Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as the US Government declassifying UFO files pretty soon? 🛸
In today’s edition:
💡 A platform to solve a problem plaguing small businesses
🛠 How to get a 90% response rate on LinkedIn outreach
🔋 The story behind Meta’s latest acquisition + more
🔍 GPT 5.2, Airwallex, Keith Rabois + more
🍻 The perfect product for parents with young kids
Let’s goooo 🚀
💸 $1,000 Giveaway: This week we’re partnering with Lindy to give away $1,000 to support one of you on your founder journey. To enter just:
Reply to this email with something you’ve used Lindy for
Last week’s winner was Mikhel Sickand. Good luck to everyone this week!
💸 Trade Credit Intelligence Platform
Credit where credit’s due
Available Domain: Netknow.com
The Problem: Small businesses and freelancers live and die by cash flow, which is why late-paying customers remain one of their biggest threats. A single client who doesn't pay on time can mean missing payroll, turning down new projects, or worse. Knowing whether someone will actually pay isn't just helpful - it's critical for survival. This problem is so acute that entire industries have built infrastructure around it. In construction, manufacturing, and fashion, "credit groups" charge members $600+ per year just to share intel on who pays and who doesn't. We think there’s a better way to surface this data for businesses. Here’s how.
The Solution:
💡 The Idea: A platform that crowdsources real-time payment data by connecting directly to vendors' accounting software to reveal exactly how fast specific companies pay their bills.
🛠️ Product:
Users sign up and connect their accounting software (QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks) via API. This gives their historical invoice data to the pool anonymously in exchange for access to the platform.
The system aggregates millions of invoices to calculate a "Real Payment Score" for companies. For example, it might show that while Global Corp contractually agrees to Net 30, their actual average payment time across 500 vendors is 58 days.
Users can search for a prospective client before signing a contract to see their payment rating, read anonymous qualitative feedback ("Accounting dept is impossible to reach"), and set up alerts if a client's payment speed starts slowing down.
💼 Business Model: "Give-to-get" model where contributing data grants free basic access with premium subscriptions for deep analytics, credit monitoring alerts etc.
⭐ End Goal: Exit to a company like Moody’s, Experian, or Intuit (QuickBooks). These incumbents need real-time data to update their archaic credit scoring models; you could sell for a 10-20x ARR multiple
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🤖 AI that works like a teammate, not a chatbot
Describe what you need done, and Lindy builds custom AI agents that qualify your leads, draft your reports, handle customer support, and knock out the busywork eating up your team's day. No coding. No complexity. Just results.
What you can automate with Lindy:
Sales agents that qualify leads and book meetings while you sleep
Support agents who resolve tickets instantly across phone and chat
Ops agents that turn hours of manual work into minutes
Start free with $20 in credits today and get up and running in minutes with Lindy’s 6,000+ integrations.
🗣️ How to Get a 90% Response Rate on LinkedIn Outreach
The Tool: Whether you’re trying to find investors or make some sales, LinkedIn outreach is critical. But people’s LinkedIn DMs are flooded with pitches these days, making it harder than ever to cut through the noise. But you can get an incredible response rate on LinkedIn with one simple technique. Here’s how.
Step-by-step:
Connect with a high-value prospect on LinkedIn you want to meet.
Once they accept, do not type. Open the mobile app, go to messages, and hold the microphone icon.
Say something like the following: "Hey [Name], just saw you accepted. I checked out your recent post on [Topic] and loved the point about X. Anyway, great to be connected." (Don't pitch yet).
Message them after they respond with your pitch.
Happy hunting!
❓ Business is Unpredictable. Your Internet Shouldn’t Be.
Running a business means dealing with constant uncertainty. But one thing you can control is your internet provider.
That’s why we’re teaming up with T-Mobile for Business. Their 5G business internet gives companies a way to simplify connectivity and keeps teams running smoothly.
With T-Mobile for Business, you get:
Fast, dependable 5G internet built on America’s largest 5G network
Connectivity that scales easily as you add locations or devices
Real support from real experts, available 24/7/365
👉 See if your business qualifies (it takes 5 seconds).
🔋 Founder Fuel
🤑 The Money Shot: After a huge pivot, this startup got acquired by Meta earlier this week. Full story here.
📈 Trends with Benefits: Google is planning on releasing Gemini-powered AI glasses in 2026. This category could see some serious growth in 2026.
💬 Prompt Drop: Tom Bilyeu believes he’s cracked the code on getting elite market research from AI using this prompt. He could be onto something.
🆓 Free Resource: Tibo’s “Ultimate guide on how to rank #1 on Product Hunt” is required reading if you’re launching on Product Hunt anytime soon.
💵 Deal of the Day: Eleven Labs is still giving away 25 exclusive deals from top AI companies in the run up to Christmas. Merry Christmas indeed.
🔍 Founder Finds
🆕 OpenAI is rumored to be dropping GPT 5.2 tomorrow. They’re fighting back.
💰 Airwallex just raised $330M at an $8B valuation. But back when they had $2M in revenue, Stripe offered to acquire them for $1.2B. Here’s the full story.
🧪 Keith Rabois’ formula for startup success from 2017 is still super relevant in 2025.
📖 Dion Lim just wrote a great piece on the “AI wildfire” that’s coming.
3️⃣ Netflix is dominating the news cycle right now. Here are the three traits that made Marc Randolph (Netflix co-founder) successful
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: TotTalk
Spend a lot of time ferrying your child around in their stroller? Tired of bending over mid-walk just to hear "look, a dog" for the fifteenth time?
Introducing TotTalk™, a pair of matching Bluetooth earpieces that let you and your stroller-bound toddler chat hands-free. Clip them on, stand up straight, and finally hear every little thing they have to say.
TotTalk™ - small talk just got smaller.
Vote
👋 That’s All Folks!
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