Aron here with ValidatorAI.com 
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Before we dive into the data:

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• Classic e-commerce is collapsing (core “e-commerce” down) while “vertical SaaS” searches are up 31% on Google and manufacturing ideas are the only material gainer (+10%), signaling a shift toward operational, real-world workflows.

• Platforms and SaaS still dominate in volume, but both are meaningfully down (platforms -29%, SaaS -12%), suggesting fatigue with undifferentiated “X-as-a-platform” pitches and a move to category-specific tools.

• “Industrial/physical-world vertical SaaS” is emerging. Manufacturing up internally just as “vertical SaaS” spikes externally, which is where serious willingness-to-pay lives (process, compliance, and margin problems, not front-end UX).

🔬 VALIDATION REALITY CHECK

This week's hard truth:

Of the thousands of ideas submitted this week:

• 89.4% still have no MVP

• 10.6% have progressed to MVP stage
  

🏆 TOP IDEAS OF THE WEEK

This week’s top 10 all punch above the baseline because they nail a specific, emotionally loaded problem: therapists losing clients, SMBs flying blind on cashflow, couples misreading each other, traders wanting “set-and-forget” algos, and consumers drowning in receipts and warranties. 

The pattern: narrow ICPs + clear pain + obvious willingness to pay (therapists, small businesses, traders, housing societies/farms, organic-health shoppers, relationship strugglers) rather than “everyone with X problem.” 

⭐ CLUSTER OF THE WEEK

The tightest cluster this week is “agentic rails for serious AI” - small, specialized systems that make AI agents safe, observable, and actually usable in production.

Internally, we’re seeing founders pitch agent orchestration, long-horizon memory systems and AI governance layers for things like QA, pentesting, compliance, and sales ops, all wrapped as vertical SaaS.

Externally the data is broadcasting the same message: the frontier models are set, the real money is in routing, constraining, and supervising them for specific domains.

👤 FOUNDER OF THE WEEK

Founder of the Week: Victor, Open Hardware for Medical Devices

Victor is building an open-hardware platform for medical devices. He stands out because he’s not just pitching “medtech + AI” - he’s already anchored in a serious research ecosystem, has a clearly defined RUO, and a revenue model that starts with engineering services on top of an open standard.

The lesson for other founders: pick a brutally specific workflow that’s blocked by hardware or regulation, then design your whole execution plan around an unsexy, verifiable wedge instead of chasing the buzzword of the week.

Founders and investors: If you want to meet Victor to help him in any way, reply to this email and I’ll connect you.

📊 MICRO-TRENDS and INTERESTING DISCUSSIONS

• ai agents · -19% search interest in Google Trends

• vertical saas · +31% search interest in Google Trends

• pet tech · +12% search interest in Google Trends

  
  

• r/SaaS: Site was down for 4 hours. Lost 2 customers. Gained 11 from how we handled it. ➡ Read it here.

• r/entrepreneur: Built a 3 million per year construction company from nothing and was misled during a small business loan process. ➡ Read it here.

• r/SaaS: Support tickets dropped 40% in 3 weeks. We didn't hire anyone. We just stopped typing. ➡ Read it here.

  
  
  

🔍 MARKETS THAT ARE COOLING FAST

• platforms · 67 ideas · -29% WoW

• saas (software as a service) · 64 ideas · -12% WoW

• ai · 36 ideas · -18% WoW

• tech · 36 ideas · -18% WoW

• e-commerce · 32 ideas · -57% WoW

• consulting · 29 ideas · -16% WoW

• edtech · 28 submissions · -22% WoW

💰 DEAL RADAR: WHAT MONEY IS CHASING

Money is chasing AI infrastructure and speculative markets, while ValidatorAI founders are leaning toward applied agents and workflow tools.

Kalshi’s $1B round validates the internal spike in “prediction / betting on real-world events” ideas, but at a scale that says: don’t build another generic prediction market.

Black Forest Labs’ $300M raise lines up with the constant flow of “AI image/video generators” in ValidatorAI.

The pet-tech funding wave echoes our growing cluster of “AI + pets” ideas and confirms willingness to pay for emotional-luxury SaaS, but investors are backing full-stack brands, not just one-off apps.

Capital is validating three ValidatorAI clusters—predictions, generative media, and AI-for-pets.

🎯 HIGH-CONFIDENCE OPPORTUNITY

Vertical SaaS for supply-chain execution inside manufacturing.

Internal signals show “Supply chain” complaints up +166% and “manufacturing” as one of the few categories growing (delta +0.10) while broad “platform” and generic SaaS ideas are cooling.

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

Founders in this week’s dataset are consistently overestimating how “clear” their ideas are while needing repeated prompts to clarify the actual product, UVP, and target segment… the advice keeps circling back to “sharpen what you are,” “define if this is a tool vs service,” and “segment your users.”

That blind spot is dangerous because it creates a false sense of readiness: you feel “one landing page away” from traction, but your messaging, pricing, and even customer definition are still unclear, so every test returns noisy, misleading data.

Fix it by forcing one-page clarity before you build: write a brutally specific “who / exact outcome / how it works under the hood / why they pay now vs free alternatives” doc, pressure-test it with 5–10 target users, and only then ship landing pages or MVPs.

If you can’t explain it crisply to a stranger in 30 seconds, you’re not “early-stage,” you’re still pre-idea.

🏁 THE WEEKEND CHALLENGE

This weekend, pick one niche where “vertical SaaS” is clearly underbuilt and run 5–10 fast discovery calls or DMs with real operators to map their workflow and what they’d actually pay to automate.

Vertical SaaS search interest is spiking while generic “platform” and broad SaaS submissions are sliding, which means founders who show up with a painfully specific, revenue-backed problem will own the next wave. 

Keep it tight: one niche, one workflow, one clear price point you can validate by Sunday night.

🔮 PREVIEW OF MONDAY

On Monday we’re unpacking a quiet but sharp rotation: generic “AI agents” are cooling off just as vertical SaaS and oddly specific manufacturing/biotech hardware ideas heat up… exactly where $1B+ checks and Google Trends are starting to agree.

Watch ai agents (-19%), it’s the fastest-moving search signal heading into Monday

Start moving forward with a landing page! 👇👇

That's it. See you Monday

Aron Meystedt

Chief Data Nerd at ValidatorAI.com

👬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn!

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