Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as talked about as the Tesla CyberCab spotted in Palo Alto 🚕
PSA: We’re looking to make Half Baked 10x better in 2026…and we need your feedback here to do so (it takes 60 seconds). Excited to hear your suggestions!
In today’s edition:
💡 An idea inspired by a mega viral product
🛠 Peter Drucker’s “stop doing list” for founder productivity
🔋 Building a $1.5B business in just a few years + more
🔍 Softbank, distraction loops, 100 lessons + more
🍻 An idea that’s sheer lunacy
Let’s goooo 🚀
💸 $1,000 Giveaway: We’re teaming up with Squarespace to give away $1,000 to one of our readers who take action this week. To enter all you have to do is:
Check out Squarespace
Build a one-page website on Squarespace (could be your personal website, a landing page, anything to move you forward) this week
Reply to this email (or any email this week) with what you’ve built
More details later in the email. Good luck!
🖨️ Kids Temporary Tattoo Printer
We’ve got an inkling…
Available Domain: Tattyou.com
The Problem: Every year, a few standout toys become viral sensations - and parents everywhere lose their minds trying to snag one. This year's breakout? Stickerbox. It's a device that lets kids describe a design out loud, then instantly prints it as a sticker. It's clever, magical, and undeniable proof that AI-powered creative toys are here to stay. But here's the question: what if you took this idea and made a product that was even stickier (literally)? We think there's room to go bigger. Here's how.
The Solution:
💡 The Idea: A voice-activated device that lets kids design and print custom temporary tattoos in seconds using AI and specialized water-transfer paper.
❓ Product:
Parents purchase the device and create a family account via the companion app, setting content filters (age-appropriate designs only) and approving spending limits for paper roll refills.
Kids press the button and speak their idea (e.g. "a skateboarding llama wearing sunglasses") and the built-in AI generates the design in 10 seconds and previews it on the small screen for approval or regeneration.
Once approved, the device prints the design onto specialized skin-safe water-transfer paper (takes 15 seconds), the kid cuts it out, applies it with a damp sponge, and wears their custom creation for 2-5 days before it naturally fades.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Check out the landing page | Get the landing page prompt
💼 Business Model: Sell the hardware device at a low margin (approx. $50-$70) to drive mass adoption, and generate high-margin recurring revenue through the sale of proprietary tattoo paper refill rolls.
⭐ End Goal: Sell to a major toy company (Mattel, Hasbro, Spin Master) for 3-5x ARR as a strategic product line extension into personalized creative play.
Rate this idea
➡ From Zero to Live in 7 Days
No more "I'll do it later." This week, you're going live.
That’s because we're teaming up with Squarespace to give away $1,000 to someone who goes from idea to Internet by Sunday.
The Challenge:
Build a one-page website on Squarespace.
Launch your product, showcase your work, claim your corner of the web - whatever moves the needle.
Reply to this email (or another email this week) with the live link to what you’ve built
The best website wins $1,000.
Submit by Sunday night at midnight PT. Must be built using Squarespace.
Check out Squarespace and use code HALFBAKED10 to get 10% off any plan too!
🧑💻 Peter Drucker’s “Stop Doing List” for Founder Productivity
The Context: Didn’t make as much progress on your business in 2025 as you wanted to? It could be because you’re doing what Sam Altman calls “fake work”. Well Peter Drucker, a famous management consultant, has a protocol to stop this. Here’s how it works so you don’t make the same mistake in 2026.
Step-by-step:
Write down everything you did last week in your business.
Circle the things that did not directly contribute to revenue, getting more users or improving the product (e.g., tweaking the logo, organizing Slack channels, answering cold DMs).
Create a "Stop Doing" list of all of these activities, print it out and put it on your desk. Next time you catch yourself doing anything that feels like fake work, look at the list and stop.
Give it a try!
📰 Impartial News with 1440
In today's world, where news is often tainted with bias, 1440 is your reliable source of truth and neutrality. Their daily newsletter covers topics like politics, sports, business, and world affairs.
Join over 4.5 million readers and subscribe today.
🔋 Founder Fuel
🤑 The Money Shot: This duo built a $1.5B business in just a few years. Here’s how.
📈 Trends with Benefits: AI World Models are coming for the gaming industry, with DeepMind and World Labs leading the charge. Learn more here.
💬 Prompt Drop: For any CEO using claude code - here's a single prompt that builds your entire 2026 personal productivity system.
🆓 Free Resource: This guy literally builds a mobile app from scratch in 1 hour. Worth a watch!
💵 Deal of the Day: Get Intercom + Fin for free if you’re a startup for 12 months here.
🔍 Founder Finds
💰 SoftBank has just invested $41 billion in OpenAI, per Reuters. Masa making big moves!
📚 Leon Abboud’s piece on The Infinite Distraction Loop (and how to escape it) is well worth reading before we head into 2026.
📹 Andrew Ng’s talk on how to build faster with AI is a must-watch.
🎓 This article, 100 Lessons For Your 20s, is epic (and should apply at any age imo).
⚒️ Here’s a short guide to setting up Claude Skills if you’re non-technical.
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Lunar Panels
Looking to reduce the cost of your heating bills? Wish you could harness the moon’s energy to do so?
Introducing Lunar Panels™ - the world's first panels that exclusively harness the moon's majestic 0.0000001% reflected sunlight. Perfect for charging your phone by 2035 or running a single LED bulb at 40% brightness.
Lunar Panels™ - watt an idea.
Vote
👋 That’s All Folks!
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