Forget Big Apps. These Tiny Tools Are Making Millions

Synopsis

Solo episode on API arbitrage and the great unbundling: big companies were built by unbundling Craigslist, and the same is now happening with Apify, Clay, Zapier, OpenAI, and Claude. He tells the story of Nico, who went from his family's restaurant to a $3,500/month recurring software business with almost no technical background. The bulk of the episode is a list of simple businesses built by wrapping existing APIs in a cleaner niche product.

Ideas in this episode

• Craigslist / marketplace scraping tool

  The episode argues for taking one repeatable data workflow and productising it as a paid niche API or front end with a clean UX.

• B2B integration / middleware tool

  The Koerner Office episode argues for wrapping existing APIs in cleaner niche products, such as turning one scraped workflow or dataset into a paid niche API or front end.

• Bootstrapped micro-SaaS portfolio

  The great-unbundling thesis argues for wrapping an existing data feed or API in a cleaner niche product, similar to Nico's $3,500-a-month recurring software business built with almost no technical background.