BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

AI Brand Builder 📛  

No claim, no name

Available Domain: Brandmint.ai

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare famously asked “What’s in a name?”. Well when it comes to naming your business, if you get it wrong, a lot can be in a name…

Creating a brand for your business can still be a real pain. Trying to find the right name, domain, logo and then trademarking everything requires a huge amount of work and different platforms. So why not combine all of these into a single tool? That’s the plan.

Market Size: The market for branding services is around $3bn per year

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A tool that helps founders and marketers instantly validate name ideas for trademarks, domain availability, and SEO conflicts

How it Works:

• A user inputs their name idea into the platform

• The AI automatically checks the name for domain availability, whether it’s trademarked or not, existing SEO presence and social handle availability too, offering alternative suggestions where required

• If a business decides to push ahead with a name they can go and buy the domain, file a trademark and the claim social handles all through the platform (affiliate links baby)

• You can layer other tools into this workflow like logo design too particularly to draw in top-of-funnel users

Go-to-market: Use a “domain finder” or “logo designer” as an on-ramp to the platform to attract users

Business Model: Affiliate links for domains purchased and any trademarks filed

Startup Costs: You could start this pretty cheaply by doing everything manually in the early days then building out automations as you grow

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Get acquired by a domain platform (GoDaddy, Domain.com) or a Legaltech firm (LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer)

Exit Multiple: SaaS companies with branding/IP angles often get 5–10x ARR.

TOGETHER WITH BLUEHOST

Still don’t have a website? That’s costing you.

Still don’t have a website? That’s costing you.

You’ve got the idea. Maybe even the name. But without a website? You’re invisible.

Every day you wait, you lose momentum. Throw up a landing page. Start a waitlist. Pre-sell your product. Just move. Bluehost gets you online fast - no friction, no fluff.

• Free domain, SSL & 1-click WordPress

• 83% off: just $1.99/month (Half Baked exclusive)

• No tech headaches. No delays.

• 30-day money-back guarantee

This is your sign. Build the thing.

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Coffee Diffuser

• Are you a coffee addict? Finding the cost of coffee is hurting your wallet?

• Introducing Brewphoria™, the world’s first diffuser that doesn’t just smell like your favorite roast... it energizes like it too. This amazing diffuser fills your room with the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee while delivering microdoses of caffeine into the air, helping you wake up, stay sharp, and feel alive.

• Skip the brewing. Start diffusing.

Vote

• ✅ Yes this actually exists

• ❌ Nope you totally made this up

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Space Manufacturing

• As satellite launch costs continue to plummet, manufacturing products in space is becoming more and more viable…and desirable. Why?

• Because in space you have near-zero gravity which allows for perfect crystal growth and stronger/lighter alloys to be created, as well as access to unlimited energy from the sun for production.

• Companies like Varda Space Industries and Redwire are leading the charge here, pushing us towards a future where we’re building products, mining asteroids and assembling infrastructure entirely off-planet.

• In fact Jeff Bezos believes in the future that we will move all heavy industry off Earth and Earth will become a “residential and light commercial” zone.

Business Ideas

• Space Factory Tooling Production: Design and 3D-print specialized manufacturing tools optimized for use in microgravity

• Space Made Products Directory: Curate an online directory or marketplace of products made in space (e.g., ZBLAN fiber, microgravity-grown crystals).

Poll

Do you agree with Jeff that all heavy industry will occur in space? If so, when?

• ✅ Yes, within 100 years

• ✅ Yes, within 500 years

• ✅ Yes, within 1,000 years

• ❌ Never. Jeff should stick to getting me my packages on time

TOGETHER WITH SNAPCHAT

The Channel Most Brands are Sleeping on

Snapchat reaches 75% of Gen Z and Millennials across 25+ countries. And 40% of those users? They don’t check TikTok daily.

That’s untapped reach for your brand, from an audience that loves to shop and loves discovering new products through ads.

Most businesses haven’t caught on yet. That’s your advantage.

Learn more

THE MONEYSHOT

How a Pizza Restaurant Inspired a $400m Business

The business you start with often isn’t the business you scale.

Take this trio who built a simple app in college that evolved into a $400m business.

This is their story.

Kevin Tan (middle), Jamie Marshall (left), and Jonathan Cameron are seriously impressive people.

They all met while studying at Yale. Kevin was a physics major. Jamie…a Thiel Fellow. Meanwhile Jonathan was already a serial entrepreneur. But it was Kevin who had the moment of inspiration that kicked off their journey….

Back in 2017 Kevin was friends with the owner of a local restaurant called Brick Oven Pizza and was helping him to improve his web presence. During the process Kevin began to dig deeper into what pain points restaurant owners and restaurant clientele faced, mainly students.

And he noticed two key pain points in the student dining experience. First, students hated waiting in long lines, and second they were always looking for cheaper food options because they were on a student budget.

So in early 2017, during an economics lecture, Kevin sketched out the idea for his app where students could order ahead from local restaurants on their phone, skip the line when picking up, and earn loyalty points that could be redeemed for free items. He teamed up with Jamie and Jonathan who he met through Yale’s network and they got to work.

Later that year the team launched an MVP of their product called ”Happy Hour”.

But in fact this was the beginning of Snackpass.

The very first customer of Happy Hour was Kevin’s roommate, and the next 100 customers came from flyers that the co-founders put up all around campus.

Soon after launching they decided to rebrand to Snackpass and quickly the platform started gaining traction across Yale, reaching over 80% of the campus within just a semester of launching. In fact there was so much demand in the early days that the three co-founders found themselves helping restaurants wash blenders and distributing orders to keep up.

By solving a real student problem Snackpass built a cult following. And having dominated the Yale market, the Snackpass team moved quickly to replicate their success at other universities.

The company joined YC’s W18 program, which provided an initial $120k investment, and shortly after raised a seed round of $2.7 million led by First Round Capital.

From there the brand grew and grew as more and more college campuses started discovering Snackpass. But despite the success, over time the team decided to evolve the product into more of a B2B play.

Since 2021 Snackpass has since transformed itself into a comprehensive restaurant technology provider, turning it into a full-suite marketing and point-of-sale platform for restaurants. Their most recent funding round of $70m in 2021 was at a $400m valuation, allowing them to solve even more of the problems Kevin noticed at Brick Oven Pizza.

Which goes to prove that, in business, you don’t have to have it all figured out from day one. What you start and what you scale can look quite different.

But you only get to scale if you actually start. Soooooo…it’s time to get started.

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