Pain Point #1: “It’s wild how often payment flows break right when users are ready to pay… Even a minor issue in the flow can break trust instantly.” Opportunity: Checkout Sentry + Failover — revenue insurance for payments - Real-time synthetic checkout monitoring across devices/regions/payment methods + instant failover routing when a gateway/method degrades. Think Pingdom + Spreedly brain: detects Apple Pay/3DS/Klarna/ACH hiccups and auto-switches to a backup processor or disables only the failing method, with Slack alerts, screenshots, and revenue at risk estimates. - Pricing: $499/mo base + 0.10% (10 bps) of protected GMV; optional “missed outage credit”—if we fail to alert within 5 minutes of a material outage, we credit the base fee. First 10 Customers: - Head of Product/Engineering at Shopify Plus or custom checkout DTC with $500k+ monthly GMV. - Director of Growth at subscription SaaS with Stripe + alternative methods (Apple Pay, PayPal). - eCom marketplaces using Adyen/Braintree/Checkout.com who need method-level SLAs. - FinOps/RevOps leaders at brands expanding into EU/UK with SCA/3DS step-ups. - Media/DTC aggregators running multiple storefronts who need fleet-wide checkout reliability. MVP in 48 Hours: - Webflow landing page; Playwright/Puppeteer scripts to run hourly synthetic checkouts on a $0.50 test product across desktop/iOS/Android; store pass/fail and error screenshots in Airtable; chart in a simple dashboard (Retool). - Slack + Email alerts when error rates spike by method/region. Start with monitoring-only; for select custom sites, pilot failover via Spreedly or manual playbooks to toggle providers/methods during incidents. Justification: - Demand: “It’s wild how often payment flows break right when users are ready to pay… Even a minor issue in the flow can break trust instantly.” (Post 41). This is a today-problem made worse by the explosion of alt-payment methods and stricter authentication (3DS/SCA). - ROI: If 0.5–1.0% of sessions fail at checkout on $1M/mo GMV, that’s $5k–$10k/mo recovered immediately. One incident pays for the product for months. - Scalable: Synthetic checks + webhooks scale across thousands of stores; add integrations with Stripe, Adyen, Braintree, Klarna, Apple/Google Pay. Usage pricing aligns with value. - Purple Cow/Controversial: Active failover is rare outside heavy enterprise. Offering method-level circuit breakers + a “we pay if we miss it” SLA is bold and trust-building. Screenshotted proof-of-failure gives teams ammo to push processors. --- Pain Point #2: “I am unable to close any pilots/deals so far.” Opportunity: PilotShield — Enterprise “pilot-in-a-box” + credibility-as-a-service for indie AI SaaS - A turnkey bundle that lets a 1–2 person AI startup pass procurement and run a low-risk enterprise pilot without raising VC. Includes: - SOC2-lite control pack, DPAs, security questionnaire auto-fill (LLM-assisted) + human review - A “Pilot Warranty” (escrow + liability rider via partner broker) that indemnifies buyer up to $250k for pilot scope - Standardized pilot MSA + 30-day pilot playbook with exec readout template - Introductions to a rotating “Enterprise Reference Board” (fractional CIOs/CISOs) for credibility, not governance - Procurement concierge: we handle the back-and-forth until the PO is cut - Pricing: $4,000 one-time “Pilot Pack” or $12,000 for “Pilot-in-a-Box” (includes warranty + concierge) + $1,500/month for ongoing procurement support First 10 Customers: - Solo founders/CEOs of AI SaaS selling into mid-market (50–500 employees) in regulated sectors (HR, legal, healthcare) with 0–3 paying customers - Head of Sales or first AE at seed-stage (pre–Series A) B2B AI startups with open security questionnaires - Fractional CROs selling pilots on behalf of AI startups (2–10 employees) - Founder-led sales teams of data/infra tools needing SOC2-lite + DPAs now MVP in 48 Hours: - Webflow landing page with 3 deliverables listed + Calendly + Stripe checkout - Assemble a downloadable “Pilot Pack v1” (editable DPAs/MSA, security questionnaire library, 