New startup ideas · Consumer and commerce · Commerce and marketplaces

startup idea

Originary

An API that computes duty, origin and eligibility for any product on any lane.

Originary compiles customs tariff schedules, binding rulings, rules-of-origin texts and trade-remedy orders from every major customs regime into one executable rule engine, then exposes it as a self-serve API that returns a landed cost and an origin determination with the citation chain behind it.

Infrastructure and APIs
Enterprise
$100B+ market
Creates a new category
Global from day one

4/5

venture judge

similar startups, last 2 years (4 all-time)

96%

of 4 nearest real companies still alive

yes

2 matching federal grants and programs

Direction supported by government programs and grants

Test it before you build it

$1,200 · 5 weeks · 30 prospects

Prove that 2 freight or ERP platform vendors will pay $1,500 up front for outsourced duty and origin determinations on the Vietnam and Mexico electronics lanes, in 5 weeks for $1,200.

Riskiest assumption · A platform that already shows customers a landed cost number will pay an outside vendor for the determination behind it, rather than treating duty logic as a feature to build in-house or wait for their ERP partner to bundle.

1Focus group: who and where

The product lead or head of engineering at a US freight forwarding software vendor, multicarrier shipping platform, or NetSuite or Shopify app vendor with 10-200 employees that already shows customers a landed cost or duty estimate on imports from Vietnam and Mexico and eats support escalations when the number is wrong.

where to find 30 · G2's landed cost, customs compliance and multicarrier shipping software categories as a vendor directory; the SuiteApp.com directory of NetSuite add-on vendors that touch imports; the Shopify App Store duties and cross-border category, where each listing names the vendor team; Hacker News as the developer channel for the free classification endpoint write-up.

2Sell first, build later

A determination pilot: 200 of the platform's customer SKUs on the Vietnam-to-US and Mexico-to-US consumer electronics lanes, each returned with HS classification, duty rate, Section 301 exposure, origin call and the citation chain behind it, delivered as an API-shaped dataset within 3 weeks of signing.

the ask · $3,000 per pilot, 50 percent invoiced up front, positioned against a future usage-priced API at $0.05-0.25 per determination

a real yes · A real yes is a paid $1,500 up-front invoice with a SKU file delivered for processing; not a yes: 'we would integrate this', free endpoint signups, or a pilot contingent on the full multi-regime corpus already existing.

3Small experiments

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

1. Standalone-or-feature offer calls
$300 · 12 days
Pull 30 vendors from the G2 categories, SuiteApp.com and the Shopify App Store duties category, and email each product lead to book 15 twenty-minute calls. Present the 200-SKU pilot and ask directly whether duty logic sits on their build roadmap or they expect their ERP partner to bundle it - the answer is the data.
keep going if · 5 of 15 calls end with a booked pilot scoping and a stated no internal duty-logic build planned in the next 12 months
2. One worked determination
$500 · 7 days
Hand-build one complete determination for a Vietnam-assembled HS 8517 networking device - classification, duty rate, Section 301 exposure, the USMCA contrast on the Mexico lane, and the ruling citations - and pay a licensed customs broker $400 to verify it. Send it as the follow-up artifact after every call and post the free classification endpoint write-up to Hacker News.
keep going if · 10 of 30 prospects reply asking for a determination on one of their own SKUs
3. Paid pilot close
$400 · 16 days
Send scoped prospects a one-page statement of work: 200 of their customers' consumer electronics SKUs on the Vietnam-to-US and Mexico-to-US lanes, delivered as an API-shaped dataset with full citation chains in 3 weeks, $3,000 with 50 percent invoiced up front by ACH. The determinations are built by hand behind the interface, because the corpus is exactly what the pilots fund.
keep going if · 2 pilots signed with $1,500 paid up front by ACH

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.

$1,500

per prospect, refundable

how · 50 percent of the pilot invoiced up front by ACH against a one-page statement of work signed by the platform's product lead; chosen because a 10-200 person platform vendor pays invoices but will not put a card into a checkout for an infrastructure dependency, and the signed SOW with money attached is the commitment a free endpoint can never measure. set up: Stripe Invoicing ↗

what it reserves · One of 3 design-partner slots, the 3-week delivery date on the 200-SKU set, and input into the response schema before the API freezes

refund · Full refund of the deposit if fewer than 95 percent of determinations are confirmed by the client's own licensed customs broker.

target · 2 paid pilots at $1,500 up front from 30 prospects within 35 days

before taking money · Deliver every determination as advisory analysis verified by a licensed customs broker, and never file entries or transact customs business for clients, which requires a CBP broker license.

Go: build it if

2 pilots paid up front and 5 of 15 platforms confirming no internal duty-logic build in the next 12 months - fund the corpus one lane at a time from pilot revenue.

Kill: stop if

0 paid pilots after 30 prospects and 15 calls, or a majority of platforms saying they will wait for their ERP vendor to bundle duty logic - then this is a feature, not a layer, and the 3-year corpus is unfunded.

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

outreach message

Your platform shows a landed cost on imports, and when the HS code or origin call is wrong on a Vietnam electronics shipment, your customer eats a six-figure duty swing and blames your number. I am building the determination layer underneath: duty, origin and the full citation chain behind every figure. Pilot: 200 of your SKUs on the Vietnam and Mexico lanes, delivered in 3 weeks for $3,000. Can I walk you through one fully worked determination on a 20-minute call?

landing page

Duty and origin determinations your auditors can trace $3,000 pilot: 200 SKUs on the Vietnam and Mexico lanes, citations included, delivered in 3 weeks Request the sample determination, then book a 20-minute scoping call

deposit terms

You pay $1,500 by ACH at signing - half the pilot fee - which reserves one of 3 design-partner slots and starts the 3-week delivery clock on your 200-SKU determination set. The balance is due on delivery. Your deposit is fully refunded if fewer than 95 percent of determinations are confirmed by your licensed customs broker.

