Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as the stock market crashing (despite Nvidia crushing earnings, but also being called a $610B fraud) 😵💫
Did you miss our hackathon kick off event yesterday? Don’t worry, you can watch the whole thing here. And you can still register for the Hackathon if you want to take part!
Let’s get into it 🚀
In today’s edition:
💡 An idea inspired by a problem we have right now
📈 Why AI is the new oil for certain states
🛠 Using Nano Banana Pro to generate product images
🤑 Turning a side hustle into a $4B business
🍻 An idea for all the smokers out there
🎟️ AI Helpdesk for Events
All’s Well That Events Well
Available Domain: Eventdesk.ai
The Problem: As you’ve probably gathered by now (since we won’t shut up about it), we’re running a Hackathon at the moment. And it’s going pretty well. A little too well, in fact. So far we’ve had more than 10,000 people sign up for it (which is great), but that’s more than double the amount we expected to show up (which is not so great). So, unsurprisingly, we’ve been inundated with messages from hundreds of people over the last few days across different platforms asking all kinds of questions about the event. Which got me thinking…why isn’t there a platform to handle this kind of thing for online or in-person events? Here’s what we’re thinking.
The Solution:
In a line: A platform that acts as a co-pilot for large-scale online and in-person events to triage and answer attendee’s queries.
Product:
🚀 Upload an event page, brochure, or internal doc pack to the platform and parses all logistics, schedules, speakers, FAQs, and policies into a unified knowledge graph.
🤖 The platform connects to Discord, Slack, Reddit, and social DMs to auto-answer any questions from attendees with high confidence - no human touch required.
🎫 When unsure, it generates structured tickets, assigns them to the right human team member, and tracks the tickets so nothing slips.
🤝 For in-person events, users can scan a QR code on their passes to ask questions or to get any other help they need at the event.
Prototyping:
Here’s the prompt we used to build it
Fork your own version of this app
Business Model: A tiered SaaS model (based on number of attendees, since event organizers budget per-event, not per-ticket.)
End Goal: Sell to a major Virtual Event Platform (like RingCentral, Zoom Events, or Hopin) for a 10x+ revenue multiple.
Rate this idea:
▶ Miss the Hackathon Launch Event? You’re in Luck
Last night we officially launched the 10-Day Founder Hackathon in association with Bolt! It was a great event, with over 1,200 people joining us live to hear Eric Simons (Bolt’s CEO) give us some insights into his entrepreneurial journey, roast some of our startup ideas and show off his favorite pair of sunglasses (they look great).
And if you missed the event that’s totally cool, we get it, life gets in the way sometimes.
That’s why we recorded the whole thing so all of you can watch it whenever you want. Enjoy!
🛢️ Saudi Arabia’s Aggressive AI Push
A rendering of DataVolt's AI Data centre on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast (Neom media)
The Trend: It’s no secret that oil-rich countries are trying to diversify away from oil revenues. Into what? AI of course, and Saudi Arabia are leading the charge here. In the last day or so Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN just announced new AI partnerships with xAI, Nvidia, and other major companies at the U.S.-Saudi investment forum, including a plan to deploy 600K GPUs and build a 500+ MW data center. Countries in the Gulf Region are perfectly positioned to play a big part in the AI space. They’re cash rich, can generate a lot of energy and have lots of land that could be turned into data centers…everything a growing technology needs.
Opportunities:
"Tech-Expat" Relocation Concierge: A specialized agency helping the thousands of Western engineers and AI researchers (recruited by xAI/HUMAIN) move to Saudi Arabia.
English-Arabic Technical Translation Niche: A boutique agency focused solely on translating AI documentation, UI interfaces, and safety manuals from English to Arabic for the HUMAIN project.
