5.5 KiB
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.