🤑 $1M in 7 months from nurse crash course, $1K/month TikTok arbitrage & 30 AI agent ideas to steal.
$125K mailbox biz & $83K/month from messy spreadsheets
👋 Hi and welcome to today’s edition of Venture Radar — where we uncover real internet businesses making real money, and break down how they do it.
In today’s write-up, we’re sharing curated articles, posts, videos and business we found interesting on building boring and underrated businesses. Let’s deep dive into it.
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🥷 STEAL THIS BUSINESS IDEA
Steal these business ideas — the 2025 AI Agent Opportunity List.
Here are 30 startup ideas to build this year, sourced from a viral startup thread. Think: agents, tools, niche SaaS, and platform arbitrage most already validated, just missing execution.
A few that stand out:
“99agents” like 99designs, but run by AI agents. $9.99 flat pricing. Boring name, $100M potential.
SecondOpinion.com an agent for second opinions. Text it anything: dating, design, decisions. $20/month.
Agent for sales call recycling takes best calls, turns them into talking head videos and sales emails.
Newsletter scout find creators with great open rates but bad monetization. Partner, scale, split rev.
Agent that finds & fixes churn before it happens spot behavior patterns 90 days early. $400/month.
Other plays:
Buy small SaaS, add AI layer, 3x valuation
AI that clones your top employee from company docs
Platform spotting when companies accidentally rebuild the same internal tools
The common pattern?
→ Pick narrow, high-pain problems
→ Use off-the-shelf AI
→ Charge real money
You don’t need a 10-year plan. Just pick one and build the MVP. Then sell it. (More Here)
Steal this business idea — AI Permitting-as-a-Service
You think the DMV is slow? Try getting a building permit approved in San Francisco.
It’s a nightmare of outdated systems, paperwork, delays, and human bottlenecks often taking months to process basic approvals.
The solution is obvious: an AI-powered permitting assistant.
Reads zoning/code data
Auto-generates documentation
Flags violations instantly
Prepares filings across cities/counties
But the real challenge isn’t tech. It’s sales.
Convincing government agencies to adopt anything new let alone AI is the moat.
That’s the opportunity:
Build with early adopters (small towns, private permit expeditors)
Prove faster processing + fewer mistakes
Use that wedge to expand city by city
Once inside, you become the default infrastructure.
Feels like OpenGov for the AI era slow to start, massive once embedded.
$955 in First Month From a Porn-Quitting App
Posted on Reddit by a solo founder sharing their early win building a habit-change app.
Made $955 in the first month including $540 in a single day
All organic traffic, no paid ads
Removed paywall early to gather reviews and feedback
Users say it's genuinely helping them
Apps that help people break bad habits (like porn, sugar, doomscrolling, or vaping) tap into a deep emotional need. Users aren’t looking for features they’re looking for hope, structure, and results.
Similar idea you could build:
A minimalist dopamine reset app. Tracks screen time, blocks distractions, and replaces them with daily real-world challenges walk outside, drink water, call a friend. Simple missions, streak-based progress. Built for people trying to reclaim their focus and energy.
Habit-change is a space where utility matters more than polish. If your tool works, word spreads.
The brutal truth about running a business.
From a Reddit conversation where someone asked: “What’s one brutal truth you learned after starting your business?”
One top-voted reply hit hard:
"You don’t really own a business. You own a job. And if you stop working, the money stops too."
Another shared:
"Clients will ghost you after asking for 12 rounds of revisions. No matter how professional you are."
It’s a reality check entrepreneurship looks shiny on the outside. But inside, it’s late payments, scope creep, and realizing your dream job still comes with brutal clients. (More Here)
$15K profit from surfacing SaaS ideas using G2, Reddit, and Upwork Data.
From a Reddit conversation where a founder shared their journey...
Someone built a website that analyzed:
150,000 negative G2 reviews across 8,000+ SaaS products
Thousands of Reddit threads complaining about tools and workflows
5,000+ Upwork job listings that could be automated
They used AI to extract repeat problems, validate them against job demand, and uncover overlooked SaaS opportunities. The result? $15K profit so far by selling access to this curated insight database.
You can replicate this model for other platforms or verticals:
Look at app store 1-star reviews
Scrape support forums of big SaaS tools
Track Twitter complaints or “feature wish” posts
Package pain points into data products or MVP ideas. Charge for access. (More Here)
He turned a YC-backed startup into an 8-figure profitable business.
