BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP

Creator Biographies Podcast 🖥️

The create escape

Available Domain: Creatorchronicles.io

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: If you’re a fan of Half Baked then you’re likely a fan of the Acquired podcast too. The podcast does these incredibly detailed deep dives into the history of iconic companies like Nike, Starbucks, Meta and so on. The podcasts can go on for hours and hours, which isn’t for everyone, but is right up our street.

Having seen how successful this podcast has become it got us thinking. Why is no-one creating this show for creators? We think this is a huge whitespace in the (let’s be honest) pretty saturated podcast space but that it could be a huge hit. Let’s do it.

Market Size: Global podcast advertising revenue reached $4.9 billion in 2024 and is a fast-growing market today

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A podcast which does deep dives into the life stories and journeys of the world’s biggest creators

How it Works:

• You buy some basic recording equipment and ideally find yourself a co-host to share the workload with

• You complete deep research on some of the world’s biggest creators (Mr Beast, KSI, Casey Neistat etc.) and dedicate an episode to a single creator

• You record a detailed, 2 - 3 hour podcast covering the creator’s life in great detail starting from their childhood up to where they are now and break down their influences, early content, growth strategies, when they started to get traction, future plans, business ventures and so on in as much detail as possible

• You try to release one episode per month and become the definitive, go-to source for comprehensive creator biographies

Go-to-market: The key here is to get the attention of a big creator who you do an episode on. So do whatever you can to get their attention once their episode goes live and if they mention or link to the episode to their audience that’s how you’ll get your early listeners

Business Model: Advertising/Sponsorships on the podcast

Startup Costs: All you need to start this is a high quality microphone and a laptop. If you happen to own these then you can get started for $0

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Hold: You could build an incredible, loyal, engaged audience here and then sell products you create for that audience through that distribution. Therefore it’s more valuable to hold this business instead of angling for an exit

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Long hours, endless demands—it’s easy to put your health last.

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Pregmancy Test

Certain products are solely marketed towards women. But as we covered in a previous edition of Half Baked Dude Wipes famously built a +$100m revenue business by taking a product marketed at women (baby wipes) and created a version for men. So let’s repeat their success with another product…pregnancy tests.

The Pregmancy Test is the first pregnancy test marketed directly to men. It takes two to tango, so why aren’t men out there buying pregnancy tests? Well now they can.

Comes with a free beer to either celebrate the wonderful news or drown your sorrows. We hope the former.

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Wildfires

Wildfires are ripping through LA as we speak, and these fires are a horrible reminder that this problem is getting worse every year. Unfortunately this shows no sign of slowing down either and any business that could be part of the solution to this growing problem is a business that needs to be built.

Business Ideas

• Fire Prevention Drones: Create a business which monitors high risk areas for wildfires and deploys drones to extinguish them in their early stages

• Residential Fire Insurance Company: An insurance company which uses modern underwriting and risk modelling to underwrite homes for wildfire risk

TOGETHER WITH 1440 MEDIA

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THE MONEYSHOT

How 2 Years of Waiting Led to a +$500m Business

They say the best things in life are worth waiting for. But sometimes that waiting can be pretty painful.

Take these founders who were forced to wait for 2 agonising years before they could launch their game-changing product.

This is their story.

Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara have always been high achievers.

The pair met at MIT where Tarek was studying electrical engineering and computer science and Luana was getting her Master’s Degree in computer science.

They both graduated from MIT in 2018 but during their time in college both interned for some pretty incredible companies like Bridgewater Associates, Citadel, Palantir and Goldman Sachs to name a few. Like I said…high achievers.

The pair worked in financial services during some pretty turbulent times in the market, including Brexit. At the time investors were trying to hedge against the uncertainty of the Brexit referendum, but were struggling to do so. Tarek realized that instead of creating complex financial instruments to address these concerns, a simpler solution could be to allow direct betting on such outcomes.

So in 2018 the pair left their graduate roles and set about building a market which allowed traders to bet on the outcomes of specific events. But they immediately ran into a problem. Regulators.

The pair had to convince regulators to approve their market before they could launch. This process involved building an exchange, a broker, and a surveillance system that complied with all relevant regulations and could handle millions of traders, all before having a live product or any real users.

Based on the strength of their idea alone they managed to secure a spot in Y Combinator's 2019 winter batch. But convincing regulators was no easy task. In fact Tarek and Luana spent 2 years trying to convince regulators to approve their idea until finally, on November 3, 2020, they obtained a federal license from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, registering as a designated contract market. They were in business.

They spent the next few months putting the finishing touches on the platform to ensure they were ready for prime time and by July 2021 they were finally ready to go live.

They officially launched Kalshi.

Here’s how it works. On Kalshi trading is based on opinions about specific yes-or-no questions. Users pick a side and price (1 cent to 99 cents), and when the opposing yes and no sides total $1 per contract, a trade occurs. Whichever side turns out to be correct keeps the full $1. This means the contract price reflects the market's estimated probability of an event happening.

It’s an ingenious idea. So much so that in early 2021 before the product even went live the team raised $30m in Series A funding in a round led by Sequoia. The round valued the company at $120m which, for a pre-launch product, is pretty incredible. Man I miss venture capital markets in 2021.

In January 2022 they raised an additional $2.5 million to support their growth and while the platform was growing well, everything changed for Kalshi in 2024 when it had is breakout moment…the US Election.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and their main competitor Polymarket became a mainstay of the 2024 US Election with media outlets and onlookers tracking prediction markets closely to figure out the eventual outcome of the election. In October 2024 the company took on a loan of $12.4 million to manage the Election-induced growth.

This has provided a step-change in the trajectory of the business and presently he company is said to be eyeing a raise of +$50m over the next few months in a round that will value the business at over $500m. So I guess the two years of waiting was worth it in the end.

And that tends to be true of all businesses. Building a successful company always takes longer and is harder than we expect it to be, but you have to believe that if you stay positive and keep going the rewards will eventually be worth it.

Which they will be.

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