👋 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 this business idea: AI dermatologist for men
Men’s skincare is booming, but still underserved. Most options are either drugstore basics or luxury brands built for women. Meanwhile, guys dealing with acne, razor burn, or uneven tone don’t want to book a dermatologist or guess products off YouTube.
The opportunity? An AI-powered skincare tool that scans a selfie, asks a few lifestyle questions, and generates a personalized routine. Think “Clearer skin in 60 seconds.”
Start with a monthly plan ($29/month) that includes:
Custom product recommendations
Progress tracking + reminder nudges
Ingredient-level insights on what’s working
Your wedge: focus on male-specific concerns and skip the fluff. From there, upsell into affiliate links, your own DTC product line, or even telehealth consults.
The keyword demand is real: 135K+ searches/month for “best facial cleanser for men,” and climbing.
Grow with before/after content, Reddit threads, fitness creators, and SEO around real pain points (“adult acne fix,” “razor bumps solution”).
Skincare is a $1.79B market growing 16.5% YoY and men are ready to spend if it feels private, smart, and results-driven. Build the product that helps them get clear skin without the awkward clinic visit. (More Here)
Steal this business idea — solo female travel safety reviews
84% of solo female travelers feel unsafe. TripAdvisor doesn’t tell you if it’s safe to walk alone at night. Reddit replies come from dudes who don’t get it.
The idea: A map-based review platform where women rate hotels, cafes, and neighborhoods on real safety:
“Felt safe walking alone at midnight”
“Busy streets only, avoid at night”
“Multiple harassment reports, avoid”
Why now:
Solo female travel is exploding. No safety-first platform exists. Big need, clear revenue, makes the world better.
Steal this business idea: Build a quit-anything app.
There’s a category of apps that print money quietly: addiction recovery tools.
One example? An app helping people quit vaping is making $70K/month, with 30K monthly downloads. Not because it’s flashy. But because it solves a deep, emotional pain people already want to fix.
The real opportunity? Most addictive habits follow the same pattern: Guilt → short-term motivation → failure → repeat.
Your app becomes the system that breaks the loop.
You can apply this model to:
Vaping or smoking
Corn (NSFW content)
Social media / phone addiction
Sugar / caffeine
Weed / alcohol
Gaming or gambling
Build one simple app focused on just one behavior. Don’t overthink features:
Habit tracker + clean streak counter
Daily motivation or behavioral rewiring tips
Personal reasons log (why they want to quit)
“Emergency” mode when cravings hit
Premium: accountability partner, AI coach, private community
Why this works: People already know they need to quit. They just need structure, nudges, and a little hope. If your app feels like “this time might actually work,” they’ll pay.
This isn’t a new idea. But it's a formula that works — again and again — because quitting is hard, and everyone’s looking for help.
Build one for a single niche. Make it feel personal. That’s your $10K–$100K/month app.
Steal this business idea: Product idea miner
Most people scroll Twitter hoping for their next million-dollar idea. But the real opportunities? They’re hiding in 1-star reviews and rage posts.
Build a simple tool that scrapes:
Lowest-rated reviews on G2, Capterra, App Store
Reddit posts with phrases like “frustrated with…” or “why is there no tool for…”
Quora threads asking for missing products
YouTube comments complaining about popular tools
Let users search by niche (“fitness,” “freelancer tools,” “CRM”) and surface a feed of real problems, feature gaps, and angry rants. That’s the raw material for product builders.
Monetize as a $5–10/month subscription. Upsell a “Weekly Drop” of top 10 ideas + pain points in your inbox. Add a Notion-style swipe file, or even a GPT feature that turns complaints into starter product specs.
Everyone wants the next big idea. Your tool helps them find it — straight from where the frustration lives.
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You don’t need a big audience, just the right approach.
What one founder learned after five startups (and four failures)
From a Reddit post where a founder shared hard-earned lessons across seven years and five ventures…
Startup 1 (2019): Burned pre-seed and two years of effort. Lesson? “If you build it, no one will come.”
Startup 2: Crashed during COVID. Merging offline and online is hard. Unit economics must survive bad times.
Startup 3: Lasted 2.5 years. Lesson? Better to be early and imperfect than late and mediocre.
Startup 4: Agency model. Stopped chasing VC, focused on making money. Lesson? Service before product is a smarter bet.
Startup 5 (now): $25K MRR in 6 months with 80% margins from a service + product combo. Lesson? Hire smart people, move fast, start with service to gain traction.
His biggest reflection: VC culture often pushes you toward high-stakes bets too early. But bootstrapping with services lets you stay alive, build real momentum, and eventually productize what works.
He made $3.7K in 30 days selling a PDF — in a language he doesn’t speak
From a Reddit post where a creator shared how he earned $3,753 in one month selling a digital product to the Arabic-speaking market…
Used ChatGPT to write video scripts in Arabic, ElevenLabs for voiceovers, and Canva to design short, clean TikToks
Grew a fresh TikTok account to 1,000+ followers by testing hooks and sharing tips on selling digital products
Then turned that content into a $9 Arabic-language PDF guide, uploaded it to Gumroad, and linked it in bio — sales followed
He now plans to repeat this model in other underserved languages and niches, using AI tools to scale quickly.
