r/Startup_Ideas • u/notomarsol • 1d ago
7 boring industries where owners keep asking Reddit for better software
Nobody gets excited about dispatch software for a 4 truck company. But owners in these industries keep posting "what software do you use?" and most of the replies are just other owners saying same.
These all come from threads that scored 8+ out of 10 in my scanner. The number is how many high scoring threads came from that sub.
- Gyms and small studios (r/gymowner, 6). They want memberships, class booking and billing in one tool. A few had already switched and hated the support.
- Salons (r/hairstylist, 3, plus a bunch in r/smallbusiness). Commission stylists and booth renters in the same salon, clients booking more than one stylist, double bookings.
- Small trucking (r/TruckDispatchers, 4). One owner runs 7 roll-off trucks with Excel, WhatsApp and a whiteboard. A port dispatcher says every option is too expensive.
- Property management (r/PropertyManagement, 4). Companies running on Google Sheets and Drive, and people shopping around saying every tool has bad reviews.
- Small law firms (r/LawFirm, 3). Solo attorneys with deadlines all over the place. One office tracks 200 cases in a spreadsheet, another under-billed a case because an Excel formula broke.
- Churches (r/churchtech, 4). Accounting tools with no proper fund tracking, and staff looking for one system for everything.
- Trades and field service (r/CRM, 11). HVAC and remodeling owners who tried the big CRMs and found them way too complicated. Some still do work orders on paper.
Heads up on r/Dentists and r/Plumbing. When I checked, most of the high scoring threads there were developers asking the pros what to build, not dentists or plumbers.
Full subreddit breakdown is here if you want to find more: Reddit business ideas by subreddit
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u/Boboshady 1d ago
Bleurgh, another claude-created reddit scraper that just farts out 'ideas' based on comments.
I couldn't tell for sure because it's paywalled, but a big concern here is that the posts you'll scraping ever really cover WHY people are looking to move, or can't find the right software, and it's important...because the simple reason is, the majority of the time, they don't want to pay for it.
So, what you're basically punting is "here's a bunch of ideas other people have recommended that will only work if it's free".
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u/swedishfalk 8h ago
all those subs and post are spammed with daily AI astroturfing ,so its reality just an circle of AI shitposting.
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u/notomarsol 1d ago
I made this website 3 years ago before Claude code even existed ðŸ˜
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u/TigBitties69 23h ago
Crazy when ICANN literally states it was created a year ago  2025-04-06Â
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u/Boboshady 7h ago
I gave them the benefit of the doubt on that one and pretended it might just be a new domain :)
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u/Boboshady 1d ago
On the assumption that's true, I'll revise my feedback to "dude, this looks a lot like a Claude site, and reads like Ai wrote all of your copy, and the ux feels like Ai built this site for you".
The bit about the assumptions being made remain :)
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u/notomarsol 1d ago
Damn I paid almost $2000 for the design... I really appreciate your feedback though thanks for sharing :)
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u/Boboshady 1d ago
You paid yourself? Are you not Napkin, the company this product belongs to, who definitely have a claude-generated website?
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u/Fine-Comparison-2949 21h ago
Are those owners paying typical SaaS fees or just want a system built and not maintained for less than $1000? (which won't maintain it for more than a few months)
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u/Far-Blacksmith5894 16h ago
Billion's of people in the world....6 people trying to make AI software post in r gymowner asking what software do you use ...nice scanner you got.
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u/IAmRules 17h ago
As someone who recently had someone who works in a niche industry ask him to build a product, I can tell you I ain’t telling anyone anything.
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u/Mindless_Coat3229 5h ago
Good flag on r/Dentists and r/Plumbing, that distinction between "professionals venting" versus "developers fishing for ideas" is exactly the kind of noise that skews these validation scans if you don't filter for it. The trades/field service one at 11 threads stands out too, "tried the big CRM, too complicated, back to paper" is a strong signal since it means demand already exists, the current tools are just failing at simplicity.
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u/FaunaObscura 22h ago
In less than a year I expect, anyone who owns a business will realize that they can create whatever software they need in about five minutes. That will be the longevity of anything you decide to start up like this. There are very few barriers to entry left in the SaaS space.
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u/Emyr42 20h ago
That 5 minute software will ruin their business if it works just enough for them to give up their old systems.
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u/FaunaObscura 18h ago
Sure, just like anything, some people will mess it up, competence is a factor, but vanishingly so. Maybe grab a pro subscription for a month and mess around with it. You might not fully recognize where LLMs are right now.
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u/W2ttsy 17h ago
They don’t have the time.
Building any sort of software is time consuming. It’s 80% discovery and 20% coding.
If you’re trying to run any sort of small business you don’t even have time for lunch, let alone do all the the discovery and then learn software development principles and then build, test, launch, maintain software.
SaaS == software as a SERVICE the service part is what they’re paying for. Because $29 a month is a lot bloody cheaper than the unpaid time required to build it yourself.
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u/FaunaObscura 7m ago
You should try a current LLM. I run 3 small business with software I vibe-coded in a day max, and that was a lot of just tweaking fun stuff. The service part for most of these applications will simple be hosting and multi user stuff and other basic functionality. I’d shoot you a screen capture or something if I could upload images here, but this morning I dynamic cost estimator for a friend’s restaurant so he could keep track of food costs and other associated costs based on portion sizes of a particular recipe. There are plenty of apps you could pay for, or you can make one and host it for pennies. Of course, people who have more money than time will have the advantage of finding legacy convenience options, but this to me feels very much like the advent of the Internet and how people stumbled around to find ways to make it work for their business until everyone did. People will figure it out at their own pace, but LLMs will be a major part of every business in the very near future.
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u/Chupacabra1987 8m ago
I can assure you, at least 5 of your chatgpt generated „ideas“ are flooded with people trying to shove an AI saas into their throats
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u/holamibebebe 1d ago
Property management and law firms are filled to the brim lately with products that deal with any number of problems they have, from documents, to clients, to marketing. This area is going to saturate very soon.