🍌 Using Nano Banana Pro to Generate Product Images
The Tool: Hot on the release of Gemini 3, Google has just had another major release…an upgrade to Nano Banana called Nano Banana Pro (still by a wide margin the best named model on the market). It’s amazing. It’s super fast and is really good at generating text, something most models struggle with. And if you’re looking to render product images to validate a startup idea, it’s the perfect too'l for that. Here’s how.
Step-by-step:
Go to Gemini and select “Create Image” to select Nano Banana Pro
Write a prompt to create the image you want (pro-tip: ask Gemini itself to create the prompt for you, it will in extreme detail)
Run the prompt and the image will get generated in seconds
🔮 She called Bitcoin And Tesla Early... hear what's next
Over 25,000 people will attend the Finimize Modern Investor Summit on December 2nd to 3rd. Join them – and world-class speakers – to explore the trends shaping wealth creation: AI, Big Tech, digital assets, and long-term investing.
Headliners Cathie Wood (CIO, ARK Invest) and Chris Hughes (Facebook cofounder) join 20+ expert speakers revealing how today’s biggest trends are shaping the future of wealth.
Attend online or in person in London.
👟 Turning a Side Hustle into a $4B Business
The Idea: Back in 2012 Josh Luber, a sneakerhead and IBM consultant (what a combo), realized that the secondary sneaker market made no sense to him at all. So to make sense of it, he decided to build Campless, a "Kelly Blue Book" for sneakers that scraped eBay data to guide collectors on pricing. He ran this as a side hustle for a few years but everything changed when Josh met a billionaire who watched his son buying shoes on eBay and believed the sneaker market shouldn't look like a garage sale, it should look like the New York Stock Exchange, and teamed up with Josh to build it. That was the beginning of StockX.
The Execution:
2012-2015: Josh runs Campless as a side hustle, until the site caught Dan Gilbert's eye. Dan, the billionaire owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Quicken Loans, acquired Campless and recruited Josh Luber and Greg Schwartz (Josh’s co-founder), and they set out to build the world's first "Stock Market of Things”.
February 2016: StockX officially launches. The MVP wasn't just a website, it was a logistics beast. They introduced a centralized authentication center in Detroit where every single shoe sold had to be physically inspected by experts before being shipped to the buyer.
2017: They leaned hard into their Detroit roots for a massive marketing win, partnering with Eminem to auction off exclusive Air Jordan 4s.
2019: Growth exploded. StockX raised a $110 million Series C round, becoming the first sneaker resale platform to reach unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation. They also expanded categories to include streetwear and luxury accessories.
2020-2021: During the pandemic, the platform capitalized on the trading card boom and the shortage of gaming consoles (PS5s). Their valuation nearly quadrupled to $3.8 billion following a $255 million raise.
Today: StockX facilitates billions of dollars in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) annually, and while they haven't exited yet, they are heavily rumored to be preparing for an IPO.
The lesson? You never know where a passion project might take you. Josh was just trying to make sense of sneaker prices for fun, yet that project went on to change his life forever. So keep following your passions, you never quite know where they may lead you.
🔍 Founder Finds
🛠️ AI Tool: Manus just released Manus Browser Operator which turns any browser into an AI browser. Very cool.
🚀 Just Launched: Travis Kalanick just launched a new startup. This is big.
📚 Must-Read: Gavin Baker (Managing Partner of Atreides) has some great takes on AI.
✖️ Trending Tweet: Why 99% of people stay stuck their entire lives.
💬 Founder Quote: “You won’t think your way into clarity; you build your way into it.” Patrick O’Shaughnessy (Colossus)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Self-lighting Cigarettes
Sick of fumbling with a lighter in the cold any time you want a cigarette? Tired of asking strangers outside a bar for a lighter when you want to light up?
Say hello to SparkSticks™, the world’s first self-lighting cigarettes. Just take one of the packet, strike it against the side and bam…you’re in flavour country. They light up faster than your ex lit up your DMs after seeing that you moved on.
SparkSticks™ - they’re lit.
Vote
👋 That’s All Folks!
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