Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as Mr. Beast starting a bank for some reason 🏦
Let’s get into it 🚀
In today’s edition:
💡 The best way to start your day
📈 What Kevin from The Office just went viral
🛠 How to drive traffic to your website using Reddit
🤑 Pivoting to an $8.6B exit
🍻 A novel idea for enjoying…novels
🎧 Personalized AI Morning Podcast
Ear-ly wakeup
The Problem: Morning routines are sacred. Doomscrolling the news, sipping overpriced coffee, staring into the void wondering what it all means…we all like to start our day off differently. But how we start our day-off really does matter, since it sets the tone for the whole day. So why can’t we all decide exactly what we want to consume every morning? Like a podcast or radio show that’s designed just for us? Here’s what we have in mind.
The Solution:
In a line: A personalized, daily, 5-10 minute AI podcast that briefs you on your day
Product:
📲 A user downloads the app, picks their show format and interests can optionally connect other sources to the app for more personalization (calendar, email, investment portfolio performance etc.).
🧠 Overnight the app turns news stories, weather, and any other relevant content you may be interested in into a personalized podcast you can listen to
🎙️ You give feedback during every podcast which is fed back so over time you develop your perfect morning show.
Business Model: Freemium (Ad-supported), premium for ad free experience and integrations with other apps e.g. calendar
End Goal: Potential acquisition by a podcast company or a news platform at a 6–9× revenue multiple.
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
🔜 Ramp’s Marketing Stunt is the Future of Marketing
The Trend: Everyone talks about "thinking outside the box" in marketing, but Ramp literally put someone inside one. Yesterday Ramp live-streamed Brian Baumgartner (who played Kevin from The Office and is their new “CFO”) spending a day inside a glass box in the middle of New York City. This high-visibility, slightly absurd event is a prime example of live, experiential marketing. The livestream brings in viewers, then people take and clip the best moments and spread them far and wide across the internet. Expect to see more of these in the future.
Opportunities:
Pop-Up Experience Design Firm: Create a firm that specializes in creating temporary, immersive brand experiences in unexpected locations.
Viral Challenge Consultancy: Launch a company that helps brands to create and manage social media challenges that have the potential to go viral.
🚦 How to Drive Traffic to Your Website Using Reddit
The Tool: ChatGPT + Reddit + Google Search. That’s all you need to drive traffic to your digital or physical product for free. Here’s how.
Step-by-step:
Use ChatGPT/Google to find high-traffic Reddit threads mentioning similar products or tools to yours (Search “best [your product] site:reddit.com.” on Google for example)
Drop a natural brand mention in the post thread in a natural way (e.g. “We tested a bunch of [your product’s niche] - [your product] was the only one that actually worked.”)
Reply to yourself in the post (from another account if possible) and upvote comments where you can to drive additional engagement
Over time, with sufficient traction on the thread, you’ll have an evergreen source of traffic from Google
🧠 Start Your Day Smarter
Be the smartest person in the room by reading 1440, where 4.5 million Americans find their daily, fact-based news fix.
They navigate through 100+ sources to deliver a comprehensive roundup from every corner of the internet: politics, global events, business, and culture, all in a quick, 5-minute newsletter.
It's completely free and devoid of bias or political influence, ensuring you get the facts straight.
🎮 Pivoting to an $8.6B Exit
The Idea: Ilkka Paananen was no stranger to startup chaos. He’d co-founded Sumea, a mobile games company in the early 2000s, but after it was acquired by Digital Chocolate, Ilkka saw firsthand how big gaming studios often killed creativity through endless meetings, layers of management, and design by committee. So when he teamed up with six of his ex-colleagues in 2010, they wanted to do the opposite - create a company built around small, independent teams or “cells”, that could build, test, and kill game ideas fast. They called it Supercell.
The Execution:
2010: Supercell was founded in Helsinki. The team’s first game was Gunshine.net, a browser MMO. It got players, but wasn’t sticky. They quickly pivoted to mobile after seeing the App Store explode.
2012: After killing several prototypes, one team built Clash of Clans. They launched it quietly on iPad first - no huge marketing budget, just word-of-mouth and app store optimization. Within weeks, it topped the charts globally.
2013: Supercell became the highest-grossing iOS developer in the world with just 2 live games. They raised $130m from Index Ventures and Atomico, valuing the company at over $700m.
2016: Tencent acquired a majority stake for a jaw-dropping $8.6 billion, making it one of the largest gaming acquisitions ever. Supercell continued to operate independently in Helsinki, still with under 300 employees.
2020–2024: Continued to launch hits like Clash Royale and Brawl Stars, maintaining a lean culture which drove their early success.
The lesson? Supercell proves that innovation isn’t just about new products, it’s about new ways of working. Because when you give smart people freedom, billion-dollar worlds get built.
🔍 Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: Google just rolled out Veo 3.1, their latest video generation model.
🚨 Raise Alert: Deel just raised $300M at a $17.3B valuation. Crazy growth.
📚 Must-Read: This report from Google on the future of AI and what it means for startups needs to be read (or skimmed at least)
💲 Deal Drop: Hiring an Executive Assistant? Get 2 weeks free (up to $1,500 off) on a 3-month contract with Oceans.
💬 Founder Quote: “Bet on yourself - believe that whatever you do, you can do it well.” Aravind Srinivas
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Dark Mode Books
Love reading books at night? Is the blinding white of those beautiful pages affecting your sleep?
Introducing Dark Mode Books™, books for people who can’t handle how stimulating regular books are on their eyes. Each page is a sleek, matte black with elegant white text. Your phone has dark mode, why not your books too?
Dark Mode Books™ - turning a new page on eye strain.
Vote
🔦 Reader Spotlight: Meet Cameron
What are you building? faith.tools is the best place to discover and distribute apps for Christians
How did you come up with the idea? I love all things faith and tech, but it was hard to know who's working on what and how we could collaborate and unite. Thus, faith.tools was born to showcase what exists in the space and to showcase the wonderful people behind the apps.
Biggest challenge right now? Funding. But for now, I do this on the side as a gift to the world, and it's a blast.
How can Half Baked readers help? faith.tools exists to empower and connect Christian creatives in tech to do what they're called to do. If that sounds compelling to you, let's chat.
Connect with Cameron: Cameron on LinkedIn
P.S: If you want your startup or project featured, click here!
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