👋 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.
Steal these ideas: From HVAC meltdowns to photo chaos - 3 overlooked $10M startup ideas.
From reddit: €400 from a travel blog, $1 widget making $$$, and 10 proven hustles.
Side hustles: Artists, bots & fake monks are making $500 to $350K/month
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🥷 STEAL THIS BUSINESS IDEA
Cross-Cloud Missing Photo Backup Checker.
Aggregation theory lives on.
Between your company and your personal life, you probably have photos spread out across iCloud, Google Drive/Photos, Dropbox, etc.
A simple service that pulls those into a single dashboard and gives you a full-spectrum view of all image assets in your life could be genuinely more useful.
I mean, Apple’s new UX for the Photos app is pretty terrible anyway, right?
HVAC Failure Maintenance Platform.
If you’re in the US, you know that we love our air conditioning. If you’re in Europe, I’m sorry but you’re missing out.
If you’ve ever had your HVAC unit break though, you know real pain.
If it’s a commercial system, neither the tenant nor the landlord often thinks they should have to pay for it.
If it’s residential, sometimes that still happens but the bigger problem is that the tenant has to actually live without it for some amount of time without another place to go.
But most failures are pretty predictable if only you were able to collect data on the system as it runs.
This data would save on having to do unnecessary checkups and also alert you to failures before they happen.
You’d need to produce a small hardware device to plug into HVAC units, but the costs would be more than covered by the pain saved down the road. You could sell subscription access to a monitoring dashboard + alerts as well.
I’d recommend focusing on the commercial market, likely in the southeastern US where usage is high and so is buying power.
Elder Care App For Managing Aging Parents.
With birth rates continuing to fall, we’re going to see more capital be allocated towards ideas that help seniors.
This makes sense, younger generations are busier than ever, more likely to live further away than in the past, and there are simply fewer of them but seniors will still need support managing parts of their health and lives.
The last thing they or their kids want is for them to have to manage a bunch of devices and notifications on their own.
An app that acts as an aggregator, that alerts and summarizes health trends for trusted members of their family, would be genuinely useful. It could also provide a more streamlined way of managing their own health, with all of their considerations in one place.
Scraped 112K comments to uncover the 10 most proven side hustles.
From a Reddit post by HappyHippo95 who used Grok and Gemini to analyze 112K+ comments across Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok & X to find legit, low-investment hustles:
Offline side hustles:
Odd jobs on Taskrabbit
• Tasks like assembling furniture, lawn mowing, pressure washing
• Flexible hours, consistent leads, no special skills neededDog sitting & walking on Rover
• Short walks → builds client trust → longer paid stays
• Some avoid doggy daycares and pay well for reliable sittersSenior companion services
• Offered via Care.com, Nextdoor, or local Facebook groups
• Tasks include rides, company, errands — no medical training neededHost paid local meetups
• Organize events (networking, dating, etc.) and charge tickets
• Use Facebook Events or Meetup to promoteAirbnb experiences
• Walking tours, bar crawls, couples photography, etc.
• Works well even in semi-touristy areas
Online side hustles:
Quiz videos & Reddit stories using VUBO
• Post on YouTube Shorts & TikTok
• Earn via digital products, affiliate links, or brand promosAmazon KDP: Niche self-help books
• Think: “Guide to Rescue Greyhound Training”
• Use AI for outlining and scaling to multiple titlesEtsy Print-on-Demand
• AI-made designs (ChatGPT) → mugs, shirts, candles
• Most use Printify for automated fulfillmentUGC for brands (User-Generated Content)
• Platforms: Billo, Collabstr, Fiverr, X
• Find a niche (e.g., wellness) and pitch brands using simple demos
What makes these legit?
Repeated mentions across communities
Low upfront cost
Reported by actual people doing the work
Earns €100–400/month from a small local travel blog
From a Reddit post by Whitney who built a niche site with no hacks, no spam, just useful content and affiliate links:
What she does:
Runs a small travel guide focused on her local area
• Topics like: airport transfers, places to stay, local day trips, money-saving tipsAlso writes guest posts on other travel blogs to drive SEO and backlinks
No social hacks, just useful evergreen content
How she earns:
Affiliate links placed contextually in blog posts
No banners, no pushy CTAs just helpful links for travelers who are already ready to book
Her top affiliate platforms:
Kiwitaxi – earned €100+ from a single €1,000 transfer
Airalo eSIM – “especially useful”
Travelpayouts – a hub for travel-related affiliate programs
What she likes about it:
Low maintenance: write once, earn passively
Income spikes when articles rank on Google or during travel season
Commissions often come weeks after a user clicks — long-tail revenue
What’s not perfect:
Monthly income fluctuates:
Low months: €50–80
Good months: €100–400
“Slow and boring” work — but very stable and semi-passive
There’s room for multiple niche travel guides per city — especially in tourist hubs. It won’t make you rich, but it can pay a few bills with content that keeps working after you stop.
