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- Idea Of The Day - You Can Make Every Kid the Hero And Make Money Doing It. Build This.
Idea Of The Day - You Can Make Every Kid the Hero And Make Money Doing It. Build This.
Needs To Exist
August 01, 2025
In partnership with
GM. This is Needs to Exist (aka NTE), delivering you a startup idea that’ll make bedtime stories unforgettable and uniquely yours.
The NTE Pro vault doesn’t sleep.
Still just $99/year. Still stacked with 4,500+ startup ideas and wild new drops every week.
Most ideas fade before they see daylight.
NTE Zero to One is your fast-pass from “what if” to “it’s live.”
Check out all the past newsletters here
Here’s what we’ve got for you today.
Daily Idea - Stories Become Real
Schoolyard investor club
Your Kid, The Story Hero
Think your kid deserves to star in their own storybook?
NTE Zero to One helps you turn this idea into a real product, fast.
The One Liner
Turn your kid into the hero of every bedtime story.
The 140 character tweet (or X) version
Upload a few pics of your kid.
AI turns them into the main character in custom-illustrated storybooks.
New adventure every night.
The Longer Story Version
The Problem
Parents want to make storytime magical.
But most books? Generic. Mass-produced. No spark of them in it.
Kids light up when they see themselves in a story. But unless you're a Pixar animator with free time, that’s not happening.
You could hire an illustrator to create a custom storybook, but it’ll cost you hundreds and take weeks.
Meanwhile, AI is out here generating full-blown fantasy scenes from a blurry sketch. So why can’t bedtime books be just as personal as Spotify playlists?
The Solution
You upload a few photos of your kid. That’s it.
The AI learns their likeness, face, hairstyle, clothing vibe.
Then? You pick a theme:
🏰 Princess in a floating castle
🚀 Explorer on Mars
🦖 Dinosaur trainer in Jurassic Valley
🧙 Wizard apprentice with a talking cat
The AI generates:
A fully illustrated storybook starring your kid
Personalized text narration with your child’s name, personality, even favorite snacks
A digital version to read tonight
A physical print version if you want to order it
Imagine your 4-year-old flipping the page and seeing themselves riding a dragon with their teddy bear in tow.
That’s not a book. That’s a core memory.
How We'd Build It
Stage 1: MVP Playground (Low-Code)
Target: Early adopters and parents who tweet.
Use Pica AI or Scenario.gg to train a lightweight image model from a few child photos
Prompt Midjourney, or RunwayML for scene-by-scene illustrations
Use GPT-4 to generate child-friendly story text (age-tuned + personalized name insertion)
Output to a basic storybook viewer (Webflow + PDF generator)
Stage 2: Productized Magic
Target: DTC family brand / Shopify hero product.
Build story template engine: 20+ adventures, choose-your-path logic
Fine-tune models on common child features (to reduce training time)
Offer voice narration (via ElevenLabs with parental voice clone optional)
Build mobile app (Flutter or React Native) for bedtime reading + audio playback
Stage 3: Platform Play
Target: Long-term retention + viral growth
Add sibling/friend modes (multi-character books)
Monthly subscription: New story every week starring your kid
Shareable video highlights: AI animates a book scene as a short clip
Partner with schools: Educational stories that include your child as the learner
“Grandparent Mode”: Auto-generate and send a custom book monthly to grandma’s iPad
Why It Needs to Exist
Because kids deserve to be the main character.
Not just in your heart, but in the stories they grow up with.
This isn’t just AI for fun. It’s memory-making on autopilot.
And in a world where kids already see themselves through screens,
this is a way to make that reflection magical, not mindless.
You don’t need to be a writer.
Or an artist.
Or a bedtime genius.
You just need 3 photos and a little imagination.
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You had the idea during a meeting you weren’t even paying attention to.
Felt like a lightbulb. Maybe even the one.
By the time the meeting ended, you’d already second-guessed it.
“Is this too dumb?”
“Too simple?”
“Someone probably already built it…”
So you did what most people do:
Nothing.
NTE Zero to One exists for that exact moment.
The fragile window between spark and spiral.
We help you skip the doubt and start building fast.
$49 to stop letting good ideas die in Google Docs.
