BUSINESS IDEA | CASH FLOW BUSINESS

Online Shopping Impulse Control Extension 🛍️

Shop ‘til you drop…it

Available Domain: Coolcart.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: There are lots of ways to find great business ideas. But one of the best is what we call “review jacking”, where you look at reviews on products where users love the idea but hate the execution. So when we came across this the other day we knew we were on to something…

These are reviews for Icebox, an app which gives users a cooling off period before making online purchases to prevent silly impulse purchases that we’re all guilty of.

So let’s build a version of this that actually works.

Market Size: With over 3 billion internet users worldwide and e-commerce sales projected to reach $6.5 trillion by 2023, the addressable market is to quote Donald Trump “yuge.”

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A chrome extension which adds friction to online purchases by creating a “cooling-off” period before a purchase can happen

How it Works:

• A user signs up and adds the chrome extension to their browser

• When a user attempts to complete a purchase on an e-commerce website, the extension activates, introducing a mandatory waiting period (e.g. 24 hours) before the transaction can be finalized.

• During this time, users receive reminders about their pending purchase and are encouraged to reflect on its necessity.

• The extension could also provide budget insights and alternatives to help users make more informed decisions.

Go-to-market: You could make some great TikTok/video content on this to help spread the word. Theres a strong viral component to this idea.

Business Model: One-off fee to install the extension

Startup Costs: Find yourself a technical co-founder a or hire a talented overseas developer from somewhere like Somewhere (see what we did there) to get your MVP built

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: This could be a great cash flowing business, but you’re unlikely to get a huge exit here. But you never know!

TOGETHER WITH DAILY BODY COACH

Achieve Your Dream Body. Perform Your Best.

Here’s the hard truth:

Being an entrepreneur and a leader? It’s tough. There’s no sugarcoating it. It demands:

• Sacrifice

• Long hours

• Mental strain

But there’s one thing you should never sacrifice: your health.

Why? Because when your body thrives, you thrive. It’s not just about feeling amazing (which you will) — it’s about showing up at your peak, in both work and life.

That’s where Daily Body Coach comes in.

They're a premium online coaching service, exclusively designed for busy and ambitious entrepreneurs like you. Their expert coaches keep you accountable 7 days a week, ensuring you have the tools and support to stay on track, no matter how hectic life gets.

Pressed for time? Working from home? Traveling? Dining out? They’ve got you. You already have a lot to focus on. Let their team adapt, decide, and plan ahead for you so you can focus on what matters most: your business.

Book in a free strategy call today, no strings attached!

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Coca-cola Beer

Coca-cola need to start making beers. That’s it. That’s the idea.

Quite literally a drunk business idea.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Electronic Insect Bite Healers

If you’ve ever ventured into warmer climates, or are lucky enough to actually live in a warm climate (which we are not), you’ll know the irritation of bug bites. Topical creams and sprays can be helpful, but they’re a pain to buy and often don’t help that much. Which is why many people have turned to devices, like this, instead. My very scientific understanding of how they work is they use electricity to zap the bug bite which magically heals it. Turns out Patrick Collison is a huge fan of these, and if a billionaire is saying it’s one of the best things he owns you know it’s a great product.

Business Ideas

• Insect Bite Analysis App: Develop an app where you take a picture of a bite and the app identifies the type of bite, what insect it likely came from based on your location and recommends appropriate treatment (with an upsell to electronic insect bite treatment devices of course)

• White Label Electronic Insect Bite Treatment Devices: Work with travel influencers to allow them to sell their own branded electric insect bite treatment devices

THE MONEYSHOT

How 2 Cousins Built a $1bn/year Cookie Empire

Here at Half Baked we’re big fans of cookies, as you can probably tell 🍪

But these guys managed to turn their passion for cookies into a +$1bn/year revenue empire (goals).

This is their story.

Baking has always been a big part of Jason McGowan’s (right) life. He grew up baking with his older sister which left him with a lifelong love of baking and baked goods.

In his twenties Jason moved from Canada to the United States with only an eighth-grade education and limited financial resources, sleeping on his friend’s floor while he sought opportunities to pursue the American dream. He taught himself to build websites and from there built a great career in tech, founding and working in many different companies including piick.com, Hangtime and ancestry.com. He also did a little investing, including backing Sawyer Hemsley’s business. Sawyer was his wife’s cousin and even though it didn’t work out Jason knew he wanted to work with Sawyer in the future.

And in 2017, that opportunity arose.

The pair decided they wanted to work together and thought their shared passion for cookies would be a good place to start. So they set out to create the perfect cookie, taking 5 months to create just one single, incredible cookie after numerous trials and gathering feedback from friends and family. Finally they decided they were ready to launch and opened their first store in Logan, Utah using $68k of investment from Jason.

They had founded Crumbl.

This first store was a huge success, allowing the business to expand quickly.

Within 2 years they had opened more than 15 locations through franchising. In fact Jason’s parents opened the first franchise store for Crumbl. Entrepreneurship is clearly a dominant gene in the McGowan family. But how do you generate hype about a cookie brand?

Well for this Jason and Sawyer turned to the world of fashion and introduced a drop model, where each week new flavors would drop and old ones would be discontinued, creating scarcity and driving customers to return to the brand continuously.

The team also leaned into Jason’s tech background, launching an app in October 2018 which allowed users to rate different flavors and ensuring quality was high across all of the different franchised stores. Really smart.

Couple all of this with some great marketing and distinctive pink packaging and you get a hyperscaling cookie brand. Who knew?

By August 2020 they had expanded to 100 locations, then 300 locations by the end of 2021. By 2022, with over 400 stores up and running, Crumbl brought in $1bn in revenue and sold over 300m cookies. That’s a lot of cookies.

Each store brings in an average of $1.8 million revenue per year, with net profits of around $350,000. As of August 2024, the company has 862 stores across the United States and is expanding internationally too. It’s quite literally a cookie empire.

Jason and Sawyer’s story is truly incredible, proving that innovation can be brought to any market. Their story shows that no matter what market you’re operating in you need to think big.

That’s how you can build your empire too.

INFLUENCER IDEAS

#HalfBakedBizIdea

Ted Spare with an ambitious (but very cool) idea

DM us or use #halfbakedbizidea on X/Twitter to get your idea featured in our newsletter.