The Stripe Play for AI Companion Apps (Collect the $5M Compliance Toll)
New York and California mandated crisis detection for AI companions. 337 apps need compliance infrastructure by January. None want to build it themselves.
$20K – $100K MRR
Scaling startup ideas with strong product-market fit earning $20K–$100K in MRR. Designed for small teams ready to automate, hire, and grow into real companies.
From 30-Day Challenges to Seven-Figure Platform
Creators are duct-taping 30-day challenges with Docs + drips. The wedge: “Seasons”—an advent-calendar format for transformation (daily unlocks, spoiler-proof sharing, finite finish line). 100 creators × $50K/yr = $5M GMV; a 10–15% take = $500K–$750K.
Agent-Ready Infra for Local Business (Don't Do AIO)
AI assistants are shifting from ranking links to selecting winners. Multi-location businesses will pay six figures annually to become the trusted source agents call first.
Blue-Collar Cred Empire
Fashion distributed workwear as identity. High-income professionals want the competence to match—and they'll pay premium retreat prices to earn it.
The Indie Drops Club
Main Street collapsed from missing infrastructure, not missing demand. Weekly verified drops with pickup networks create the ritual that turns local preference into $100K+ MRR.
Governance AI for Self-Managed HOAs
373,000 volunteer-run associations managing $120B annually with amateur controls and predictable fraud patterns, creating structural demand for purpose-built governance infrastructure.
The "Grandma-as-a-Service" Marketplace
When AI floods every category with free how-tos, human verification becomes the scarce resource worth paying for.
The $20 TikTok Launch Lab
A repeatable system for identifying, validating, and scaling visually demonstrable products through creator-native distribution and structured experimentation.
TikTok-to-SKU for Micro-Trends
Enterprise pays $50K+ for trend detection. Microbrands need execution speed. The gap is infrastructure that delivers shippable SKU packs instead of dashboards.
"Oh-Shit" Bar for WordPress
Most newsrooms use AI daily but lack pre-publish safety gates. When prompt remnants ship to print, screenshots go viral and Legal starts asking questions.
Offline Ritual Kits (aka the House Phone Comeback)
A Stanford grad's $280K handset launch proved people pay for phone boundaries—but the durable business is owning offline ritual formats, not selling another cute gadget.
The 5:30 Club: "Early Dinner" Category Play
Early dining bookings now exceed late-night slots. The opportunity is building recurring social infrastructure, not another deal marketplace.
B2B Human-Verified Content Engine
AI content abundance collapses trust while regulators demand proof-of-human. A productized agency selling verified founder media becomes the compliance layer, then the standard.
TikTok Food Trend Monetization
A century-old German cheese is selling out because a high school English teacher in Georgia found the laziest lunch in America. Viral recipes consistently cause grocery sellouts. The rails for shoppable content exist—but no one owns the trend-to-cart attribution layer yet.
"Small Brand Hollywood" for TikTok Shop
Video drives 58% of TikTok Shop's $33B GMV. The creative bottleneck creates infrastructure opportunity in the protocol layer above commodity UGC.
Compliance-First Script Engine for Beauty Creators
Beauty influencer trust dropped 8 points while ingredient transparency became Gen Z's top driver. The gap is a compliance infrastructure opportunity.
Org-level Link Hygiene Engine
Organizations accidentally export tracking metadata through pasted links. A focused DLP layer could claim the URL hygiene category before incumbents notice.
The Ugly Fruit Arbitrage (That Actually Works)
Industrial citrus waste holds verified bioactives. The arbitrage isn't making serums—it's becoming the certified supplier beauty brands depend on.
Vibe Coaching
Video verification is becoming mandatory across dating and professional platforms. Identity proves you're real—camera presence proves you're trustworthy.
Organic Ad Underwriting Platform
Meta validated organic-to-paid workflow. The $37B opportunity is cross-platform prediction, rights management, and routing intelligence that platforms won't build.
Defensible Agent Workspace
Agentic browsers are spreading faster than compliance can contain them. Regulated firms need attestable execution with defensible logs, not magic.
Creator Operations Platform for Home Improvement
Major retailers launched first-party creator programs. The infrastructure for managing multiple affiliate relationships across platforms doesn't exist yet.
Portal Automation Operations Service
Browser automation templates are commoditizing. The durable margin sits in maintenance contracts, monitoring infrastructure, and vertical-specific operational knowledge.
Model-Agnostic Agent Platform
DeepSeek's MIT release and MCP standardization created enterprise demand for agent governance infrastructure. Build the operational trust layer hyperscalers won't prioritize.