# Q2 Brainstorm — Hatchet & Loop Studio

**Date:** 2026-04-15
**Present:** Mira, Devon, Sofia, Theo

Annual Q2 ideation. We're hunting for our next side-project-that-could-become-a-product. Format: 10 minutes wild ideas, 3 minutes per idea on quick takes, then we vote on one to dig into.

## Round 1: Everything goes

(10 minutes, no filtering. We just throw stuff out.)

- A weather app that tracks your mood alongside the forecast (Devon)
- Meditation chime that learns your sleep cycle and chimes only at the right wake-window (Theo)
- A podcasting tool for non-podcasters — like, you record voice notes and it auto-edits and posts (Sofia)
- Craft beer subscription with detailed brewer notes you can read while drinking (Mira)
- AI sommelier app that tells you what wine to buy at Trader Joe's based on a photo (Theo)
- Office-plant-care subscription with auto-replacement when one dies (Devon)
- Neighborhood ride coordinator — like a private Uber pool for one neighborhood (Mira)
- Neighborhood compost coordinator — connect people with food scraps to people with active compost piles (Sofia)
- Cookbook app where you click "I'll cook this Tuesday" and it auto-generates the shopping list and sends it to your delivery service (Devon)
- AR home staging — point your phone at a room and it shows you what it would look like with different furniture (Theo)

## Round 2: Quick takes

### Weather + mood

Devon: "I'd use it." Sofia thinks the data correlation isn't strong enough to be useful — interesting concept but the science doesn't support a product. Park.

### Sleep-cycle meditation chime

Theo's pitch — exists already (Sleep Cycle, etc.). Differentiation would be the chime, which is hardware. Out of scope for a software-first studio.

### Podcasting for non-podcasters

Sofia: "There are like fifty of these." She's right. Skip.

### Craft beer subscription

Mira admits this is mostly her wanting it for herself. We're not in the logistics business. Skip.

### AI sommelier

Theo: "The model would have to be incredibly good at label recognition." Sofia: "And there's already Vivino." Skip.

### Office-plant-care subscription

Devon: "I worked at a place that had this. They were always sad plants." Operational nightmare, low margin. Skip.

### Neighborhood ride coordinator

Mira: "Saturated. Lyft and Uber both have pool features. Uber Neighborhood was a thing and they killed it." Skip.

### Neighborhood compost coordinator

Sofia: "Hear me out. Cities are mandating organic waste separation but most apartments don't have a composting option. People in single-family homes often have active compost piles and would love more material. There's a missing match-making layer." General agreement this is more interesting than the others. Theo: "How do we make money?" Sofia: "Eventually a small fee on the compost-pile-host side, but for MVP just free and prove the demand." Group lights up. We agree to dig into this in Round 3.

### Cookbook → shopping list

Devon's pitch. Already exists (Mealime, Plan to Eat). Skip.

### AR home staging

Theo: "IKEA already has this." Skip.

## Round 3: Compost coordinator deep dive

We spent 45 minutes on this. Notes:

**Who is the user?**
Two-sided market. Side A: apartment dwellers and renters who generate food scraps and want them composted (motivated by environmental values, sometimes by city mandates). Side B: people with active backyard compost piles who want more "browns and greens" — single-family homeowners, urban farmers, school gardens, community gardens.

Sofia thinks Side A is the harder side to acquire (weak intent — recycling-adjacent behavior). Side B is easier but smaller. The product has to be designed around Side A's friction points.

**Geographic scope.**
Hyperlocal — neighborhood-level, not city-wide. The whole point is short-distance handoff: Side A doesn't want to drive their food scraps across town. We're talking 5-block radius matches.

**Business model (later).**
Free at launch. Eventually: subscription for Side B (compost-pile hosts) — they pay to access more matches. Side A always free. Possibly partner with cities that have green-waste mandates (B2G channel).

**Technical approach.**
Web app first, mobile second. Map-based discovery. Identity verification light-touch (apartment dwellers are skittish about strangers; need trust signals). Match-and-message pattern, not real-time logistics.

**Competition.**
ShareWaste exists but is global and not focused on hyperlocal density. Some city-specific apps (NYC's GrowNYC). No one has cracked the neighborhood-density model.

**MVP scope.**
One pilot neighborhood. Sofia knows people in a Portland neighborhood (Sunnyside / Hawthorne area) where compost culture is strong. Start there.

**Open questions.**
- How do we acquire Side A (apartment dwellers)? They have low intent and lots of competing options (just throwing scraps in trash, paying a service, signing up for city pickup if available).
- What does the trust layer look like? Reviews? Vouching? Real-name only?
- Does Side B saturation become a problem fast (one compost pile can only take so much)? How do we route demand?

## Action items

- Sofia: write up the compost coordinator concept as a brief by next Wednesday. Take it to Mira and Devon for first read.
- Devon: research ShareWaste's user numbers and any teardowns of why they haven't dominated.
- Theo: sketch the trust-layer UX concepts.
- Mira: talk to Sofia's Portland contacts about doing user interviews.

Next meeting: 2026-04-29 — review brief draft, decide on go/no-go.