The Schoolyard Investor Club: Should This Startup Exist?
Location: A plastic picnic table behind the elementary school.
Time: Right after Lunchables.
Vibe: Serious business.
Kid VC 1 (Ellie, wears glitter Crocs):
“Okay, next pitch. It’s an AI that turns your kid or, uh, you into the main character of a personalized storybook. Like, you upload a couple pics, choose an adventure, and boom. You're riding dragons or solving mysteries before bedtime.”
Kid VC 2 (Malik, owns 3 fidget spinners):
“Does it let me be a ninja detective with a robot sidekick?”
Ellie:
“Probably. That’s like half the point.”
Malik:
“Okay but... does it print it out? I want to hold the book. Not swipe like a baby.”
Kid VC 3 (Zara, reads The Economist for Kids):
“They offer print-on-demand. Hardcover if your parents aren’t broke.”
Malik:
“Respect. I’m back in.”
Kid VC 4 (Jake, future Dropout/Unicorn Founder):
“This is genius. Kids get a bedtime story. Parents get 10 minutes of peace. It’s like melatonin with a plot.”
Zara:
“It’s bigger than that. You know how Spotify Wrapped makes everyone feel like the main character? This is that, but for 4-year-olds.”
Jake:
“Bet. I’d upsell animated versions. Charge extra for the kid’s voice as the narrator.”
Ellie:
“Ooooh, and you could add a sibling or best friend to the story. Like... dynamic duos. Limited edition runs. Collect them all.”
Kid VC 5 (Logan, wears a tie to school):
“Alright, hold up. I have concerns.”
Everyone:
Groans
Logan:
“What’s the CAC? How do they acquire customers? Parents are broke, tired, and spend too much on gymnastics already.”
Zara:
“Instagram ads. ‘Turn your kid into the hero.’ Boom. Scroll-stopper.”
Ellie:
“TikTok moms will eat this up. ‘Watch me make my toddler the star of her own fairytale 😭💖✨’, 2 million views easy.”
Jake:
“And once one parent posts it? All the others want theirs too. This is viral-grade parenting FOMO.”
Malik:
“Wait. What if the AI makes me ugly in the story?”
Zara:
“Use better lighting, bro.”
Final Votes:
✅ Ellie: “My little sister would lose her mind.”
❌ Logan: “Needs clearer retention strategy.”
✅ Zara: “Kid storytelling as a service? I’m bullish.”
✅ Jake: “Scalable, viral, prints money like a Scholastic book fair.”
❌ Malik: “Call me when it has ninja mode.” (Secretly still in.)
Verdict:
Three yeses, two fake no's.
Investor Club consensus:
“We’re in. Just give us equity and a dragon-riding version by Friday.”
Moral of the story:
If the customer is the kid, let them judge the idea.
Spoiler: they get it faster than most adults.
You Think You’d Never Build This…
Until you read it twice. Then whisper “wait… that’s kinda brilliant.”
Let’s be real, some startup ideas sound like a joke.
But jokes don’t get investor checks. These might.
Here are 3 from the NTE Pro vault that’ll make you laugh, pause, and maybe quit your job:
Middle-aged men love mowing lawns and optimizing credit card points.
This lets them earn cash back in stablecoins while buying mulch.
Low CAC. High dad energy.
She casts spells. She sells candles. She has 38,000 followers.
But she’s terrible at email.
This tool automates her fan rituals and keeps her cauldron full.
Trash pandas are now brand ambassadors.
This startup rewards users for spotting tagged raccoons and scanning them with NFC.
(Yes, this one’s real. Yes, we regret nothing.)
They sound dumb. Until they don’t.
Every idea in NTE Pro makes you say:
“Wait… someone should actually build this.”
4,500+ straight up good startup ideas.
$99/year. No gatekeepers. Just gold.
👉 Join NTE Pro and claim your next what-if.
Marketing ideas for marketers who hate boring
The best marketing ideas come from marketers who live it. That’s what The Marketing Millennials delivers: real insights, fresh takes, and no fluff. Written by Daniel Murray, a marketer who knows what works, this newsletter cuts through the noise so you can stop guessing and start winning. Subscribe and level up your marketing game.
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