New startup ideas · AI and software · Vertical AI agents

startup idea

Bidcraft

Small contractors upload plans and get a priced, win-rate-tuned quote in twenty minutes.

Bidcraft is a self-serve subscription for specialty trade subcontractors and field service firms: drop in a PDF plan set, a site photo set or an inspection report, and the system does takeoff, prices materials from live supplier catalogs in the user's country, applies the firm's labour rates and returns a client-ready quote.

Software subscription
Small business
$100B+ market
Collapses a cost 10x
Global from day one

5/5

venture judge

similar startups, last 2 years (10 all-time)

98%

of 4 nearest real companies still alive

sector

72 public grants in this sector, none matching the idea's terms

Test it before you build it

$1,400 · 3 weeks · 30 prospects

For $1,400 in three weeks, prove that owners of small electrical and HVAC subs will send a client a quote they did not build themselves, and prepay $149 for the next one.

Riskiest assumption · An owner who bets his margin on every bid will put his name on a takeoff he did not do himself and pay $199 a month for it, rather than treating the output as a draft he rebuilds by hand.

1Focus group: who and where

Owner-operator of an electrical or HVAC subcontracting firm with 5-30 field crew, who runs crews all day and does takeoffs from PDF plan sets at the kitchen table at night because the firm has no dedicated estimator, and who loses bids he never had time to price.

where to find 30 · Independent Electrical Contractors (IEC) and ACCA local chapter meetings in one metro (community); the Texas TDLR electrical contractor license list and state HVAC license rosters for a cold list with real firm sizes (directory); Electrician Talk, HVAC-Talk and Contractor Talk forums where these owners already complain about estimating nights (channel); the counter at City Electric Supply and CED branches where they pick up material at 6am (channel).

2Sell first, build later

Unlimited electrical and HVAC takeoffs: email a plan set, get a client-ready quote back in 24 hours now and 20 minutes at launch in November 2026, priced with your labor rates and your suppliers' current prices, with win/loss tracking on every quote.

the ask · $199 per month, founding members $149 per month locked for 12 months, first month charged at signup

a real yes · A real yes is a first month charged to a card or a live plan set handed over and the resulting quote sent to a paying client; compliments, 'I'd use this at launch' and requests for a free trial without a card are not yes.

3Small experiments

The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.

1. Sign-your-name quote test
$800 · 10 days
Recruit 10 owners to email one real plan set from a live bid. Founder plus a moonlighting estimator hired per-takeoff on Upwork build the takeoff and return a priced, client-formatted quote in 24 hours using the owner's labor rates and supplier prices. Then watch what happens: does the owner send it to the client, and how many minutes of rework first.
keep going if · 6 of 10 owners send the quote to their actual client with under 30 minutes of edits
2. Fifteen estimating-pain calls
$150 · 7 days
Book 15 calls with owners met at IEC and ACCA chapter meetings and on Electrician Talk, walking through their last three estimates: hours spent, bids skipped for lack of time, win rate. Close every call by offering the 24-hour quote test on their next live bid.
keep going if · 10 of 15 owners report 4+ hours per estimate and at least 5 hand over a live plan set on the call
3. Founding-member prepay page
$450 · 10 days
One-page site with the $199 price, a founding tier at $149 a month locked for a year, and a card checkout charging the first month now. Send every owner from experiments 1 and 2 there plus forum threads; no ads until organic conversion is read.
keep going if · 5 of 30 owners reached prepay $149

4Collect a deposit up front

Tesla took $1,000 refundable reservations for the Model 3 and $100 for the Cybertruck before building either: the deposit is the measurement, not the revenue.

$149

per prospect, refundable

how · First month prepaid at the founding price through card checkout on the landing page; this owner already buys tools and software by card with no demo, which is exactly the card's self-serve wedge, so an invoice or LOI would be slower and weaker evidence. The owner checks out; nothing is signed. set up: Stripe Invoicing ↗

what it reserves · A founding slot in the first 20 accounts, the $149 price locked for 12 months against the $199 list price, and priority takeoff turnaround

refund · Full refund on request within 60 days if the first three quotes are not ones the owner would send a client.

target · 5 prepaid founding members from 30 owners reached within 21 days

Go: build it if

6 of 10 hand-built quotes go to a real client with under 30 minutes of edits, and at least 5 of 30 owners prepay $149; trust in the output plus money moved means build.

Kill: stop if

3 or fewer of 10 quotes are sent without a rebuild, or fewer than 2 prepayments after 30 owner conversations; owners who rework every quote by hand confirm the card's stated risk and the idea stops.

5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open

outreach message

You're running crews all day and pricing plan sets at 10pm. I'm building Bidcraft: email me your next plan set and you get back a priced, client-ready quote in 24 hours, built on your labor rates and your suppliers' prices. First three quotes are free; if you'd send them to a client as-is, it's $149 a month as a founding member. Got 20 minutes this week to walk me through your last estimate?

landing page

Price the job before your competitor opens the plans $199 a month for unlimited takeoffs and client-ready quotes; founding members pay $149, locked for a year, first month today. Send your first plan set - three quotes free

deposit terms

Your $149 today is your first month as a founding member and locks $149 a month for 12 months (list price $199). If your first three quotes are not ones you would send a client, reply to your receipt within 60 days for a full refund. Your first takeoff turns around within 24 hours of signup.

Would you run this test?

One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who answered.

1 yes · 0 no · 0 would change the offer · 1 answered

Budgets are out-of-pocket estimates for a team of one to three, US market. Size the deposit to the deal, and check the terms before taking money in a regulated line.