20-year-old making $1K/day cleaning windows
From a Reddit post where a college student shared how he turned a summer side hustle into a $1,000/day service business:
Started with $100 in gear, upgraded to $3,000 water-fed pole system
Hired 4 friends and now earns $1,000+ per day running a small cleaning crew
Gets customers through door-to-door sales in wealthy neighborhoods
Uses a simple script, stays warm and friendly, and handles objections calmly
Says the hardest part is knocking on doors, but rejection is worth it — people don’t want to clean windows themselves
Solo founder makes $15K–$30K/month selling services with one tool
From a Reddit-style post where Jean-Michel shared how he built a high-margin solo business using Go High Level (GHL):
Earns $15K–$30K/month consistently working just 20 hours/week, no employees
Offers services like FB/IG ads and email reactivation campaigns, all powered by GHL
Uses the platform for everything: pipelines, automations, SMS blasts, billing, reviews, and more
Calls GHL a “Swiss Army knife” for service businesses — packed with tools that deliver client value
His advice? Don’t sell software. Use software to sell services.
🗃️ SIDE HUSTLES & BUSINESSES
Bootstrapped form builder hits $10.5K MRR
Youform, a simple form builder launched by indie maker Davis, recently crossed $10,500 in monthly recurring revenue — all bootstrapped.
It took just over a year to grow from $0 to $9K+ MRR, competing in a crowded market dominated by giants like Google Forms, Typeform, and Jotform.
Built without funding or a team
Found traction by focusing on a niche angle
Now earns $10K+/month as a solo product
It’s another strong reminder: you don’t need a revolutionary idea — just a better take. Even in “done to death” categories, there’s room to win if you focus on underserved users and keep showing up. (More here)
$10K/month from a local media brand built on Instagram
Landon Huslig turned a side project about his city — Wichita Life — into a $10K/month media business. What began as a simple Instagram page in 2017 now reaches 120,000+ people across platforms and brought in nearly $120K in 2024 revenue.
Started as an Instagram account focused on Wichita (pop: 400K)
Now reaches 60K on IG, 31K via newsletter, and 120K total audience
Earns money mainly through local sponsors — found by writing down billboard ads
Hit $119,814 in 2024 revenue, out-earning his full-time engineering job
Still runs it as a side hustle
This playbook can work in almost any city. Local media is being rebuilt by creators — one niche newsletter or IG page at a time.
$7.5K/month from solving a common travel pain
Olga Marekova built Flywize, a travel compensation tool, after realizing most people don’t claim money they’re legally owed for delayed or cancelled flights. What began as a manual favor for friends became a SaaS product that now brings in $7,500/month.
Helps passengers claim €250–€600 in airline compensation
Takes a 30% cut of recovered claims (€20K–€30K/month recovered)
Has helped 2,000+ travelers, mostly in Europe, now expanding to the UK & US
Started as a manual service before turning into a full-fledged web app
Built by a first-time founder with no initial plan to create a business
This is a classic “do things that don’t scale” play: solve the problem manually, validate demand, then turn it into a product. There are likely dozens of industries where this playbook still works. (More Here)
One-person email directory making up to $1M/year
Chaz Yoon built Milled.com, a searchable database of e-commerce marketing emails — and turned it into a solo business making $768K–$1.2M per year. The site lets marketers study how top brands run their email campaigns, from subject lines to timing and design.
Launched in 2012 as a simple email archive
Initially monetized through affiliate links, now earns via paid subscriptions
Fully bootstrapped and run by one person
Used by marketers to analyze email strategy from top e-commerce brands
Revenue now comes from pro access to advanced features and filters
It’s a simple yet powerful model: Find a high-value format (like marketing emails)
Organize and expose it in a useful way
Monetize through niche subscriptions
The idea still has room in other verticals — imagine Milled for SaaS, Milled for health brands, or Milled for DTC skincare.
“Dumb” businesses making $2–3M/year — and why that’s a good thing
Nick Huber, a self-storage entrepreneur who’s made millions from “boring” businesses, says the key is to compete where you can win. Instead of going head-to-head with funded tech founders, he looks for industries run by people with clipboards and fax machines — who are still somehow pulling in millions.
He got into self-storage after seeing low-tech operators making $2–3M/year
Focuses on low-glamour, high-margin services in overlooked markets
Shares 200+ examples on his site: landscaping, pest control, painting, firewood delivery, etc.
The edge? Better systems, cleaner operations, and a little tech leverage
All business is hard — but some are less hard if the competition is stuck in the past. These “dumb” businesses are often goldmines waiting for someone to bring modern tools and smarter execution.
$12K/month from a solo-built IELTS writing assistant
Serhii Baraniuk built Writing9, a tool that helps people improve their IELTS writing — and it now makes $12K/month. He created it based on his own struggles learning English and turned it into a personal writing tutor that gives instant feedback and band score estimates.
Launched in 2020 as a simple tool (likely buildable with no-code today)
Now used by thousands preparing for the IELTS exam
Gives real-time grammar fixes, suggestions, and estimated scores
Fully bootstrapped and solo-founded
Affordable alternative to 1-on-1 tutoring
It’s part of a growing trend: exam prep tools for specific tests, niches, and skill levels. From crash courses to digital tutors, these micro-products can be low-cost to build — and high-value for stressed students worldwide.
$1K/month YouTube side hustle from just 10 hours a week
After 7 years of struggling online, Tilly Marks found a simple, sustainable path: create YouTube videos in a niche he cared about, then offer a related 1-on-1 service. Today, he earns ~$1,000/month working just 10 hours per week — half from YouTube AdSense, half from Zoom-based Christian counseling.
Records 10-minute videos on an iPhone sharing life lessons and faith-based wisdom
Converts viewers into paying clients for personalized support
Reached ~13K subscribers and built a low-maintenance, repeatable income stream
Doesn’t rely on fancy editing or expensive gear — just consistency and value
This model can work in almost any niche:
Gaming → coaching
Fitness → custom plans
Finance → 1-on-1 advice
Language → tutoring
All you need is a skill that helps people — and content that shows it.
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