In partnership with

Aron here with ValidatorAI.com 
👬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn!

Before we dive into the data:

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• Social posts reach 10% of your audience while 40-50% of emails get opened

• You only have to write 2-4x per month to book calls and launch products

• Creators and founders are getting a 35:1 return selling with email

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• SaaS is an interesting weekend riser (+22.6% day over day), with search interest in “vertical SaaS” up +31% on Google over the period. This signals that founders are rushing into niche workflow tools while generic “AI agents” cool off (-19%)… creating a timing window for boring‑industry SaaS before incumbents wake up.

• Interest in “brick and mortar” ideas exploded (+73.7%) while consulting and general services both cratered (-40%).

• AI, tech, and edtech are all climbing ~18–21%, but healthtech (-19%) slipped over the weekend.

🔬 VALIDATION REALITY CHECK

This week:

Of the 1,680 ideas submitted in the last 7 days:

• 92.1% still have no MVP

• 7.9% have progressed to MVP stage — IMPROVEMENT over last week!

• 47% still need a landing page (789 founders flagged a website need)
  

👉 It’s great to see landing pages being built! Keep it up!
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👀 THIS WEEK'S WATCHLIST

• Vertical SaaS for “boring” ops (compliance, QA, admin)
  Founders are piling into generic SaaS (↑22.6%) while Google Trends shows “vertical saas” up 31% and Reddit is full of “what software actually helps?” threads from D2C and services.

• AI for climate, ESG and “storytelling compliance”
  Crunchbase is flagging climate and defense as capital magnets while regulators tighten disclosure rules.

• Pet tech as a serious spend category, not a toy
  “Pet tech” is trending (+12%), and VCs just put ~$660M into pet/vet startups, while our idea stream shows a spike in pet health assistants and custom devices for animals that can’t use human medical gear.

• AI agents are cooling as a buzzword, heating as infrastructure
  Generic “agent for everything” plays are fading; specialized agents wired into deep stacks (developer tools, security, sales, ops) are compounding.

• Brick‑and‑mortar ops systems, not more “local marketplaces”
  Brick‑and‑mortar ideas are up a staggering 73.7% WoW, while platforms as a category are slightly down and consulting/services are shrinking. Founders are quietly building operating systems for gyms, salons, tailors (WhatsApp‑based), laundries, and clinics…places where revenue is real but software penetration is low.

📊 MICRO-TRENDS and INTERESTING DISCUSSIONS

Founders are shifting from hype-y horizontal bots to narrow, revenue-adjacent workflows in boring verticals (healthcare ops, construction back-office, freight compliance).

Consumers are still spending emotionally on pets, which explains the quiet but steady rise in pet tech searches and ValidatorAI submissions around pet health, insurance, and smart monitoring.

• Interesting Product Hunt launches: 
  Guideflow 
  Welltory 
  
  

• Funding Pulse via CrunchBase: 
  The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds ($1B) 
  
  Pets Are Getting More Pampered, And VCs Are Funding This ($660M) 
  
  Startup Funding Continued On A Tear In November As Megarounds Hit 3-Year High ($39.6B) 
  
  

• Google Trends: ai agents (-19%), vertical saas (+31%), pet tech (+12%)
  
  

• Interesting Reddit Discussions: 
  Removed credit card requirement from trial signup. Signup up 340%. Conversion down 60%. Read it here: REDDIT THREAD 
  
  Co-founder rage quit and emailed our customers! Read it here: REDDIT THREAD 

📈 WEEKEND SPIKES + UNCOVERED OPPORTUNITIES

• Brick-and-mortar ideas spiked hard over the weekend: up 73.7% WoW (33 ideas) with a long tail of hyper-specific offline plays.

• This looks tied to AI fatigue + “AI slop” backlash in tech media pushing some founders back toward real-world businesses, nudging builders toward cash-in-hand local models.

  
  

  Founders should watch three niches this week:

• (1) “AI‑wrapped” brick-and-mortar (AI scheduling, ops, or marketing layered onto gyms, clinics, salons)

• (2) vertical SaaS for offline operators (PT operating systems for gyms, volunteer scheduling for nonprofits, construction diary automation)

• (3) small, defensible local monopolies (women-only ride services, indigenous-owned trades, specialty food).

💡 FOUNDER BLIND SPOTS: What most of us are missing!

• Founders in this week’s dataset are consistently overestimating how “clear” their idea is while the advice keeps circling back to the same basics: sharpen the problem statement, narrow the customer, and define a real UVP instead of a vibe.  

• Actionable fix: before you touch design or pricing, force yourself to answer in one sentence each: who exactly is my first customer, what single job are they hiring me for, and what do I do that their current tool absolutely cannot. Then run 10 interviews to try to prove yourself wrong.

🎯 ONE THING TO DO TODAY

Today’s spike is in brick-and-mortar + SaaS mashups, so perhaps the opportunity here is helping local brick and mortar businesses integrate AI into their operations? Every business knows they need to integrate AI and they are willing to pay someone to do it for them!

Reach out to 10-20 local businesses and uncover their desire to integrate AI into their companies. Is there a specific part of each business that AI can help them with? Find out!

🤷‍♂️ STRUGGLING TO FIND A GOOD STARTUP IDEA?

Did you know we have a free business idea generator? We use AI to help you find 10 amazing startup ideas that fit your skills.

It’s quick and free and covers the most important factors → what problem exists? who has the problem? and what do YOU have that others don’t?

Try it: Free Startup Idea Generator

🤩 Start moving forward with a landing page! 👇

It’s exciting to see the boost in founders that are taking the next step. 7.9% of you went to Base44 to build your landing page this past weekend!

That's it. See you later this week.

Aron Meystedt

Chief Data Nerd at ValidatorAI.com

👬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn!

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