dropped “Cameos”, a feature that lets users generate deepfake videos of themselves and any public figure who’s opted in. And influencers like Jake Paul and Mark Cuban leaned into the madness when Sora launched, challenging fans to remix their digital doubles. The results? Jake Paul racked up 1 billion views in just six days, without lifting a finger. Maybe AI content is the future?
Opportunities:
AI-Generated Video Shout-Out Service: An evolution of the original Cameo app, where users can pay to have a celebrity's AI likeness deliver a personalized message.
AI-Powered Model Agency: A service that provides brands with a diverse range of AI-generated models for e-commerce and marketing, reducing the need for traditional photoshoots.
🤖 Using AI to Build a Trend Radar
The Tool: Great business ideas can come from spotting trends early. And it turns out AI can be pretty good at spotting and monitoring trends, if you prompt it right. Here’s how you can do it.
Step-by-step:
Go to your LLM of choice (we used Claude for this)
Enter this mega prompt into the LLM and populate the <information_about_me> fields
Analyze the trends the report produces (the output is pretty sick)
🚀 Expect more from your CRM with monday.com
Your CRM should do more than just hold contacts. It should help you move faster and close more and more deals.
Monday Sales CRM gives founders the power and flexibility they need to win deals. You can easily create real-time dashboards, send mass emails, generate quotes and invoices, and build custom pipelines, speeding up your sales process.
This isn’t just another CRM. It’s the one designed to fuel growth.
📹 From YC Rejects to $5M ARR
The Idea: Sabba Keynejad and Timur Mamedov were two friends who met at an online hackathon in 2017. Sabba, a designer with a background in video, was frustrated with the clunky and complex video editing software available. He felt the tools hadn't kept up with the explosion of online video content. While Tim was still at university, he even wrote his final dissertation on their budding business idea. They initially envisioned an app that would convert articles into short, bite-sized videos. However, they soon pivoted to what they knew best: building a simple, accessible, and entirely browser-based video editing platform for everyone. This was the idea for VEED.io.
The Execution:
2018: Sabba and Tim officially founded VEED.io in London, bootstrapping the company from the beginning. They launched their MVP, a basic online video editor, and started their journey of relentless growth hacking.
2019: After being rejected by Y Combinator for not having any paying customers, they hustled to build a payment system in a single weekend, acquiring their first 20 paying users. This resilience defined their early journey as they grew to 50,000 monthly active users with no marketing budget, relying on SEO, content marketing, and community engagement.
2020-2021: The hustle paid off. VEED.io hit $1M ARR in 2020 and grew to an impressive $7M ARR by the end of 2021, all while being completely bootstrapped and profitable.
February 2022: After years of turning down investors, they raised a $35M Series A round from Sequoia Capital to accelerate their mission of democratizing video creation. At this point, they had already reached 1 million users.
2023-2025: VEED.io continued its rapid growth, reaching $40M in ARR and 10 million monthly active users by 2024. They expanded their team to over 200 people and launched a suite of AI-powered features.
All of which goes to prove that there’s no set path to success. You don’t have to raise money and get into YC to become successful. You can carve out your own path. There’s more than one way to win.
🔍 Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: You can use this tool to optimize brand visibility in AI search answers.
🚨 Raise Alert: Kalshi just raised $300M+ at $5B from Sequoia, a16z, Paradigm and others. Prediction markets to the moon
📚 Must-Read: Time’s “Best Inventions of 2025” is well worth a look. So much cool tech in there.
📹 Must-Watch: These YouTubers are trying to build a 9 figure tech startup, and make great content on it.
💬 Founder Quote: “There’s a fine line between vision and delusion. And you only know which side you’re on after it’s over.” Alex MacCaw (Clearbit)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Portable Cinema
Are you a massive cinephile? Wish you could bring the cinema experience anywhere with you?
Meet Pop Theatr™, your very own private, portable cinema that turns any couch, bed, or airplane seat into an IMAX (minus the $20 popcorn). Just pop it open, slide your phone or tablet in the top, and prepare for the best solo movie experience of your life.
Pop Theatr™ - pop off King (or Queen).
Vote
🔦 Reader Spotlight: Meet Chris
What are you building? I’m building a security-first AI consultant that helps start-ups and small businesses build or analyze compliance programs—future versions will even guide AI security from the ground up.
How did you come up with the idea? After 20 years in cybersecurity, I kept seeing brilliant small teams lose momentum because they lacked a security framework, making it harder for big companies to trust or adopt their solutions.
How can Half Baked readers help? If you know a start-up nearing launch, connect to me. I want to help them build security and compliance in from day one, not bolt it on later.
Connect with Chris: Chris on Linkedin
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
👋 That’s All Folks!
Before you go:
Looking to sponsor Half Baked? Just fill out this form and we’ll get back to you asap.
What did you think of today's edition?
See you soon,