Minimum Viable - Oct. 14, 2025

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💰 Friendly Wagers Betting Platform
🛻 Slate’s New Electric Truck
🤖 California Regulating AI Chatbot Companions
🏈 Louisville Based Decision Making Tool EdjSports

IDEA: Every sports fan in the world knows the feeling. The team that you love and the team that your best friend would die for are playing each other this Sunday and you are 100% sure that your team will come out on top. Or you and your friends are talking sports and it quickly unravels into who knows the most. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to track picks across a game, season, or multiple sports to prove who is the smartest? Well, it’s time to prove who the ultimate “ball-knower” is.

PRODUCT: Create an online platform for groups to create free or paid pools to select outcomes of games. Include multiple sports and betting lines to create as many options as possible. Group admins will invite other players and each week, depending on settings, players will select overs, unders, favorites, underdogs, player props, etc. and track results in a leaderboard. Offer a free pool with limited features like single sport or season and a paid version that allows multiple sports, tracking year over year scores, and all other features.

MVP: Platform for groups to pick games and track results.

REVENUE MODEL: Freemium, basic version for free and paid for a monthly fee.

EXIT STRATEGY: Get acquired by a sports betting services like FanDuel or DraftKings for 8x revenue.

Publication: TechCrunch

Link: Slate Auto’s Electric Truck: See It First at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Summary: Slate Auto will unveil its first electric truck live onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, offering attendees an exclusive first look. Christine Barman, the company’s CEO, will lead a discussion on the challenges and ambitions of building a new EV hardware company. She will cover design, manufacturing, supply chain, and startup-scale production. Barman’s background spans leadership roles at Chrysler, Eaton, and HCL Technologies. The reveal aims to position Slate as a bold entrant in the commercial EV space.

Spin: I really wanted to hate the look of this truck, but it has an old Ford Ranger kind of feel that I really like. Or maybe every EV truck looks good compared to the CyberTruck? All consumers are looking for with an electric pickup is decent hauling abilities, durability, and a battery that lasts somewhat long. From all accounts, it seems like Slate Auto is poised to deliver.

Publication: TechCrunch

Link: California becomes first state to regulate AI companion chatbots

Summary: California has passed SB 243, the first U.S. law regulating AI companion chatbots, taking effect January 1, 2026. The law mandates safety features like age verification, warnings, crisis-intervention protocols, and requirements that chatbots disclose their artificial nature. It prohibits bots from posing as healthcare professionals and stops them from showing sexually explicit content to minors. Companies may be fined up to $250,000 per deepfake offense and must report self-harm incidents to the state. The law was in part spurred by tragic cases involving youth and problematic chatbot interactions.

Spin: Protecting minors from sexually explicit material and chatbots acting like doctors probably should have been in the first round of patches for AI chatbots, but better late than never. I believe there is a place for AI in healthcare, but at the moment, using ChatGPT as a supercharged version of WebMD is a bad idea. Hopefully, this California bill will inspire similar bills across the country and at the federal level.

One of my favorite episodes of the Middle Tech Podcast is from back in 2021. The episode focuses on the Louisville-based company EdjAnalytics; you may have heard of EdjSports. The interview with the company’s founder Sean O’Leary goes through the founding story and their business analytics side, to their shift to sports and analyzing football play by play, then from working with area high schools to working with the NFL. A great story and a great podcast, both from Kentucky.

Listen here

Personally, I prefer no ice in my drinks. But, I still like most beverages to be cold. It’s quite the conundrum, but it’s the cross I bear. Putting ice in some drinks are completely forbidden socially. Have you ever seen ice in milk or beer? Well, I believe I have the solution. Someone invent a contraption that can readily make food and drinks colder in a very short amount of time; like a reverse microwave oven. Simply place the can of beer in the Coldifier and in a minute and thirty seconds, you have a frosty cold one.

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