BUSINESS IDEA | VENTURE STARTUP

Spotify for Sleep

Yawn and order

Available Domain: Snoozify.ai

1. Problem/Opportunity❓

The Problem/Opportunity: Sleep is sacred. But our modern way of living means few of us truly prioritise sleep. And the second we can’t sleep we turn to the one thing that keeps us awake even longer…

But still, millions of people around the world use their phones to fall asleep, listening to podcasts, audiobooks or videos all to help them nod off. And this works well, until you get hit on an ad which jolts you awake. So why not build a product purpose built for sleep? Think Spotify for sleep, but without having to pay those pesky royalty fees which make it so hard for Spotify to make any money. Here’s the plan.

Market Size: The global sleep aid market was valued at $64 billion in 2022

2. Solution ✅

The Idea: A sleep-focused audio streaming app that curates calming music, stories, and soundscapes to help people fall asleep faster

How it Works:

• A user downloads the app and selects what content they want to listen to on the app (music, narrated story, soundscape etc.)

• The app then recommends long, ad-free, AI generated playlists of this content which the user can then listen to while they fall asleep

• The app integrates with their wearable device (like Oura or Apple Watch) to monitor when they wake up, what content makes them fall asleep the fastest etc. and optimizes the content over time

Go-to-market: Target Millennials and Gen Z (18–40), working professionals, and students who are more likely to use these types of devices to sleep

Business Model: Free tier with limited access and popup ads (when a track is selected). Premium tier for unlimited, ad-free access

Startup Costs: You’ll need some cash to get this off the ground to build the app, generate the content and host it too.

3. How You’ll Get Rich 💰

Exit Strategy: Exit to Calm or maybe even Spotify themselves (why not?)

Exit Multiple: Consumer subscription apps with decent retention typically exit at 5x–10x ARR

TOGETHER WITH OMNISEND

Boring Marketing That Delivers BIG Results

The thrill of not knowing how something will turn out? That’s what gets your heart racing, right?

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With marketing, you want predictability. So predictable, it’s almost boring.

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At Half Baked, we only recommend tools that actually deliver. That’s why we partnered with Omnisend…because they’re the real deal.

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DRUNK BUSINESS IDEA

Social Battery Necklace

• Are you socially exhausted? Do you long for a polite way to say “please don’t talk to me” without actually saying it?

• Introducing the Social Battery Necklace™. This sleek, LED-powered pendant lets everyone know how socially charged (or drained) you are

• It’s the world’s first wearable emotional power gauge that says what you’re too passive-aggressive to say out loud and makes sure that everyone knows exactly how to approach you.

Vote

• ✅ Shut up and take my money

• ❌ It’s a no from me dawg

JUST THE TIP

Trend 📈: Raw Honey

• Consumers are increasingly seeking natural, unprocessed sweeteners to use in their recipes. And raw honey fits this purpose perfectly.

• Raw honey is prized for being single-ingredient and unfiltered, aligning with demand for traceable, minimally processed foods.

• It's gaining traction in the functional foods space used in energy gels, immunity shots, and infused wellness blends (e.g., turmeric or CBD).

Business Ideas

• "Adopt a Hive" Program: Customers fund part of a beehive and get quarterly shipments of raw honey + updates.

• Raw Honey for Athletes: Develop a line of honey-based pre-workout and energy gel products.

TOGETHER WITH KIXIE

Andy Elliott’s Secret to Scaling to 9 Figures? Kixie.

Every day, people ask Andy how he grew The Elliott Group so fast. His answer? 100 guys using Kixie’s Power Dialer.

5X More Connections, 10X More Sales

“If your sales team isn’t using an autodialer, you’re an idiot. Just book a free trial.” – Andy Elliott

Book a free demo today (and mention us for 10% off!)

THE MONEYSHOT

How Cancer Led to an $8bn Business

Cancer is something that’s touched all of our lives. Often with devastating consequences.

But for this family a cancer diagnosis led to the creation of an $8bn business.

This is their story.

Scott M. Smith (second from the right) is not your typical founder.

Because back in the early 2000s Scott was not coding or building businesses, he was working as a marketing professor at Brigham Young University (BYU). And in his role he had a big problem.

At the time, academic surveys were still largely done with pen and paper or clunky software that required technical expertise. But Scott envisioned a tool that would allow researchers to build and distribute surveys without needing help from IT departments or developers.

He shared the idea with his son, Ryan, who thought it had huge potential. But their world was rocked when Scott was suddenly diagnosed with throat cancer.

After his diagnosis Ryan, who was a student at BYU at the time himself, decided to take time off to help his father to recover. And during his recovery process, in order to keep themselves busy, they decided to build the product. What did they have to lose?

Once they had their prototype they began cold-emailing and cold-calling university professors, focusing on business schools. Their first client was a professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern who they charged $2,500 for a license. They were off to the races.

This was the beginning of Qualtrics.

After some early success in 2004 Ryan's brother Jared, a former Googler, and Stuart Orgill, Ryan’s friend from BYU, joined the business too.

And for the next decade the team executed flawlessly. Ryan and his team were laser-focused on building a profitable, sustainable company. Which is why they bootstrapped the business for the first 10 years of its life. But around 2012 the business hit an inflection point.

By 2012, they had a team of 200 employees, were serving thousands of users and were generating tens of millions in ARR, But they knew they could do more…

Ryan and his team knew that Qualtrics could expand into other verticals beyond academic research, but in 2012 they finally pulled the trigger and expanded the platform beyond surveys to become an “experience management” platform for measuring and improving customer, employee, brand, and product experiences.

To support this change in strategy they raised $70m in 2012 from investors like Sequoia and used this as a launchpad for the next phase of the business. And boy did it take-off.

By 2018 Qualtrics was generating $400m in ARR and was ready to go public at a $4bn valuation. But days before it was due to go public Qualtrics was unexpectedly acquired by SAP for $8 billion in cash in a shock move that caught the tech world off guard.

SAP later spun off Qualtrics via IPO in January 2021, valuing it at $15 billion. An amazing deal for all involved.

And the interesting thing about this story is that it all stemmed from something so tragic. Without Scott’s diagnosis (which he fully recovered from thankfully) maybe they would have never started Qualtrics. I guess we’ll never know.

But what we do know is that life is short, something Scott and his family realised in the moment he was diagnosed. That’s something we all need to internalize.

None of us have as much time as we think, so if you have an idea, you don’t have a second to waste. It’s time to start.

Now.

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