10 AI Business Ideas Hiding in Spreadsheets People Already Buy

Hey, Aron here.

I went down a strange rabbit hole today.
I searched Etsy, Gumroad and other sites and found something interesting: People are creating and selling spreadsheets to help people flip books, run a booth at a craft fair, manage pet-sitting businesses, price items at restaurants and more.

This got me curious.
If people are paying for spreadsheets to manually keep track of their side hustles, could there be an opportunity here to use AI to automate all of this?

Check out what I found, and, at the end, I give a key strategy for all of us side-hustlers out there.

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I’m only showing you spreadsheets that have verifiable sales and reviews. People are actively buying these.

Reseller Inventory Tracker

Product flippers are using these spreadsheets to track inventory, purchase prices, fees, profits.
AI opportunity: Photograph an item and have AI identify it, estimate resale value / potential profit and add it to your inventory.

Amazon Book Reseller Tracker

Book flippers track what they paid, Amazon prices, fees and potential profit.
AI opportunity: Scan a book and instantly get estimated resale value, fees and whether it's worth buying.

Wedding Budget Planner

Wedding planners and couples use spreadsheets to manage vendors, budgets, deposits and deadlines.
AI opportunity: An AI wedding assistant that manages the budget, compares vendors and keeps everything on schedule.

Craft Fair Business Tracker

Vendors track events, booth fees, inventory, sales and profits.
AI opportunity: Help sellers figure out which events are worth attending and how much inventory to bring.

Pet-Sitting Business Tracker

Pet sitters need to manage customers, pets, schedules, instructions and payments.
AI opportunity: An assistant that handles bookings, reminders, pet instructions and customer communication.

Farm Expense Tracker

Small farms use spreadsheets to track expenses, income and profitability.
AI opportunity: Photograph receipts and invoices and let AI automatically track costs and show which parts of the farm are actually making money.

Photography Business Tracker

Photographers track clients, shoots, payments, expenses and profitability.
AI opportunity: AI could handle inquiries, follow-ups, scheduling, invoices and the administrative side of the business. Could even provide shooting location ideas based on time of day and the needs of the client.

Restaurant Food Cost Calculator

Restaurants use spreadsheets to calculate ingredient costs, menu prices and margins.
AI opportunity: Upload supplier invoices and have AI automatically recalculate the profitability of every menu item.

Airbnb Property Tracker

Hosts track bookings, cleaning, expenses, maintenance and profits.
AI opportunity: An AI property assistant could coordinate cleaners, track expenses, flag maintenance and show which properties are actually profitable.

Freelancer Client Tracker

Freelancers and small businesses use spreadsheets as simple CRMs to track customers, projects, payments and follow-ups.
AI opportunity: Turn the spreadsheet into an assistant that remembers every client and tells you exactly who needs attention next.

Here is what I found most interesting. For you.

It seems the side hustle economy is strong. Booming even.
So, you’re probably thinking: Maybe I should start a side hustle like one of these.

Perhaps. But there might be a bigger opportunity here.

Instead of JOINING the market as a side hustler, and immediately competing with the dozens, hundreds or even thousands of other side hustlers doing the same thing…

Sell them something they need.

Don’t flip Pokémon cards. Build something for Pokémon card flippers.
Don’t sell at 10 craft fairs. Help thousands of craft sellers figure out where to sell and what to bring.
Don’t resell books. Create something for book resellers.

It’s the old picks and shovels concept.
Don’t take on competitors. Sell something each one of these people needs.

And spreadsheets are an interesting place to start.
They are showing you people have a problem they are already paying to solve. Maybe you can incorporate AI to streamline the manual processes that exist today.

Happy to discuss your big idea, anytime.

Aron Meystedt
Chief Data Nerd - ValidatorAI

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