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Business Ideas #304: Crowdsourced Videos, Home Saunas...
Plus How a Genius Hack Became a $12bn Business
Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up business ideas as shocking as Zuck dressing up as Benson Boone for his wife’s birthday? 🤔
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
Business Idea💡: Turning ideas into a product
Drunk Business Idea 🍻: Something for all the nail biters out there
Just The Tip 📈: A hot health trend that’s making it into people’s homes
The Moneyshot 🤑: How a genius hack became a $12bn business
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Let’s get into it.
BUSINESS IDEA | STARTUP
Crowdsourced Content Ideas 🗳️
Points of views
Available Domain: Viewnotes.com
💡 TLDR: A platform for Youtubers and other creators to crowdsource video ideas from fans
1. Problem/Opportunity❓
The Problem/Opportunity: Great content starts with great ideas. Take the King of YouTube Mr Beast who, for four years, spent an hour a day trying to brainstorm new, original video ideas. Which is why we’ll end up with a video like this from him any day now…

But it’s not always easy for creators to come up with great ideas, let alone ideas that their fans want to see. So why not go directly to the source? Here’s what we have in mind.
Market Size: There are over 50 million active content creators globally, with 3.5 million having over 10,000 subscribers.
2. Solution ✅
The Idea: A platform for Youtubers and other creators to crowdsource video ideas from fans
How it Works:
Creators Sign Up: YouTubers and other video creators set up their profiles, linking their social media accounts to the platform.
Fans Submit Ideas: Fans submit video ideas, categorized by themes, trends, challenges etc.
Voting & Engagement: Other fans upvote or comment on ideas they like. Creators can set parameters (e.g., only subscribers or patrons can submit ideas).
Monetization Options: Creators can provide monetary or other prizes for the suggestions that get the most upvotes.
Execution & Feedback: Creators pick top ideas, credit fans in their videos, and the process starts all over again
Go-to-market: Start by focussing on just YouTubers, then expand from there to other creators
Business Model: Creators pay a monthly subscription to use the platform
Startup Costs: This should be relatively cheap to build, should be able to do it for a few thousand dollars
3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰
Exit Strategy: Get acquired by a creator platform like Patreon or a YouTube specific platform like Social Blade
Exit Multiple: SaaS companies generally sell for 5-10x revenue
TOGETHER WITH OMNISEND
Temu vs Amazon: Who’s Winning the Price War?

When it comes to online shopping, two names dominate the battlefield. Temu and Amazon. But what really sets them apart? Omnisend looked into the data, analyzing product listings, pricing tactics, and consumer trust on both platforms.
As a result they’ve compiled a fascinating look into fierce competition, eyebrow-raising discounts, and growing concerns over brand imitation and fake reviews.
Here’s a glimpse of what they found:
Temu undercuts Amazon on price: Close product matches are 40% cheaper on average, saving shoppers around $13.37 per item
Product overlap is huge: 77% of Amazon-listed products have close equivalents on Temu, and one in 10 are identical
Brand imitation raises red flags: From blurred logos to copycat packaging, Temu products often mimic well-known brands
Discounts run deep: Temu’s slashing prices with up to 98% off in some categories, compared to Amazon’s 67% max discounts
Trust gap is real: Amazon’s review system is robust (50,000 reviews per product on average), while Temu trails behind with just 1,500, plus signs of potential review manipulation
So, who’s really winning, and at what cost?
👉 Get the full breakdown in Omnisend’s latest research.
DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA
Edible Nail Polish
Are you a nail biter? Looking to add some spice to your nail-biting habit?
Introducing edible nail polish, the world’s first flavored, edible nail polish
The first flavor? A collab with KFC to produce a hot and spicy chicken-flavored nail polish. Why KFC? Because it’s finger licking good of course…

Vote
JUST THE TIP
Trend 📈: Home Saunas
Saunas are in right now.
And with more and more people focussing on their health, protocols like cold plunges and saunas are becoming more and more popular every month.
And these days people are willing to invest in saunas at home, opening up opportunities for business to be built.

Business Ideas
DIY Sauna Kits: Sell modular, easy-to-assemble sauna kits for DIY homeowners.
Sauna Subscription Service: Allow customers to rent a home sauna with an option to buy later if they want to
TOGETHER WITH RYSE
This Smart Home Company Grew 200% Year-Over-Year…
Ring and Nest transformed security and climate control. Now RYSE is doing the same for window shades.
With $10M+ in revenue, 127 Best Buy locations, and expansion into Home Depot in 2025, RYSE is positioned to dominate the smart shade market. Their patented retrofit technology makes automation easy—no costly replacements needed.
The smart home market is booming, and RYSE’s public offering is live at $1.90/share.
Invest now before their next phase of growth.
THE MONEYSHOT
How a Genius Hack Became a $12bn Business
Y Combinator’s application famously asks founders to “tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage.” Why?
Because of stories like this where these founders found a hack in the banking system which they turned into a $12bn business.
This is their story.

Taavet Hinrikus (left) and Kristo Käärmann are hackers at heart.
They both studied computer science in college with Taavet going on to become Skype’s first employee and Kristo working as a consultant for Deloitte.
This pair of Estonians met while living in London and it turned out that both of them shared a similar problem. Taavet was earning a salary in euros but needed pounds to cover his living expenses in the UK, meanwhile Kristo earned his salary in pounds, but had to pay his mortgage in Estonia (in euros).
Because of this they both had to pay high fees with unfavorable exchange rates when transferring money between the UK and Estonia. But the pair came together and came up with a simple but clever workaround to save themselves thousands.
Taavet deposited euros into Kristo’s Estonian bank account. Meanwhile Kristo transferred pounds into Taavet’s UK bank account. Then they used the mid-market exchange rate, avoiding hidden fees. This system saved them thousands of euros and inspired them to think bigger. Why not build a platform where others could exchange money in a similar way?
In 2011 they used their own money to create a minimum viable product of their product and officially launched with their first currency route: GBP ⇄ EUR.
They founded TransferWise (now Wise).

One of TransferWise’s biggest early breakthroughs came from a controversial marketing stunt. In 2012, employees marched naked through London, holding signs exposing hidden bank fees. The stunt went viral, attracting significant media attention and new customers for the brand.
The following year they received $6 million in funding from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and in 2014 the company raised a $25 million (Series B) led by Richard Branson and Andreessen Horowitz.
By 2015, TransferWise had expanded to 36 currencies and was processing over $1 billion a month in transfers and from 2015-2019 the business continued to raise funds to support its growth, including a $280 million round in 2017 for global expansion.
In 2021, the company rebranded to Wise to reflect its broader offerings of multi-currency accounts, debit cards and business financial services and that year Wise went public on the London Stock Exchange at a valuation of $11bn. Today the company is valued at $12bn. All from a simple exploit these guys found in the banking system.
Which begs the question…what hacks have you discovered in your life? Because a simple hack could lead to a billion dollar business.
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