From a Reddit AMA by Aleem Mawani, founder of Streak CRM
Started Streak over a decade ago, went through Y Combinator, raised a small seed round
After 4 years of grinding, hit breakeven then grew steadily while maintaining profitability
Slowed hiring, prioritized sustainability, and now runs a bootstrapped, 8-figure ARR company
Aleem shared that the “profitable but not venture-scale” path gave him and his team more freedom they designed their ideal workday, bought back investor equity, and now run the company on their own terms. A compelling case for founders who want ownership and sanity over blitz-scaling. (More Here)
🗃️ SIDE HUSTLES & BUSINESSES
Her 3-hour crash course earned $1 million in 7 months
Sarah Michelle Boes passed her nurse practitioner exam in 2020 and needed money for a dental procedure. So she recorded a 3-hour Zoom crash course to help others prep for the same exam hoping to make just $500.
That course ended up helping 40,000+ students pass with a 99% success rate
It brought in $1 million in just 7 months
She later sold the company for 8 figures in 2022
If you’ve ever passed a tough exam as an adult, there’s a real playbook here: package your experience, turn it into a course, and help others win the same way. (More Here)
Turning a messy manual process into a $83K/month business
James Layfield started Samplify.ai to help companies clean up their bloated software stacks. But the AI didn’t come first manual grunt work did.
He spent months reviewing spreadsheets, exports, and messy software inventories manually
The insights helped companies eliminate tools they didn’t need and streamline operations
Once the process consistently worked, he automated it and now the business earns $83K/month
Start with the mess. If you can clean up chaos for someone especially in big companies you might just have a business worth automating later. (More Here)
The $125K/year local business you can start for $100
Mailbox installation and repair sounds boring but it's hiding a 6-figure opportunity in plain sight.
A Redditor made $9K in one week fixing 23 mailboxes in a neighborhood
Mailboxes typically need replacement every 10 years, which means thousands are up for repair in any city
Even capturing just 5% of the local market at $500/job could bring in $125K/year
Startup cost? Around $100 for paint, tools, and basic supplies. It’s a niche with low competition and high demand. (More Here)
She made $2,300 in 10 weeks with a brand new Facebook page
Tweetgirl shared how she earned over $2,300 in just 10 weeks all organically, from a fresh Facebook page.
Picked a niche (dating/relationships), created a page, and posted 1–2x/day
Focused heavily on reels, calling it the "secret sauce" for growth
Once eligible, turned on Facebook's monetization to earn from ad revenue
She notes she’s not even posting consistently yet and still pulled in over $2.3K. The potential is much higher for anyone willing to scale effort and output. (More Here)
$3,000+/month documenting his boring life
A faceless YouTuber called Salaryman Tokyo is earning thousands each month simply by filming his 9–5 life in Japan.
His niche?
Daily grind at a “black company” in Tokyo
Low-edit, phone-shot videos
Honest look at corporate life in Japan
In under a year, he’s hit 14M+ views across a few long-form uploads and dozens of shorts. Proof that even the most mundane lives if shared authentically can generate serious income on YouTube. (More Here)
Charging $1K/month per client to solve this TikTok problem
From a Reddit post, someone shared their friend’s side hustle helping businesses target UK audiences on TikTok a geography trick with real impact.
TikTok tends to give more reach if it thinks an account is UK-based
Many brands want UK/US views due to higher-value audiences
This guy charges £1K/month to solve that problem
He sets up new TikTok accounts, warms them up, posts daily content provided by the client, and even uses dedicated UK-based phones to keep the algorithm happy.
Smart geo-targeting arbitrage turned into a premium recurring service. (More Here)
Even people are doing same with US based location. You can check out this tweet.
$15.8K revenue in 1 month with this strategy
Lera runs Clipwing, a short-form video agency and pulled in $15.8K in October alone using one smart, scrappy tactic: permissionless marketing on X (Twitter).
She finds creators struggling with clips
Makes a sample clip from their long-form content
Posts it as a before/after edit on X and tags them
33% of the people she pitches this way become paying clients
It’s proof that solving the problem first is often better than asking for permission. Works well for video, but the same method can be applied to design, websites, newsletters, etc. (More Here)
🎥 VIDEOS TO WATCH
How to Use AI to Find a $1M Idea [Reddit, Claude].
He Makes $82,000/Day Selling Honey!
I Started a $20K/Month Pickleball Club for $200.
3 weekend businesses that makes $100k - no one talks about.
How to buy a business with no money in 2024.
💭 YOUR THOUGHTS
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