Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as often as ChatGPT is announcing strategic partnerships right now (anotha one) 🤝
Let’s get into it 🚀
In today’s edition:
💡 Fixing the biggest problem in social networks
📈 Could crypto have a new, compelling use case?
🛠 Using AI to cold dm investors
🤑 From music festival to a £500M exit
🍻 A genius idea for drinking in public
🙋 Humans Only Social Network
Botnot
Available Domain: Trufeed.com
The Problem: Bots are ruining social media platforms. Plain and simple. They inflate engagement, cause widespread misinformation and spam our DMs so badly that I barely even check my DMs on social anymore (sorry if I haven’t responded…that’s why). To give them some credit social media platforms are doing everything they can to take down bots (mainly to keep advertisers happy, less so for the good of humanity). Take Facebook who delete over 2B fake accounts every year. But no matter how hard they try, the bots always find a way to win. Which is why it’s time to start over with a new platform…no bots allowed. Here’s what we have in mind.
The Solution:
In a line: A human-verified, invite-only social network where every post and profile is guaranteed real.
Product:
📲 A user downloads the app, completes KYC-style checks plus uploads their ID. Device biometrics then bind one human to one account.
🪪 Profiles show a cryptographic “Human” check with periodic re-verification (“proof of life”) kills farmed accounts.
🧵 A chronological, low-algorithm feed contains posts which are watermarked as “human-authored,” AI captions clearly labeled/blocked.
Business Model: Subscription model (further enhances human verification)
End Goal: Sell to another social platform for 8–12× revenue
Rate this idea:
🧠 Why Everyone Needs a Side Hustle in 2026
Here at Half Baked we believe that everyone needs a side hustle. And lucky for us North, a payment technology powerhouse, agrees with us. Which is why we came together to write a short, free guide on why we think everyone needs to spin up a side hustle.
In the guide you’ll learn about:
The state of the job market in 2025
The different side hustle paths you can take
How to get started with your side hustle
Get your free guide today
🏦 Could IPOs of the Future be Tokenized?
The Trend: With IPO markets slowly creaking back open (Half Baked’s own ticker symbol coming soon), the conversation is shifting toward how the next generation of IPOs will actually happen. One hot contender: security tokenization - the idea of issuing and trading company shares as blockchain-based tokens. Former NYSE president Thomas Farley predicts that future IPOs will take place on Solana and Ethereum, not Wall Street. Could this be a compelling crypto use case? Only time will tell…
Opportunities:
Tokenized IPO Platforms: Build a compliant platform for companies to issue tokenized shares directly to investors. Think “Coinbase for IPOs.”
Secondary Markets for Tokenized Securities: Create liquid trading venues for security tokens, bridging traditional and crypto-native investors.
🗨️ Using AI to Cold DM Investors
The Tool: Investor Jeson Lee responds to less than 5% of cold DMs he receives, mainly because most are "so bad, it hurts to read them." But he also cold DM'd his way to where he is today, which is why he shared his top tips for reaching out to investors. Here’s how you can use AI to follow his process.
Step-by-step:
Research your potential investors thoroughly. You can use this prompt to:
“Research investor [Name]. Summarize their investment thesis, recent deals, and any interests or patterns in founders they back. Then write a 5-sentence cold DM that connects my startup [describe briefly] to their background and portfolio.”
Follow these golden rules with your DMs:
Keep it short and crisp - 5 sentences max
Don't ask for permission to pitch - skip "can I get your opinion?"
Start with your team, not your idea
We’ve created a prompt here which you can steal.
DM as many relevant investors as you can until you secure the bag.
📘 Founders: This LinkedIn Growth Guide is Your Shortcut
Every founder should be building a following on LinkedIn, but most of them don't know where to start.
That’s why we’ve teamed up with Samantha McKenna, founder of #samsales, and a top 1% LinkedIn contributor, with 125,000+ followers.
Samantha builds LinkedIn strategies for C-suite execs and celebrities alike, and she’s sharing her LinkedIn Growth Cheat Sheet exclusively with our readers.
Inside, you’ll learn:
The anatomy of a viral LinkedIn post
The algorithm hacks that get your content seen
The 5 proven steps to grow your audience (without spending a dollar on ads)
Get your free copy of the LinkedIn Growth Cheat Sheet today
🧃 From Music Festival to a £500M Exit
The Idea: Back in 1998, three friends and Cambridge University graduates, Richard Reed, Adam Balon, and Jon Wright were on a snowboarding holiday. And like all friend groups do at some stage, the trio started discussing the idea of starting a business together. The idea? They wanted to make healthy, natural smoothies that anyone could buy and enjoy. This was the beginning of Innocent smoothies.
The Execution:
1998: The founders spent 6 months developing their recipes part-time. They then tested their idea at a London music festival, setting up a stall with a large sign asking, "Should we give up our jobs to make these smoothies?" and placed two bins labeled "Yes" and "No". The "Yes" bin was overflowing by the end of the weekend, validating their business concept.
1999: After quitting their jobs, the founders officially launched the business. They struggled to secure funding, being rejected by numerous banks and venture capitalists, before a wealthy American businessman, Maurice Pinto, invested £250,000.
2000: Innocent began to gain traction, winning a regional entrepreneur's award and securing a trial with Waitrose, a chain of UK supermarkets.
2003: The company launched larger 750ml smoothie bottles and by this time, turnover had reached £7.2 million, and they were supplying over 2,600 outlets.
2009: To fund European expansion, Innocent sold a minority stake (10-20%) to The Coca-Cola Company for £30 million. A year later Coca-Cola increased its stake to 58% for approximately £65 million.
2013: Coca-Cola acquired over 90% of the company, taking full ownership and valuing the business at over $500 million. The founders remained involved in an advisory capacity and went on to start JamJar Investments to fund other consumer brands.
Today: The trio are still working together today at JamJar Investments over a decade later.
The key takeaway? The best validation doesn’t come from investors, it comes from customers. Before a single investor said yes, Innocent had already earned its first “yes” - an overflowing bin at a music festival. Turns out the customer is always right.
🔍 Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: Manus, the general AI agent, is like ChatGPT on steroids. Really cool to use.
📚 Must-Read: This is the category-defining profile of one of the most important figures in tech investing
💻 Cool Tech: This guy built a pen that tracks everything you write down. Very cool tech.
✖️ Trending Tweet: How to force your brain to do hard things
💬 Founder Quote: “Most overnight successes take about 10 years.” Biz Stone, Twitter
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Cool Baby
Looking for a hands-free way to enjoy your beverages? Wish you could enjoy a drink in public without any of the judgement?
Introducing The Cool Baby™, the hands-free beverage insulator that looks just like a real baby. Just fill this not-at-all creepy looking doll with your drink of choice, strap it to your chest, and drink in peace.
The Cool Baby™ - born to chill.
Vote
🔦 Reader Spotlight: Meet Lucy
What are you building? I’m building Magic Marketer, an AI-powered platform helping marketers streamline campaigns, boost performance, and finally bring order to the chaos.
How did you come up with the idea? Out of pure necessity. My marketing service couldn’t scale without machinery, so I built the machine.
Biggest challenge right now & how readers can help? We’re climbing from scrappy MVP to a truly scalable product, and what we need most is volume: real customers, feedback, and use cases to shape the next evolution of Magic Marketer.
Connect with Lucy: Lucy on LinkedIn
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
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