$1 feedback widget became his highest-earning side project
From a Reddit post by Jeremy who built a “vibe-coded” tool in a single day — and now it pays him monthly:
What he built:
A dead-simple, embeddable feedback widget for his own projects
Built in one day after finding existing tools were buggy or overpriced ($20–$50/month)
Called onedollarfeedback — because it literally costs $1/month per site
Why it works:
The price is so low that most developers don’t bother copying or rebuilding it
Super lightweight: feedback goes straight to email, no dashboards to manage
Self-hosted, easy install snippet, minimal effort for users
Traction:
People started using it after he embedded it in his own sites
First sales came in without fancy marketing
Now it’s the side project that earns him the most money, despite being built in a day
Key insight:
“Many long-term users beats few short-term users.”
Not all SaaS has to be fancy. A $1 product solving a real annoyance — delivered simply, can scale beautifully. What other 1-day tools could you build like this?
🗃️ SIDE HUSTLES & BUSINESSES
Make passive income from your art: She earned $864/month from a postcard club.
Dean (and earlier, another artist) used StampFans to turn simple monthly designs into a passive income stream. Instead of printing, packing, and mailing her art, StampFans did all the heavy lifting. All she had to do was upload her artwork and share the link.
Charges $12/month for a monthly postcard
StampFans takes a flat $3 fee, artist keeps $9 per subscriber
72 subscribers = $864/month with zero logistics
Uses Canva or other design tools to create postcards, zines, or letters
No inventory, shipping drama, or customer service headaches
What you can send:
6x9” postcards (art + message)
8-page folded zines
Full-page pen-pal-style letters
It’s like Patreon, but way simpler. No constant content grind, no merch stress, no algorithm chasing. Just one piece of art per month, delivered physically, to people who actually want it.
If you’re an illustrator, poet, photographer, or hand-lettering artist, this might be your easiest path to recurring income.
$500/month from an AI cold call bot, with zero marketing
Cold Call Gym is a simple tool: dial a number, practice your cold call pitch with an AI, and get feedback via SMS. Built by a solo founder (duckkg5), it now earns $500+/month with 3–5 new users joining daily, all without a single ad.
No downloads, no accounts, just call and pitch
Paid plan: $39/month for sales reps who want regular practice
One-third of traffic comes from ChatGPT recommending it organically
Proves a key trend: AI assistants are the new search engines
The genius part? The phone format is dead simple and endlessly remixable.
Ideas for other niches:
Job interviews: practice common questions via AI
Customer service training: simulate tough conversations
Language learners: talk with an AI native speaker
HR & management: rehearse feedback or difficult chats
Negotiation drills: practice high-stakes asks in private
Build a micro-tool around a specific anxiety or communication skill and let AI do the distribution. (Hacker News)
This AI monk may have earned $350K in just 4 months
Yang Mun, a serene East Asian “monk” sharing calm, quote-driven wisdom on Instagram, has racked up millions of followers and serious revenue. But here’s the twist: he’s not real. Every video is AI-generated using Google tools, from the visuals to the voice. That didn’t stop fans from buying up his e-books and engaging with his “teachings.”
Videos feature peaceful scenes, monk robes, and generalized Eastern wisdom
Accounts have 2.5M+, 1M+, and 1.4M followers across Instagram and Facebook
E-books priced $10–$50 have sold 7,000+ copies, potentially generating $70K–$350K+
Created by an AI storyteller linked to digital marketing firm Shalev.H
Not disclosed clearly as synthetic, despite Google’s SynthID tagging it as fully AI
The takeaway? We’re entering a wave of AI-generated influencer brands that scale emotional connection and output faster than any human creator. Yang Mun tapped into wellness and spiritual content. Others (like Yeti-Boo) are finding traction in different niches.
Idea to steal: Create your own AI-powered influencer based on a historical figure known for wisdom:
Marcus Aurelius: stoic life coach for modern hustle
Sun Tzu: strategy and self-discipline in business
Socrates: curiosity-driven philosophy reels
Machiavelli: brutally honest takes on leadership
Confucius: ancient guidance with TikTok pacing
Build short-form content. Layer in ebooks, courses, or a paid community.
Let the character speak to modern anxieties and scale infinitely. (Spotlight)
This one boring YouTube video has earned $1 million
A Romanian creator uploaded a simple 10-hour fireplace loop to YouTube 9 years ago. No changing logs, no narration, just cozy fire sounds and flickering flames. The result? 157 million views and an estimated $1 million in ad revenue.
The video is likely a 30-second loop repeated for 10 hours
Channel has only ~120K subscribers, but one viral video made it rich
Part of a broader genre called ambient YouTube channels
Other examples mentioned by Sam Parr & Shaan Puri:
Old Money Brazil music
1980s finance aesthetic
Classical music that goes hard
And of course, the GOAT: Lofi Girl — 15M subs, $100K/month revenue
The kicker? You can now create ambient channels faster than ever using AI:
Use AI to generate visuals (e.g. Midjourney or Kaiber for looping scenes)
Use tools like ElevenLabs or ChatGPT for optional voiceovers or ambient scripts
Add royalty-free music or AI-generated soundscapes
Monetize via YouTube ads, channel memberships, or even Spotify
You don’t need charisma, editing skills, or even narration, just a vibe.
Ambient is the new passive.
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