Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as the US Government’s Manhattan project for AI 🇺🇸
In today’s edition:
💡 Taking some of the pain out of home maintenance
🔋 Bitcoin, side hustles, a unicorn with no marketing spend…
🍻 A super cool product for anyone who runs hot
Let’s goooo 🚀
💸 Weekly Giveaway: This week we’re teaming up with T-Mobile for Business to give away $1,000 to help one of you on your founder journey. In order to enter just:
Click here and see if your business qualifies for their new internet offer (takes 5 seconds)
Reply to this email with either “Yes“ or “No“.
Winner will be announced next Monday!
🏠 Home Maintenance is CRAZY Expensive
Homeownership is the cornerstone of the American dream. We were promised the white picket fence and the 2.2 kids, but the brochures conveniently forgot to mention that homeownership is roughly 10% enjoying your property and 90% fighting a losing war against dandelion infestations and clogged gutters.
Naturally though, we pay people to help us fight that war, which is why the home services market is a massive $657 billion industry. But the industry has big problems. Data shows that service pros spend nearly 50% of their day just sitting in traffic. You are literally paying a premium for a guy to listen to a true-crime podcast in his van while he drives 40 minutes to clean your gutters. It’s inefficient, expensive, and needs to be fixed.
Here’s what we’re thinking.
😨 Stop Being Scared of Your Internet Bill
Scared to look at your internet bill every month? Us too.
Luckily, T-Mobile's affordable business internet service is here to help. No hidden fees. No more surprises.
To see if you qualify all you have to do is:
Go to this website
Enter your business address
Click “Check Availability”
That’s it. It takes 5 seconds, and could save your business some money.
👥 YardAlliance: Group Buying for Home Services
Don't go it alawn
Available Domain: YardAlliance.co
💡 The Idea: A neighborhood group buying service that batches neighborhood demand to secure better rates for home services.
🛠️ Product:
A user signs up and can sign up for different home maintenance jobs being done in their neighborhood on a specific day e.g. gutter cleaning, driveway sealing, lawn maintenance
Once enough residents sign up for a service on a particular date a group rate in unlocked for them and the workers are dispatched on that day. These are subcontractors hired by the business so you manage the service, billing, customer service etc.
Post-service, the homeowner rates the job quality as the Merchant of Record you handle all quality control and liability, not the subcontractor.
🧑💻 Prototyping
Here’s the code from the demo
Fork your own version of this app
💼 Business Model: Service Arbitrage: Charge the homeowner slightly below retail (e.g., $100), pay the provider wholesale volume rates (e.g., $60), and keep the spread ($40).
⭐ End Goal: Acquisition by a major lead aggregator (Angi, Thumbtack) or a community platform (Nextdoor) looking to monetize their user base for a 6–8x EBITDA multiple.
Rate this idea
🔋 Founder Fuel
📈 Trends with Benefits: Capital has been leaving Bitcoin at an alarming rate (alarming for the crypto bros at least). Here’s why.
🤖 AI Tutorial: As a founder, processing invoices is a messy business. Here’s how you can use AI to do it with ease.
💬 Prompt Drop: This mega prompt can help you find highly personalized, highly monetizable side hustle opportunities.
🔋 Deal of the Day: Get 20% off Google Workspace’s Standard Plan here. T&Cs apply.
🤑 The Money Shot: These guys built a +$1B business with $0 in marketing spend. Get the full story.
Invest in your highest-leverage asset: yourself. Learn a new language, fast - not another “maybe someday” side hustle.
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Here’s the hack: This Black Friday, for a one-time payment of $199, you unlock unlimited access to every language, forever. No recurring billing.
It’s not just self-improvement - it’s building a skill you can monetize, leverage, and compound over time.
🔍 Founder Finds
🤖 Dwarkesh just dropped his hotly anticipated podcast with Ilya. Christmas has come early folks. Listen here.
🎥 Google just released a full documentary called “The Thinking Game” on YouTube about Deepmind. Watching it as we speak. Watch it here.
🛍️ OpenAI just launched shopping research, a model which basically a superintelligent shopper that finds you the best stuff at the best price. Just in time for the Holiday season too. Read more here.
🎙️ Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring, just went on the My First Million Podcast. Well worth a listen (mainly the business idea part). Listen here.
📖 Karri Saarinen, CEO of Linear, says his startup is rejecting the 996 hustle culture. Read more here.
💰 Meta is in talks to spend billions of dollars to buy Google’s TPU chips. Google is so back. Read more here.
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Neck Air Conditioner
Tired of sweating through those hot summer days or those sweaty gym sessions? Wish you could wear a personal air conditioner without looking completely ridiculous?
Introducing The Neck Breeze™, a wearable device that straps around your throat like a futuristic collar and blasts cold air directly onto your neck. Perfect for hot commutes, stuffy offices, or any kind of workout (except back squats of course).
The Neck Breeze™ - don’t sweat it
Vote
👋 That’s All Folks!
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