30-day pilot plan, exec ROI template) - Partner with an insurance broker to issue a pilot-specific rider; if not ready, simulate via escrow with a money-back guarantee - Offer to 5 founders on Reddit/Slack groups; aim to collect 2 paid pilots and manually shepherd procurement Justification (infer this in detail): - Demand: - “I am unable to close any pilots/deals so far.” (Post 4) - “The paying customer would be… CIO of a hospital organization. The issue is they’re gate kept by their staff and I can’t interview them…” (Post 12) - “My app is going from a POC to enterprise ready and I’m concerned that if I choose poorly I’ll be pushing out the timeline.” (Post 10) - ROI: Closing one $15k–$40k paid pilot repays the $12k bundle immediately; reduces procurement cycle time from 3–6 months to 4–6 weeks; avoids $30k–$80k SOC2 prep and legal spend - Scalable: Templates + AI autofill make most questionnaires low-touch; warranty is standardized and underwritten; concierge scales via trained contractors; directory of references compounds credibility over time - Purple Cow/Controversial: The “Pilot Warranty” flips enterprise risk on its head and creates an unfair trust advantage without equity or VC signaling. It’s effectively credibility without governance. --- Pain Point #3: “Klaviyo is confusing as hell” … “I’m not paying an agency $3k/month for email” … “can’t justify a full-time person yet.” Opportunity: Autonomous Email RevOps for DTC (performance-priced) - A plug-in service that connects to Klaviyo/MailChimp/Shopify, audits your account, then auto-deploys missing revenue flows (browse/cart/post-purchase/winback/replenishment/SKU-triggered) and segments in “shadow mode,” routing 10% of traffic to prove incremental revenue before going 100% live. - Pricing: $500 setup + 10% of incremental email-attributed revenue for 90 days (then $299/mo to maintain), guaranteed to roll back if no lift. “Illegal” twist: it ships fully written, on-brand copy and creative using your own site/email history + AI, and will not charge unless it shows net-new revenue on controlled A/B. First 10 Customers: - Owner/Head of Growth at Shopify DTC brands doing $50k–$300k/month GMV (beauty, apparel, CPG). - Retention/Lifecycle Manager at 10–50 employee eCommerce brands using Klaviyo. - Founders of local subscription food services (Post 9) needing revenue this week. - Amazon-native brands launching their first DTC site (need default flows). - Boutique eCom agencies that want to resell a revenue-share lifecycle product without hiring staff. MVP in 48 Hours: - Webflow landing page + Typeform intake (store URL, ESP access, tone, exclusions) + Calendly. - Airtable to track accounts; Klaviyo API scripts to pull current flows/metrics; prebuilt best-practice flow templates; OpenAI to draft copy/subject lines; Figma templates for 2–3 content blocks. - Implement one flow (abandoned cart) in draft + 10% traffic split; manually QA; push live and email a 7-day lift report. Do it manually behind the scenes for first 5 logos. Justification: - Demand: Multiple founders echo the pain. “Klaviyo is confusing as hell” … “I’m not paying an agency $3k/month for email” … “can’t justify a full-time person yet.” (Post 12). Another founder is in “crisis mode… runway is getting short… the single highest-leverage… to get those first few consistent, paying subscribers… this week.” (Post 9). Both point to lifecycle email as the fastest measurable cash lever. - ROI: Typical DTC lifecycle fixes add 10–25% store revenue; on $100k/mo that’s $10k–$25k/mo. Charging 10% of the lift with a 7–14 day payback is a no-brainer versus $3k+/mo retainers. - Scalable: Repeatable playbooks + AI copy + templated flows across verticals; one lifecycle specialist can onboard 10–15 brands/month; expand to SMS/push. Channel partners (small agencies) resell on revenue-share. - Purple Cow/Controversial: Only charges on measured incremental revenue from shadow-mode A/B—brands see the money before paying. Not another “prompt pack”; it deploys fully working flows and proves lift in their own data.