Minimum Viable - Oct. 29, 2025

🕵️ Case Manager for Armchair Detectives and Cyber Sleuths
😪 Tampa Startup Is Solving the Employee Loneliness Crisis
🐾 University of Cincinnati Startup Scene Is Booming
☕️ ‘Why We Sold Morning Brew’ - Motivation for Founders

🕵️ Case Manager for Armchair Detectives and Cyber Sleuths

IDEA: Since the release of Serial in the fall of 2014, true crime podcasts (and podcasts in general) have exploded in popularity. Stories of wrongful convictions, cold cases revisited, and whodunnits have gripped listeners’ attention for much longer than just the length of the episode. Fans are going to reddit threads, message boards, and show websites to discuss cases and explore more theories on their own. There is no real central repository for podcasters to upload evidence or other accessory content or a go-to platform for the true crime faithful to continue their content consumption. There is a demand for creators to monetize and listeners to get additional content.

PRODUCT: Create an online platform for true crime podcasters to upload content from their shows. This could be the podcast itself, police files, evidence, additional research, or anything else pertinent to a case. Allow listeners to follow shows, discover new ones, and access content and discuss with other listeners and even the podcasters themselves without leaving the platform. Give listeners or aspiring podcasters the ability to create their own cases and build their online evidence wall and share with other users. Help creators monetize with ads, subscriptions, or paywalling exclusive content.

MVP: Online platform for podcasters to upload accessory content and manage forums for communicating with listeners.

REVENUE MODEL: Commission-based. Take small percentage of ad or subscription revenue.

EXIT STRATEGY: Sell to a large podcasting company like Spotify to be integrated into their platform for 5x revenue.

Publication: Hypepotamus

Link: Tampa Startup Krew Social Teams Up With Tampa General Hospital to Tackle Employee Loneliness and Burnout

Summary: Tampa General Hospital (TGH) has partnered with startup Krew Social, a map-based social networking platform aiming to turn online introductions into real-life “hangouts,” to address employee loneliness and burnout. The platform allows hospital teams to create micro-events and uses an algorithm to recommend meet-ups among coworkers with shared interests; locations are revealed only to approved participants to maintain privacy. TGH’s innovation and talent teams co-developed the solution to boost social wellness, belonging and retention within the workforce.

Spin: This startup does a very good job addressing the loneliness aspect of the mission, but I am not so sure about burnout. Sure, being new in a town or job and not knowing anyone can affect your mental health, so I am glad a company is helping our medical workers and addressing that. As for burnout, we don’t need a startup for that. Companies simply need to hire enough employees, not overwork top performers, give adequate time off, and most importantly, not give employees a hard time when they decide to use their PTO.

Publication: UC News

Link: Meet the young talent reshaping Cincinnati’s startup scene

Summary: The article profiles young entrepreneurs from University of Cincinnati who are reshaping Cincinnati’s startup ecosystem. One is biomedical engineering student Amelia Wares, founder of the health-tracking app TissuTrak, created after her diagnosis with multiple conditions. Then there’s design student Gavin Weiss, founder of 3D-printed shoe startup Woove, which aims to innovate in footwear manufacturing. Marketing major Noelle Scheper co-founded the app Motiv for sports-team communication. And mechanical engineering student Grace Shorter launched The Culture Connection, a networking app for Black professionals. Their efforts illustrate how UC supports student innovation via its accelerator programs and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Spin: This is awesome! College is the ultimate place for entrepreneurship to thrive. For most people, it is the last time in your life that you can take a job that pays nothing and try to build it into the next unicorn with no repercussions. For these UC students, even if their ideas don’t work out, they will leave college with more experience than most of their classmates and hopefully the drive to create something even bigger.

There’s nothing like an acquisition story to get an aspiring founder fired up about starting a business. The elusive exit is something all founders are chasing, but it’s important that we hear from founders who have sold their company and tell about the very emotional decision.

IDEA: I am an avid soda drinker. It is by far my worst quality. Its delicious but I know its absolutely disgusting and terrible for my body. It seems like everyone is swearing off the sugary drinks, and I would like to join them, but I have just one question: Why are my only options for soda either a drink with three times the daily recommended value of sugar or gross concoctions of aspartame and sucralose? Why can’t I have a 12 ounce Cherry Coke that has 10-15 grams of sugar instead of 44?

Maybe a reduced sugar soda wouldn’t taste right, but I can guarantee it will taste better than most diet drinks and satisfy sugar cravings.

Send us an email! Let us know what you’re building, what you thought about today’s newsletter, or whatever else is on your mind.