AI Is Creating New Markets. Here’s Where to Look.

Some people will tell you everything has already been built.

Others will build in vain, with no real problem to solve, and contribute to the endless rise of ghost startups.

You’ve seen them. Solutions looking for a problem. “Uber for dogs” pitches that go nowhere.

Yet, it doesn’t have to be like this.

If you love building and want to create something truly valuable, I’m going to show you exactly how to hunt for the right opportunities.

P.S. If you know someone hunting for a legitimate startup idea, send them this. The framework is theirs to steal and build on.

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There’s a step-by-step framework at the end. Stick around.

The story started last week.

I was at an event and met someone building in a space I genuinely hadn’t paid much attention to.

Injection molding.

If you don’t know what that is, that’s how most plastic parts in the world are made.

Car components. Medical devices. Consumer electronics.

The plastic in almost everything you own came out of a mold.

Here’s how it works: you design a mold, called a matrix, you manufacture it, and you use it to produce parts at scale.

Simple enough.

The problem?

Creating the mold is expensive and slow, so the whole industry was locked into B2B.

Until now.

The Rise of AI Creates Actual Opportunities, Not Just Spam

There is one technological shift that unlocked a business model that simply wasn’t possible before.

In our case, the bottleneck is that the mold is too expensive and too slow to make, so it only ever made sense at enterprise scale.

With AI, you can now design and program the CNC machines that build these molds dramatically faster than before.

What used to take weeks, sometimes months, now takes a fraction of that time.

The guys I was talking to are now partnering with car manufacturers to produce second-hand plastic parts in large volumes.

And they also built a B2C model.

If you own a car that’s no longer supported by the manufacturer and you need a specific part, they create the mold from scratch and produce it just for you.

Now, you might not care about injection molding. That’s fine.

Understanding the core principle will help you build a successful startup.

So let’s take another example.

The bottleneck in the healthcare industry has always been access: you need a doctor, a referral, an appointment, expensive equipment, and a facility just to get scanned.

So Midjourney – yes, the AI image company – just announced that they’re building a full-body ultrasound scanner.

You step onto a platform, descend into a shallow pool of water, and a ring of sensors maps your entire body using sound waves.

Really curious to see how that one unfolds:)

Before I get to the step-by-step process, remember:

P.S. Have you already spotted an opportunity like this in your industry? If yes, drop it in the comments. I’ll give you feedback based on my experience.

The Bottleneck Is Always the Opportunity

Every industry has one.

In injection molding – it was the mold.

In healthcare imaging – it was hospital infrastructure and cost.

The pattern is always the same:

B2B becomes B2C.

Institutional becomes consumer.

Expensive becomes affordable.

“The opportunity isn’t where nobody has gone. It’s where nobody could go – until now.”

Here’s How to Find It in Your Industry

Pick an industry.

Write down every step between raw input and end customer.

Then ask:

Circle it. That’s your bottleneck.

Then ask:

If yes: who gains access that currently can’t?

That’s your market.

So stop looking for a clever idea.

Look for a locked door – and ask who just got the key.

Every week I share one observation from the San Francisco startup ecosystem and break it down so you have a better shot at building the next unicorn. Follow along for more.

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