Sam and Sean evaluate a series of startup ideas and trends, sorting them into “good crazy” (promising, unconventional ideas that could work) and “bad crazy” (ideas that sound exciting but are unlikely to succeed). The conversation spans pet tech, memorial AI, wellness hardware, VR job training, prediction markets, experiential retail, print media, and the growing “dumb phone” movement.
Pet Chat — AI dog collar that translates barks
A Chinese startup claims 95% accuracy in translating dog barks into human-readable needs using a smart collar.
Sam is skeptical because experienced dog owners can already distinguish barks (doorbell, bathroom, food, attention), and there’s no clear way to verify the accuracy claims.
Sean notes the broader pattern in pet products: outcomes like “is my dog happier?” are inherently unmeasurable, which is both a risk and a feature of the category.
Verdict: Bad crazy — the problem isn’t hard enough to solve for most dog owners, and verification is nearly impossible.
Superbrain — Chatting with deceased loved ones
A Chinese startup lets users upload video, audio, and personality data of deceased relatives, then chat with an AI version of them on a handheld device.
Sam finds it emotionally powerful but potentially heartbreaking; Sean likes the concept and calls it good crazy.
The name “Superbrain” fits a pattern of Chinese companies choosing slightly off English names (like “Airart USA Inc.” or “American Cowboy Inc.”) that feel endearingly NQR (“not quite right”).
At-home hyperbaric chambers
Following the trend of saunas and cold plunges moving into homes, startups are now building consumer hyperbaric oxygen chambers.
Sean sees potential because, like cold plunges and saunas, hyperbaric chambers could become a visual “wellness flex” on Instagram.
Challenges: they’re technically medical devices (FDA clearance issues), pressurized oxygen in an enclosed space carries safety risks, and the form factor is harder to make attractive than a simple cold plunge tub.
Sam suggests a sleep-focused canopy version (like altitude training tents for athletes) or even just an astronaut helmet design.
Verdict: Good crazy, but regulatory and design hurdles are significant.
Blue-collar Meta learning — VR job training on Quest
Meta Quest apps now teach HVAC repair, welding, plumbing, and electrical work through hands-on VR simulation.
Interplay Learning (Austin, Texas) is the leader, offering hundreds of hours of trade training that can lead to certification. Skillvery does welding and painting simulations.
There are roughly 500,000 unfilled HVAC and plumbing jobs in the US, and traditional training is slow, expensive, and sometimes dangerous on real equipment.
Sam’s friend runs “Hoffman University,” a months-long in-person HVAC training program, confirming the massive demand.
Verdict: Good crazy — the need is real, the technology fits, and gamified training could scale.
Endpoint Arena — Prediction markets for clinical trials
A platform that lets people bet on outcomes of biotech clinical trials (e.g., whether a specific drug will get FDA approval).
Built on Polymarket-style event contracts; prices reflect crowd-estimated probabilities and can be more accurate than individual expert predictions.
CEO Michael Fischer (Stanford PhD in economics and computer science) argues these markets could “democratize” trials and speed up science by incentivizing early signal detection.
Sam and Sean are intrigued but don’t fully understand or buy the claim that prediction markets would meaningfully accelerate scientific research.
Verdict: Bad crazy — interesting mechanism, but the “why” feels more like gambling dressed up as science.
Cleveland Schvitz — Bathhouse plus steakhouse
A 98-year-old Jewish bathhouse in Cleveland combining Russian-style steam rooms, cold plunges, and massages with giant T-bone steaks and cocktails.
$165 per person covers drinks, steam, cold plunge, and a full meal. Phones are ringing off the hook with reservations.
Recently opened to women and co-ed days after decades of being male-only.
Sean compares it to Othership (“SoulCycle for sauna”), where he’s an investor — a high-end communal sauna/breathwork experience with music, eucalyptus, and guided sessions that puts people into a trance-like state.
Both tap into a broader trend: people don’t go for the fitness or health benefits per se — they go to change their state (mood, energy, presence). Sean predicts “state” will become a defining concept over the next decade, much like “generative” is used now.
Verdict: Good crazy — not even that crazy, just a great social experience.
Funday Press — A newspaper with only fun content
A physical newspaper created by a prolific board game designer (involved with Cards Against Humanity) that contains only crosswords, sudoku, comics, and games — no depressing news.
Competitors include the Sunday Club (same model) and NYT Games, which has 1 million paying subscribers at $5/month ($60M ARR).
Sean is also fascinated by a crossing guard named Christine who earns $14,000/month from a physical newsletter about her job — proof that quirky, tangible, “janky” print products can find paying audiences.
Verdict: Good crazy — taps into the “cadulting” (adult + kid) trend of adults seeking nostalgic, low-stimulus entertainment.
Dumb phones — The anti-smartphone movement
Sean bought a $25 TCL flip phone from Dum.co that works as a forwarding device: calls and texts from his iPhone get routed to the flip phone, and replying is deliberately difficult (old-school T9 keypad).
The company is ~4 months old, 4 employees, self-funded by a founder who previously sold a company. It started as a “one month without a phone” challenge that proved impractical, so he built a compromise.
CNN ran a brain-scan ad campaign for the brand showing improved focus and memory after two weeks of use — Sean calls it the best ad he’s ever seen.
The r/dumbphones subreddit has ~200,000 subscribers and growing fast.
Sean’s prediction: if Apple released a flip phone or dumb phone mode, they could sell a billion units. Apple is rumored to be working on an “iPhone Fold.”
Separately, an Instagram creator named Cat GPT (400K–600K followers) built a retro rotary/corded landline phone that pairs via Bluetooth to your smartphone. She sold $800K in 5 months and is tracking toward $5M ARR in 2026. She plans to expand into a “Cat Labs” line of anti-smartphone products (alarm clocks, phone jails, GPS devices).
Zach Yadegari (teen founder who sold his calorie-tracking app for $50–100M) just launched Flow — a physical alarm clock brick you place across the room. Your phone alarm won’t stop until you get out of bed and tap your phone to the brick, breaking the doom-scrolling-first-thing-in-the-morning habit.
Sam uses “The Brick” app to restrict his phone to only essential apps depending on context (family outings vs. workouts). He deleted social media entirely and found that without it, there’s little reason to pick up the phone.
The core insight across all these products: the moat is the brand, not the technology. These are marketing-driven businesses that give people permission to disconnect. The real product is a return to the physical and the real.