Scorecard

One score that balances how trendy the idea is, the demand for it and its potential for 100x, with competition measured relative to every other idea in the catalog. Recent startup trends first, government priorities second.

Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 50.2 x 1.61

Warm

competition: more crowded than 41% of ideas · headwind x0.80

+0.0

government priorities, secondary (0 matching grants)

Trend

Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.

Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)61
Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector25
Sector direction (live batch)100
2026 trend analyst0

Demand

Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.

YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)0
Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)75
Operator judge: real pain100

100x potential

Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.

Venture judge100
Market size axis100
Moat axis100
Neighbours still alive81
Technologist judge75

Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 272 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were contractors, upload, plans, priced, win-rate-tuned, quote, self-serve, subscription.

The idea in full

What: Bidcraft is a self-serve subscription for specialty trade subcontractors and field service firms: drop in a PDF plan set, a site photo set or an inspection report, and the system does takeoff, prices materials from live supplier catalogs in the user's country, applies the firm's labour rates and returns a client-ready quote. It then tracks whether the quote was won, lost or renegotiated. That closed loop builds a cross-customer index of real prices and win rates by trade, region and job type, which the product sells back as pricing guidance.
Why now: The crowded-phrase list shows 21 companies pitching an operating system and 4 on revenue cycle, while quoting is untouched; FlowManual (yc S26) took construction back office and Chromie (yc S26) took contract bidding, both leaving the small subcontractor's estimate alone. With 475 companies entering this cluster in two years, the unclaimed wedge is the one document that decides whether a small firm eats.
Wedge: first customer and entry point: One founder ships electrical and HVAC takeoff for firms with five to thirty crew in the US, UK and Australia, sold at $199 a month with a card, no demo.
Path to 100x: Quote and estimate production absorbs well over $100B of labour a year across global construction trades and field services, and collapsing a six-hour estimate to twenty minutes is a straight ten times cost cut a small firm feels immediately. Every won and lost quote feeds a price and win-rate dataset no competitor can buy, so accuracy and the pricing advice product compound faster than churn.
Ceiling: Supplier catalog APIs and general models make basic takeoff free inside existing estimating tools, leaving Bidcraft a $50 a month commodity with no pricing data advantage.
Closest real companies, as the generator saw them: FlowManual automates construction back office after the job is sold and Chromie helps win contracts through search and qualification; Bidcraft owns the priced estimate itself. Marble and Bernard run operations for restaurants and appliance repair rather than pricing work before it exists.
Main risk: Takeoff accuracy on messy plan sets stays below what an estimator will sign their name to, so quotes get rebuilt by hand anyway.

Five judges

Each judge scores every idea in the catalog with a named rubric; the venture judge decides whether a card is shown at all (4-5 is venture-grade).

Venture investor
5/5
Capital-light, self-serve at $199 a month, global day one, and every won or lost quote compounds a win-rate dataset nobody can buy.
Bootstrapper
5/5
One founder, $199 a month on a card, and subcontractors who already pay estimators six hours per quote means revenue in months.
Operator
5/5
A subcontractor's six-hour estimate at night is frequent, expensive pain, the owner holds the card, and $199 a month sits below what estimators already cost.
Technologist
4/5
Takeoff from messy PDF plan sets is genuinely hard vision work, and the won/lost price feedback loop compounds with every quote.
Risk
4/5
Thousands of $199 self-serve subscribers across three countries and no licence exposure, with only per-country supplier catalog APIs as a real dependency.
trends
1/5
PDF takeoff plus supplier catalogs was fully possible in 2023, and the vertical-agents cluster it rides added 406 companies in 2025 alone.

Similar startups in the directory

Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (contractors, upload, plans, priced, win-rate-tuned, quote, self-serve, subscription): 10 all-time, 3 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.

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Reforge Roboticsplugandplay PnP 2024 · 2024 · Robotics and physical worldalive
Robotic software enabling the future of manufacturing.
Vobiyc W22 · 2022 · B2B SaaSalive
All-in-one project management software for construction SMBs in Latam
The Mercer Clubyc W20 · 2020 · Consumersite down
The Mercer Club is a subscription service that allows men to rent…
Gritwellalchemist Alchemist Class 22 · 2019 · Healthcare and biounchecked
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Bulldozairyc S16 · 2016 · B2B SaaSacquired
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Kabuku provides 3D printing solutions, operation services, and a marketplace through their Rinkak platform.

Run this as an Idea Check →

The generator's reference companies

Real companies the model named as closest when it wrote the card, with their fate. A check mark is a company the radar could verify in its directory.

Public money in this direction

US federal grants, SBIR/STTR awards and open opportunities from the radar's public-money feed, matched to the idea's terms; the sector totals give the context.

grants and programs matching the idea

startup-relevant grants in Vertical AI agents

$135M

awarded in the sector, tracked

All public money by sector →

Market signal

What the radar sees in Vertical AI agents: new companies by cohort year, the forming YC batch, and outcomes since the February snapshot.

Vertical AI agents · 159 → 261 → 364 → 411 → 353 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 93% aliveYC F26 live: 25 in this cluster, 20% of the batch (was 25% in S26)Since February, of 698 YC companies here: 19 acquired, 9 shut down, 219 rewrote their pitch

Vertical AI agents: companies, trend and grants →

Design attributes

The card is one cell of a designed set: every axis below was chosen before the text was written, and the text had to realize it.

Buyer: Small business
Business model: Software subscription
Path to 100x: Collapses a cost 10x
Market size: $100B+ market
Capital intensity: Capital-light (software margins)
Speed to revenue: Revenue within a year
Technical depth: Real engineering
Go-to-market: Self-serve
Moat: Data moat
Geography: Global from day one
Regulation: Unregulated
Vibe: Hot space