The Exception Desk: $100K MRR Across 55,000 Clerkless Stores
Micro-markets crossed 55,770 U.S. locations with nobody working them, and a June 2026 FTC consent order forces the 70% kiosk incumbent to open its integrations for a decade.
IC: Capital Flows
Funding rounds, grants, and acquisitions that point to where capital is betting next.
Every HVAC Warehouse Has a $25-a-Pound Reconciliation Problem
HVAC shops running 8 to 25 trucks buy refrigerant at $25 a pound and cannot document where it goes. Every tracking product on the market starts in the wrong place.
The $10,000 Empty Chair: Dental Staffing's Dallas Opening
Seventy percent of recruiting dentists call the search very or extremely challenging, and every empty chair burns near $10,000. The gap sits between Indeed and an $8,000 recruiter.
The $495 Cremation and the $10,200 One, Same City
Federal law has required funeral price disclosure since 1984. Only 12% of families ask, 18% of homes post online, and identical cremations vary fivefold in the same market.
The $79 Weekend That Sells a $2,000 Camera
Independent camera stores already credit rental fees toward purchases on spreadsheets. Lumoid died building the marketplace version. The software layer that measures rental-to-purchase conversion is still unbuilt.
Fibermaxxing's Week-Two Problem: A $40K MRR Retention Play
Searches for fibermaxxing are up 115%, yet DTC fiber brands lose most subscribers before shipment two. Every retention tool fires at cancellation. Nobody owns the weeks before it.
The Aftercare Concierge: $599 to Close Out a Life
Cremation unbundled the American funeral, but the 500 hours of post-death paperwork stayed. Empathy, Cadence and ClearEstate sell software to organize that work. Nobody sells it completed.
The 75% Commission Heist: TikTok Shop's Refill Economics
TikTok Shop did $11.8 billion in six months, and a buried subscription rule means affiliate commission is paid once. The refill order is where the margin actually lives.
The Anti-SaaS Heist: 19,163 Contractors, One Downloadable File
ASHRAE charges $6,580 for a newsletter placement that averages 77 clicks. A verified local list of Texas HVAC contractors is a different asset, priced by different logic.
Clay Is Worth $5 Billion and Ignores the Physical World
Signal-based selling turned job changes and website visits into a $5 billion category. Zoning permits, parcels, and demolition filings still reach nobody's CRM, and that gap is a business.
The $750 PDF That Outruns the Census
Census data lags by years while storefronts turn over weekly. Open POI change files expose that gap, and multi-unit operators already budget for location intelligence upstream of site selection.
The Creator Lift Audit: A $10K/Month Measurement Business for Tourism Boards
Tourism New Zealand spent NZ$9.4 million on creators and couldn't isolate what it bought. Every regional destination board holds the same gap, and already pays for evidence.
Front Office Bottleneck: $15K MRR Hiding Inside School Phone Bans
Twenty-eight states now ban phones bell-to-bell, and every parent message routes through the front desk. ParentSquare already shipped against the problem. The intake layer underneath is still open.
The Customs Recovery Desk: $37 Billion Nobody Has Claimed
The Supreme Court voided IEEPA tariffs and CBP has moved $100 billion. What's left is $37 billion trapped behind broken records, dormant ACE accounts, and brokers who don't call back.
The Office Exit Marketplace: $6,850 Per 50-Person Move
Two hundred million square feet of office leases expire by 2027, stranding premium used office furniture a few miles from the companies about to buy new.
The Line-Review Window: $20K MRR Hiding Inside Store-Brand Growth
Store brands hit a record $282.8 billion, yet the co-manufacturers behind them still pitch blind. The gap between retailer line reviews and factory capability is a business.
The 14MB Model Behind a $798K Legal Software Business
A 14-megabyte open model and the ABA's Formal Opinion 512 point at the same gap: deposition review that extracts, cites, and never leaves the laptop.
The $2.3 Billion Fine Print Behind Your Free Home Battery
Base Power raised $1 billion at a $13 billion valuation. Virtual power plant contracts now bundle free batteries with electricity supply, and nobody is underwriting the deal homeowners sign.
The Capital-Case Compiler: $3,500 Dossiers for Machine Shops
The SBA's first Critical Suppliers Prize exposed a gap: 239,000 US manufacturers make six-figure equipment decisions with no assembled capital evidence. One operator can productize the proof.
The $79 Crash-Test Dummy for SaaS Signup Flows
Synthetic-user startups sell predictions that research keeps disproving. The narrower play: browser agents that crash-test a SaaS signup flow before launch and return reproducible defects, not opinions.
Austin's Messy Permit Data Is Worth $10K a Month
Building permit records sit behind 91,438 local governments in incompatible formats. Shovels raised $6.5 million normalizing them nationally. One metro, ten jurisdictions, and provenance is the opening left.
The Overflow Desk: $18,900 a Month From HVAC's Declined Calls
HVAC shops decline booked-intent calls all summer while competitors sit on open service windows. Contractor referrals already happen informally in every metro. The question is who formalizes them and collects.
The $55K MRR Kill Switch in Front of OpenAI
Flat-rate AI products pay variable inference bills with no ceiling. OpenAI softened its own spend cap, Portkey gates budgets to Enterprise, and LiteLLM's enforcement has open bugs.
The $10,000-Per-Violation PDF: Age Compliance for Indie App Studios
Google's Play Age Signals goes global before December and Apple's Declared Age Range is already live. The signal is free. Proving what you did with it isn't.