2 months ago I was at ShopTalk, a conference focused on eCommerce merchants and service providers, it became apparent at the conference that the two main topics of interest were AI and Tariffs.
How are AI and tariffs going to NOT fuck up my life???
BEFORE Tariffs!! eComm was tough; margins were already getting destroyed. CAC was always rising. All the money these companies made went to buying more products and praying for the best, no free cash flow. Why stay?
If you're a marketer or early employee that’s been promised equity in a business, what’s keeping you around?? How many businesses are getting bought, sold, and traded in consumer right now (besides Poppi)?? Not many.
The saving grace is the idea that
Your skills are still weapons — you might just need a new battlefield.
1. Home Services: Doing the dirty work without actually doing the work
I love home services! Everybody I’ve met in home services, whether they are buying plumbing, doorbell or roofing businesses or just subcontracting jobs out using they’re digital marketing skills; all seem to be doing extremely well.
One of my friends, as an example, has a roofing business that he runs but has never actually done a roofing job himself. He just subcontracts out all the jobs to other roofers, literally does zero work, and his business will do over $3m this year in straight non-adjusted EBITDA. All he does is drive demand.
I get it, this isn’t sexy, there ain’t no Nobu meet-ups or rooftop gala’s for the grand majority of people working in home services but there is liquidity, profitable cash flow, and an ample amount of buyers of these businesses that will pay future-leaning multiples on EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation)
Nobody brags about fixing garage doors on LinkedIn — but the opportunity is real.
Home Service Niches You Should Be Looking At:
Vertical | Avg Job Size | Gross Margins | Notes |
Roofing | $8K–$20K | 35–45% | Big-ticket, insurance-backed. SEO and referrals dominate. |
HVAC | $5K–$12K installs | 40–60% | Seasonal, but service plans = recurring cash flow. |
Plumbing | $250–$1,500 repairs | 50–70% | Emergency-driven. High-intent Google searches. |
Solar | $15K–$35K | 20–30% | Subsidized. Big-ticket but slower cycles. |
Pest Control | $150–$300 one-time | 50–60% | Subscription models. High LTV. |
Electricians | $250–$2K+ | 35–55% | Huge growth with EVs and smart homes. |
Why this space is wide open:
Aging housing = more repairs
Labor shortages = pricing power
Private equity is already rolling up mom-and-pops
Most of these small businesses still have no CRM, no ads, no follow-up which means there is no consumer loyalty to any one particular brand.. It’s literally the wild west.
How to do it:
Use outreach systems like Clay + ChatGPT to find businesses in any of the following industries above, enrich the data with (location, gross revenue, social following, SEO scores) etc then build outreach systems to either partner on (lead gen, managed marketing services, or equity buy).
Secondary business model is partnering with private equity to do deal origination, in this case you find the businesses that want to sell using AI outreach and then you connect them to the PE firm and usually take a 5% carry on the deal, which means you take 5% of the whole deal.
This data alone is valuable.
**See a business here in home services? What gets you excited? Happy to brainstorm.
2. Staffing Businesses for Healthcare, Education, and Executive Assistants
The new customer acquisition is finding qualified staff for High-Need roles or building custom solutions for staffing.
If you can drive the highest quality inbound applicants, automate screening, and help businesses hire faster, you can dominate.
Example 1. Athena.com:
They didn’t just offshore executive assistants.
They built super-assistants — real people, trained with AI, automations, research workflows, and systems thinking.
You get U.S.-hours, high-output EAs for $3,500/month.
It’s not cheap labor — it’s smarter labor.
The takeaway:
If you can combine talent + AI systems, you’ll create services far better than pure AI alone.
This model works for legal assistants, customer success, sales reps, and more.
Example 2 Kokua.com:
Schools are desperate for substitute teachers.
Kokua built a platform that pre-vets, books, and streamlines the whole process of how a charter school replaces a teacher with a sub, day off.
This is a high-margin business run by a great friend of mine. This is though an industry dying for innovation and whereas AI and innovative marketers haven’t touched as of yet.
The Play:
Athena showed us how AI can supercharge executive assistants — training, managing, and placing high performers customized to the client's needs.
Now apply that same logic to short-term staffing industries like:
Substitute teachers for charter and private schools
Nursing staff for hospitals and clinics
Administrative temps for offices
Specialized contractors (e.g., IT techs, paralegals)
How to do it:
Use Clay + ChatGPT for hyper-targeted outreach to charter schools (Clay scrapes leads + ChatGPT personalizes outreach at scale).
Focus first on charter schools — they often have fewer resources, more flexibility, and a real pain point around last-minute substitute coverage.
Partner with these schools to build a custom AI agent trained on their specific school culture, student needs, and protocols.
Then integrate that logic into your recruiting and placement process:
Vet substitutes based on school-specific criteria.
Use AI to "match" substitutes instantly to open roles, prioritize best fits, and minimize manual coordination.
Offer substitutes a lightweight "AI onboarding" for each new school assignment — so they walk in better prepared.
*Did this spark any ideas on automating candidate acquisition? Reach out if you want to discuss ideas on revenue models.
3. Blue-Collar Staffing: The Last Gold Rush Nobody Talks About
Everyone's fighting for white-collar "AI-proof" jobs right now, but that’s not where the growth is. Most middle mgmt is in the middle of this existential crisis, either incorporate AI and risk your job or don’t incorporate AI and fall behind your competitors.
Meanwhile, the real shortage that's crushing America is in skilled trades, these jobs aren’t going to be replaced by any GENAI overnight.
Example: There are over 80,000 trucking jobs open right now that nobody can fill — even with $100K+ salaries and huge signing bonuses, who wants to be a trucker? I am sure we can fill more trucker jobs with great marketing and storytelling on social. Universal basic income isn’t coming anytime soon, right?
Electricians, welders, heavy equipment operators, masons, mechanics — these aren’t dying jobs. They're lifelines to keep the economy running, and they are going to be even more important with the current trade-war with China.
Here’s why this space is a monster opportunity:
Labor demand > supply (it’s not even close)
Boomer retirements are leaving entire industries empty
Massive infrastructure spending (roads, energy, EV grids) is just getting started
Companies are desperate to hire — but they suck at marketing, recruiting, and running outreach campaigns.
This is where smart marketers eat.
How to do it:
Build specific digital staffing brands that specialize in high-demand blue-collar jobs.
Use paid ads + AI tools + screening automation (like ChatGPT resume filtering + Calendly auto-scheduling) to match workers to open jobs faster than old-school staffing firms.
Charge placement fees (15–25% of salary), or build subscription models around ongoing labor needs.
***Private Equity:
There’s even a private equity market starting to form around blue-collar staffing rollups.
If you can build predictable placement engines in one vertical (e.g., HVAC techs, welders, linemen), bigger players will line up to buy you.
All these PE firms are buying these boring businesses and have no mechanism to solve staffing, so they’re kinda fucked!
*** The industry of acquiring candidates for hard to find trades can help so many areas of society, ping me and I can tell you exactly how I would start a business in this area.
Final Thoughts
Got a hot take? A sleeper industry I missed?? Hit that reply button.