Would you run this test?

One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who 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 34.0 x 1.61

Active

competition: more crowded than 47% of ideas · headwind x0.76

+1.2

government priorities, secondary (2 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)66
Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector8
Sector direction (live batch)0
2026 trend analyst50

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)67
Operator judge: real pain50
Founders' yes-rate in decks27

100x potential

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

Venture judge75
Market size axis100
Moat axis20
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 computes, duty, origin, eligibility, lane, compiles, customs, tariff.

The idea in full

What: Originary compiles customs tariff schedules, binding rulings, rules-of-origin texts and trade-remedy orders from every major customs regime into one executable rule engine, then exposes it as a self-serve API that returns a landed cost and an origin determination with the citation chain behind it. Buyers are enterprise commerce, ERP and freight platforms that need to quote a duty figure at checkout or at PO time and stand behind it. The hard part is not the API, it is three years of building and maintaining the rule corpus and the field work of validating outputs against actual customs entries.
Why now: Cross-border duty math has become a first-class product problem in this cluster: Tarifflo Inc. (S26) sells supply chain compliance and cost savings, Donkey (S26) is running China factory-direct for US importers, ShipTag handles duties and taxes end-to-end for brands, and the SBA's State Trade Expansion Program 2026 closed on 2026-08-18 pushing more small US firms into exporting.
Wedge: first customer and entry point: One lane and one chapter: US imports of consumer electronics from Vietnam and Mexico, where origin rules decide six-figure duty swings, sold as a free classification endpoint to developers at freight and ERP vendors.
Path to 100x: Duty, tax and fee determination on cross-border transactions is a $100B+ handling cost pool, and if every quote, checkout and PO calls one engine for the number, a new category forms the way tax determination did for domestic sales. The path requires that accuracy plus the citation trail becomes the audit-defensible default, so platforms embed it once and never re-evaluate.
Ceiling: If ERP vendors treat duty logic as a feature and bundle a good-enough version, this stays a low-priced API line item rather than a standalone layer.
Closest real companies, as the generator saw them: Tarifflo Inc. and ShipTag deliver duty outcomes as a managed service to their own customers; Originary sells the determination layer underneath, including to them. Waybill and Reframe procure hardware and would consume the API rather than build the corpus.
Main risk: The rule corpus is public information, so a well-funded incumbent or a good model can replicate coverage before any usage lock-in forms.

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
4/5
Duty determination is the Avalara shape: one embedded API call per cross-border transaction, priced into a $100B+ handling pool with no headcount coupling.
Bootstrapper
1/5
Three years building the rule corpus before revenue, against ERP vendors who can bundle good-enough duty logic for free.
Operator
3/5
Duty misclassification costs six figures per lane, but three years of corpus building before revenue and ERP bundling gut the willingness to pay a standalone API.
Technologist
4/5
Three years of rule corpus validated against actual customs entries is expertise that compounds, even though the source texts are public.
Risk
3/5
Buyers are many ERP and freight platforms, but the corpus is public information and ERP vendors bundling a good enough version caps pricing.
trends
3/5
Duty-at-checkout becomes agent-sellable as UCP-style checkout spreads, but the cited SBA program and cohort formation are weak substitutes for a dated tariff shift.

Similar startups in the directory

Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (computes, duty, origin, eligibility, lane, compiles, customs, tariff): 4 all-time, 3 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.

Tarifflo Inc.yc S26 · 2026 · Commerce and marketplacesalive
Supply chain compliance and cost savings
Donkeyyc S26 · 2026 · Commerce and marketplacesalive
The AI-native trading company: factory prices, delivered, one number
Floraceneyc S26 · 2026 · B2B SaaSalive
Vibecode + deploy HIPAA-compliant internal tools, no eng team needed
Paxyc S24 · 2024 · Commerce and marketplacesalive
AI Broker for Tariff Refunds

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 Commerce and marketplaces

$20M

awarded in the sector, tracked

opportunities open now in the sector

Software for increased accuracy prediction of antibody-antigen complexesawardhigh relevance
NIH / NIGMS · SBIR phase I · $202K · posted 2025-09-01
EAGER: Preventing Cross-Tenant Leakage from Persistent FPGA Hardware Memory and Enhancing Sub-OS Attack Resilience in Multitenant FPGA Cloudsawardmedium relevance
National Science Foundation · Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace · $100K · posted 2026-08-03

All public money by sector →

Market signal

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

Commerce and marketplaces · 145 → 119 → 130 → 67 → 34 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 87% aliveYC F26 live: 0 in this cluster, 0% of the batch (was 2% in S26)Since February, of 419 YC companies here: 4 acquired, 7 shut down, 28 rewrote their pitch

Commerce and marketplaces: 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: Enterprise
Business model: Infrastructure and APIs
Path to 100x: Creates a new category
Market size: $100B+ market
Capital intensity: Capital-medium (ops, field teams)
Speed to revenue: R&D first, revenue after 3 years
Technical depth: Real engineering
Go-to-market: Self-serve
Moat: No moat yet
Geography: Global from day one
Regulation: Heavily regulated
Vibe: Boring business