Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as YC’s Brainrot code editor they invested in 🙃
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In today’s edition:
💡 Taking the opposite approach to dating apps
📈 The “competence crisis“ that we all need to worry about
🛠 How to clone any website component in seconds
🤑 Turning an injury into a $300M business
🍻 The perfect product for the germaphobes out there
👫 Date-first Dating App
Save the date
Available Domain: Tryplusone.com
The Problem: Dating app fatigue has peaked in 2025. How do we know? Well Bumble’s stock price certainly tells this story. Yikes. That’s because these apps have become a battlefield of endless swiping and superficial connections, leading to widespread user burnout. Men struggle to get matches, while women are often overwhelmed by a deluge of, let’s just call them, “low-quality” messages. This means that actual dates…like in the real world..don’t happen all that often from dating apps. So what if you flip the script and plan the date first, then find someone to go on it? Here’s what we’re thinking.
The Solution:
In a line: A dating app where users post date ideas and others apply to join them on the date, shifting the focus from profiles to shared experiences.
Product:
📅 A user downloads the app, creates a profile, and posts details of the date they want to go on. This could be anything from a picnic in the park to a hiking trip, complete with details on time, place, and who pays.
💌 Other users browse these date ideas instead of profiles. When they find a date that interests them, they “like” the date idea and apply to go on the date with the person.
✅ The poster reviews everyone who wants to go on the date and selects the person they want to go with (they can only view basic profile details, but with a premium membership they can view more details on who applied for the date).
💬 Once a choice is made, a private chat opens, allowing the two to finalize the details and get to know each other before the date.
Prototyping:
Here’s the prompt we used to build it
Fork your own version of this app
Business Model: A freemium model where posting and applying for dates is free, but users can pay for premium to learn more about the people applying for the dates.
End Goal: Strategic sale to Match Group or another dating site at a 5–8× revenue multiple.
Rate this idea:
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🎓 The Competence Crisis That’s Sweeping the Nation
The Trend: While funds are pouring into startups and AI tools, human capital isn’t exactly flourishing these days, particularly for college kids. At UC San Diego, for example, the share of freshmen who fail to meet middle school math standards has exploded, up thirty-fold since 2020. Even Harvard recently launched a remedial math course. It appears that after years of remote learning, grade inflation, and AI shortcuts, students are arriving at college unable to handle basic problem-solving or quantitative reasoning. Not a good sign since by contrast, machines are getting smarter everyday…
Opportunities:
Pre-College Foundational Bootcamps: Intensive, in-person or online summer programs for high school graduates to ensure they are truly ready for the rigors of college-level work.
Marketplace of “micro-credentials”: Verifying foundational literacy & numeracy (for students, employers, colleges), a credential signalling readiness.
⚡ How to Clone Any Website Component in Seconds
The Tool: Ever go on a website and think “that animation is super cool” or “I really like that design”. Well there’s a tool that allows you to clone cool elements from websites to use them in your own designs. Here’s how it works
Step-by-step:
Click the “select element” button on the extension, select and copy the component you want and paste it into MagicPath’s canvas
You can edit the component as you like in the canvas
💯 100+ ChatGPT Prompts to Revolutionize Your Day
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🍵 Turning an Injury into a $300M Business
The Idea: In 2018, just weeks before their wedding, Daniel Khoury injured his knee playing football and required surgery. Faced with the possibility of not being able to walk down the aisle, he and his partner Olivia Ferdi sought out remedies and were introduced to CBD by friends. The results were remarkable. Daniel recovered quickly and was able to dance at their wedding. This experience, coupled with Daniel’s wife Olivia's own use of CBD to manage the stress of her job as a lawyer, sparked the idea for creating an accessible, enjoyable, and beautifully branded CBD beverage product. That was the idea for Trip Drinks.
The Execution:
2018: Daniel and Olivia begin researching and developing the brand in the UK.
2019: Trip officially launches. The brand debuts with a range of CBD-infused drinks and oils, securing early listings in high-end retailers like Selfridges and Planet Organic.
2020: The COVID-19 pandemic hits, and Trip pivots to focus on online sales and partners with Deliveroo, becoming the first CBD store on the platform. They also join Sainsbury's 'Future Brands' incubator program in the UK.
2022: Trip secures a $12 million investment to fuel its growth, particularly in the United States. The company reports a 500% year-on-year sales increase in the first half of the year and is listed in 11,000 stores.
2023: The brand is named the UK's fastest-growing soft drinks brand and holds an 88% market share of CBD drinks in the UK.
November 2025: Trip announces a major $40 million funding round, valuing the company at $300 million. The investment includes high-profile celebrity backers like Joe Jonas and is intended to support a significant push into the US market, with distribution in 50,000 stores globally.
The takeaway? With entrepreneurship, you can turn tragedy into triumph. By solving a problem in your life you can build a business around solving that same problem for other people.
🔍 Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: WebFlow recently launched an AI-powered app generation product.
🚨 Raise Alert: Cursor just raised $2.3B at a $29.3B valuation. Also just passed $1B in ARR. Generational run.
🎁 Free Resource: Gamma just released 100 prompts you can use on their platform. Very cool.
📚 Must-Read: George Mack’s essays are great. Here’s one on how to be creative (without taking drugs, of course).
💬 Founder Quote: “Growth is oxygen, but focus is food.” Rahul Vohra (Superhuman)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Fone Finger
Are you a bit of a germaphobe? Do you recoil in horror at the thought of touching the same touch screen kiosks, ATM buttons, or surfaces that thousands of strangers have touched (or worse)?
Introducing the Fone Finger™, the revolutionary rubber digit that attaches to your phone, allowing you to interact with whatever you want in public. Pressing buttons, using touch screens, lifting toilet seats…it does it all.
Fone Finger™ - giving germs the finger.
Vote
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