BUSINESS IDEA | VENTURE STARTUP

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1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: At Half Baked we’re big fans of Greg Isenberg. He’s an entrepreneur who enjoys sharing business ideas on Twitter and in his newsletter. Sound familiar?

And recently Greg shared a business idea on Twitter that at first glance sounds like one of our drunk business ideas. But the more we think about it, the more we think he’s onto something. Let’s break it down.

Market Size: Pet wellness is a $10B market growing 30% yearly

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: An all-in-one premium superfood powder that optimizes a dog's health and vitality

How it Works:

• A dog owner goes to the website and signs up to receive a monthly delivery of the supplement

• The powder contains a mixture of essential vitamins and minerals, prebiotics and probiotics for digestive health, compounds for joint support like glucosamine and omega fatty acids, all helping the dog to be as healthy as possible

• The powder format allows for easy mixing with wet food or water, with serving sizes tailored to dog weight ranges

Go-to-market: Focus on proving the efficacy of the product first by working with vets and other experts. Use these success stories to create content for social media

Business Model: Subscription model

Startup Costs: You’ll need some seed funding here to create product formulations, test them and then for manufacturing too

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: The goal here is to get acquired by a major pet care company like Nestlé Purina who have distribution in pet stores across the world

Exit Multiple: Comparable exits in the premium pet wellness space don’t get great multiples, so you’re looking at a 3.5x - 5x revenue multiple here

TOGETHER WITH NAME.COM

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You buy a .io domain from name.com.

.io is a trendy and fast-growing domain in the startup world. Tech companies, startups and even personal websites are using this extension more and more frequently.

Here are some .io domains you can buy today:

♣️ Cardcademy.io - for a mobile app which accelerates and gamifies the process of learning poker

💻 Citenation.io - for a platform for academic papers that combines discovery, discussion, and tracking functionality specifically designed for academic papers

🧠 Arguearena.io - for a platform which matches together users who can debate a topic with AI analytics to determine who won

DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

The Bomb Bottle

Most of us don’t drink enough water. And no matter how hard we try nothing seems to motivate us to drink as much as we should. If that sounds like you, then we have the solution.

The Bomb Bottle solves this very problem. You fill up the bottle and set your timer. If the bottle isn’t empty by the time the timer runs out, the bottle explodes.

And I know what you’re thinking but don’t worry, the explosives are packed in there pretty tight so it is dishwasher safe.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: EMF Waves

Wi-Fi. Mobile phones. Headphones. These are technologies and devices we simply can’t live without. But these days all of our favorite devices emit Electromagnetic Field (EMF) waves, specifically radiofrequency EMF. Some people don’t worry about EMF radiation at all, while others are very worried about it. Most large-scale studies have not found clear evidence of health risks from typical consumer device use, however the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies RF EMF as "possibly carcinogenic". Similarly health agencies have recommendations around EMF and device use, recommending we keep phones away from our bodies when possible (good luck with that) and to limit children's direct contact with devices. Ultimately this is an area garnering more and more attention, meaning there are businesses to be built in this space.

Business Ideas

• EMF Assessment Services: Provide professional EMF surveys for homes and offices using calibrated measurement equipment

• EMF Smart Home Integration: Develop systems that automatically power down non-essential devices which emit EMF during the night

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THE MONEYSHOT

The Founder who Built Two +$500m Businesses

Elon Musk. Steve Jobs. Richard Branson. When people think about serial entrepreneurs these are the names that come to mind.

But this serial entrepreneur, who you’ve probably never heard of, is a badass founder who built two +$500m businesses.

This is his story.

Chris Best is one of the best founders out there (shakes head at weak pun).

He was raised in Calgary, Alberta, and studied Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, graduating in 2010. And it was during his time at Waterloo that Chris became a founder.

While at college Chris met Ted Livingston who had an idea to build a music sharing app, participating in the Velocity program which supports student entrepreneurship at Waterloo.

Chris started working with Ted on the project and over time they decided to pivot. They decided to can the music sharing app idea and went all-in on creating a messaging app. The app officially launched on October 19, 2010. In fact you’ve probably heard of it before. You may have even been a user. It was called Kik.

After launching the app quickly gained popularity, reaching over one million users within just 15 days of its release. Talk about going viral. The app appealed to teenagers due to its emphasis on user anonymity.

At its peak in 2015, Kik boasted more than 275 million registered users and attracted $50 million in investment from Tencent in 2015, which valued the company at $1 billion. But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Kik over the years.

When the product launched Kik was sued by BlackBerry for patent infringement and the platform faced huge problems with content moderation and cyberbulling. So in 2017 after 8 years as Kik’s CTO Chris decided it was time to move on.

Chris’ experiences at Kik were so challenging that he became slightly jaded. In fact Chris wrote a manifesto detailing everything he believed was wrong with the internet.

His primary gripe was with social media and news products which were optimized for engagement and outrage, not great content or writing. Chris reasoned that there had to be a better way for writers to make money without sacrificing the integrity of their work. He thought subscriptions were the answer.

So he teamed up with two friends from Kik, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi, and in October 2017, the trio began working on a prototype for their new platform.

They founded Substack.

The premise was simple. Writers could join Substack, publish their content and their readers would subscribe to read it. No clickbait. No ads. Just great writing.

After launching in 2017, the team then used Hamish’s connection to Bill Bishop, the writer of a newsletter called Sinocism, and convinced him to launch the first publication on Substack.

On October 18, 2017, Bill sent an email to his 30k subscribers informing them that his daily newsletter was moving behind a paywall. By the end of the day Sinocism had brought in six figures of revenue. Suddenly this seemed like a huge idea.

By October 2018 Substack’s customer base grew to 25k paid subscribers, up from 11k just three months prior in July 2018. This traction allowed the company to participate in Y Combinator’s Winter 2018 batch.

The following year Substack raised $15.3m in their Series A and in 2021 raised $65m in their Series B. Both rounds were led by Andreessen Horowitz, with the Series B giving the business a $585 million pre-money valuation.

Substack then tried to raise a Series C round in 2022, seeking between $75 million and $100 million, but ultimately abandoned the effort due to market conditions. It was rough out there in 2022. As of November 2024, Substack has raised a new round of funding, though details on it are hard to come by. But the future of the platform still looks bright and Substack could well become Chris’ second billion dollar business.

All of which goes to show that the truly great founders tend to have a second or even a third act.

So once you get that first win under your belt you can start thinking about your second act too. It’s all about getting that first win. After that…anything is possible.

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