- Needs To Exist
- Posts
- Idea Of The Day - AI that judges your grocery receipts and upgrades your life choices - Create This.
Idea Of The Day - AI that judges your grocery receipts and upgrades your life choices - Create This.
Needs To Exist
May 06, 2025
In partnership with
GM. This is Needs to Exist (aka NTE), delivering you a startup idea that’ll make your health smarter than your habits.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today.
Daily Idea - Proactive Health AI
Follow the Exhaust
Live Smarter With Your Data
Inspired by the MFM Podcast
The One Liner
AI that tells you how to live better than your doctor.
The 140 character tweet (or X) version
You feed it receipts, sleep, workouts, and labs. It hits back with grocery swaps, gym tweaks, and smarter daily moves—automatically.
The Longer Story Version
The Problem
Most people don’t need more data—they need decisions.
You’ve got an Apple Watch screaming at you to stand. A Whoop yelling about strain. A fridge full of “healthy-ish” groceries. And a body that still feels off.
The problem? You’re reactive. Something breaks, then you act. But what if your data could act first?
Everyone talks about tracking. Nobody talks about attacking.
The Solution
What if there was an AI that goes on offense with your lifestyle?
You drop in your grocery receipts, workouts, sleep patterns, and any health metrics (blood panels, wearables, etc.). The AI studies everything and sends back:
Smarter grocery swaps
Tailored exercise shifts
Lifestyle fixes before symptoms show
It’s like having a performance coach, dietitian, and trainer that actually knows what you’re doing—not just what someone like you should do.
You live your life. It quietly watches and improves it.
How We'd Build It
🔵 MVP 1: Manual, No Tech (Budget: ~$1,000–$1,500)
Use Carrd + Typeform to describe the concept and collect interest
Run 15–20 interviews with health-conscious people
Ask for sample grocery receipts, sleep patterns, and workouts
Manually send back custom recommendations (mock AI)
Use Google Sheets + email to track engagement
If >30% want more, you’re onto something
Bonus Tool: Use Dexa.ai to summarize health insights if you want to fake “AI-ness” a bit
🟡 MVP 2: No-Code Prototype (Budget: ~$1,500–$3,000)
Secret Weapon: Use EdenAI to mix in APIs like food recognition or supplement suggestions
🟢 MVP 3: Real Prototype With Code (Budget: ~$3,000–$5,000)
Tool to Watch: Perplexity API for layering scientific references to make recommendations feel more “medically smart”
If You Have a Warm Community
Already tapped into a gym, subreddit, wellness Discord, or biohacking group? You’re golden.
Skip ads. Post the idea, offer free early access, and get instant feedback loops from people already tracking sleep and snapping grocery pics.
They’ll tell you what they need, what sucks, and what actually moves the needle in their routines.
You can go from zero to validated concept in a weekend.
Why It Needs to Exist
Because health data is stuck in dashboards, not decisions.
And the people who care enough to track this stuff are DYING for a smarter system to tell them what to do with it.
You’re not selling insights. You’re selling relief.
Relief from information overload.
Relief from guessing what’s healthy.
Relief from the slow slide into feeling “meh.”
This tool doesn’t just tell you what happened—it tells you what’s next.
And that’s the real flex.
Looking for unbiased, fact-based news? Join 1440 today.
Join over 4 million Americans who start their day with 1440 – your daily digest for unbiased, fact-centric news. From politics to sports, we cover it all by analyzing over 100 sources. Our concise, 5-minute read lands in your inbox each morning at no cost. Experience news without the noise; let 1440 help you make up your own mind. Sign up now and invite your friends and family to be part of the informed.
🚀 From Side Hustles to Billion-Dollar Swings
Get access to proven ideas across every category. New ones drop weekly.
🔍 No Fluff, Just Actionable Ideas
Blazing-fast search. Organized by what you care about.
🧠 Curated From the Sharpest Minds Online
We scan 100s of newsletters, research drops, and interviews so you don’t have to.
📈 Every Idea Comes With a Launch Plan
From “I like this” to “I built this” — we walk you through the steps.
Startup Ideas Hide in Everyday Exhaust
Most people are idea blind.
They think startup ideas come from the clouds. Or from some crystal ball moment. In reality, the best startup ideas come from your trash.
No, really.
You already produce startup ideas every day. You just call them “data exhaust.”
Receipts. Calendar events. Photos. Strava logs. Emails. Order history. Amazon returns. Bank statements. Texts to your mom about being tired all the time.
This is the exhaust of your daily life. Most of it gets thrown away.
But that’s the good stuff.
That’s the part startup founders dig into. That’s where you find real insight—because it’s stuff people already do, not stuff they might do.
Why this matters
Everyone says “solve a problem you have.”
But most people don’t actually see the problems they have—because they’ve adapted to them.
You manually track your budget every week in a spreadsheet.
You meal prep with 10 open tabs.
You rebook the same flight every month for work.
You drag and drop files into the same folder every damn day.
It feels normal. It’s not. It’s a manual process dying to be software.
If it’s repetitive, consistent, and unfun, it’s gold.
But instead of seeing the pattern, you just call it “adulting.”
That’s the blind spot.
How to use this
Want startup ideas? Here’s the exercise:
For the next 3 days, write down every single repetitive action you take on your phone or laptop.
Then highlight the ones that are:
Time-consuming
Boring
Require judgment or decisions
Ask yourself:
What’s the input? (What are you giving it?)
What’s the desired output? (What decision or result are you getting?)
Could a tool make that leap faster or better?
Boom. Now you’re in business.
You’re not just coming up with ideas. You’re catching the ones your life is already spitting out.
Tools to help
To do this well, you need a little visibility into your own exhaust:
RescueTime – tracks your digital habits automatically
Email Meter – shows who you email most and when
Bobby or Copilot – helps surface spending patterns
Raycast or CleanShot – track what you copy/paste and screenshot often (this reveals friction)
If you want to get real deep, run a “life audit” with a tool like Notion or Reflect — log all the workflows you run in your life. Patterns will pop.
Or if you're lazy, just share this newsletter with a friend and say: “Dude, what do I do every day that looks dumb to you?” That works too.
Bottom line:
Startup ideas aren’t hiding in Silicon Valley. They’re hiding in your routine.
Founders are just regular people who notice the friction and decide to build the fix.
So the next time you sigh and think, “Ugh, this again?”
Write it down. That’s the seed.
One More Meme
