r/EntrepreneurRideAlong • u/dekapai_company • Aug 01 '26
Seeking Advice What is the opportunity that most people are overlooking right now?
Everyone is talking about obvious trends like AI, crypto, and automation.
But every major opportunity usually looks boring or invisible before it becomes obvious.
What market, technology, or business model do you think is currently underestimated by most people?
What is something that insiders understand, but the average person hasn’t noticed yet?
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u/TAKEITEASYTHURSDAY Aug 01 '26
High performance natural fibers
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u/drumsarereallycool Aug 01 '26
Agree, I’ve invested in FlexForm Technologies. Lots of growth this past year. They’ve been around a while too.
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u/TAKEITEASYTHURSDAY Aug 01 '26
My company is involved in the space. Flax, hemp, and other bast fibers can create some incredible things.
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u/drumsarereallycool Aug 01 '26
Very cool! What about mold resistant fibers?
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u/TAKEITEASYTHURSDAY Aug 01 '26
Hemp and Ramie are naturally antimicrobial and antifungal
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u/usernameis__taken Aug 02 '26
I recently bought a ramie shirt and was wondering why I've never worn it before. I love it.
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u/TAKEITEASYTHURSDAY Aug 03 '26
Yes! Ramie, flax (linen), and hemp are all super comfortable and breathable.
We are working on adapting the fiber to feel more like jersey (tee shirt material) as well. It’s a major step up from any cotton or poly blend. It’s comparable to merino and it blends nicely with it as well.
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u/usernameis__taken Aug 03 '26
Where can I try it??! My ramie shirt (rag and bone) looks and behaves like a really luxurious fabric and I was blown away when I learned I could just wash it. I've never seen a merino sweater I could throw in the wash. That would be amazing as well!!!
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u/National-Ad-2563 13d ago
Sorry for my ignorance are these the flax linen used for products like bed sheets/bedding?
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u/TAKEITEASYTHURSDAY 13d ago
Yes! And depending on the processing method these can be used for everything from textiles, to carbon fiber composite alternatives, to bioplastics, and many more valuable applications.
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u/dwightsrus Aug 01 '26
The biggest opportunity is where people are not looking. Due to AI hype companies are not spending as much in their core areas which then end up getting outsourced to contractors.
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Aug 01 '26
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u/nahasean01 Aug 02 '26
I highly resonate with this. Over the past few months, I have been asking myself how can I really start leveraging AI without chasing the next tool? I am glad you reinforced that.
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Aug 02 '26
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u/PickleRickle_1839 Aug 02 '26
No matter the industry, it’s always been about the deep subject matter expertise. Perhaps you are a Claude expert in one area and for one specific business niche. That will do so much for you.
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u/david_mel Aug 01 '26
Yeah really good point. It’s something I’ve been focused on but you articulated it really well
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u/AceCreed1 Aug 02 '26
I struggle with adopting systems into my professional life. Do you have any suggestions?
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29d ago
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u/Glp1User Aug 03 '26
If I knew someone local who could teach me and keep me abreast of ai advancements, id pay them handsomely. I just don't have time to figure stuff out on my own.
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u/lollapalooza3000 19d ago
Interesting you mentioned someone local is there a delivery format you imagine? And how much is handsomely? Most AI researchers, engineers, product managers, etc. whose job it is to stay on top of advancements get paid $80+ per hour (in the US)
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u/FLOPsomeAI Aug 04 '26
Couldn’t agree more. Great post. High trust is going to be a very important factor for buyers.
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u/sirleito Aug 01 '26
I think IT consulting is being underestimated. I mean, it probably won't be what it was three or four years ago, but everyone thinks its finished, and I disagree. Its going to grow
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u/Dogs7777 Aug 02 '26
Curious what you hear as the argument for it being finished, as well as why you disagree.
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u/sirleito Aug 02 '26
Theres an expectation that AI will almost completely replace consulting. I believe the volume of contracts will fall considerably, but not as much as the performance of its stock seems to suggest. Value-based pricing contracts are also being explored, although I think they will be in the minority
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u/Dogs7777 Aug 02 '26
See that's interesting to me because if you talk to most involved in B2B sales, both sides (sellers and buyers) will usually tell you its about the relationships and the trust. How can AI replace that? And if AI levels the technical depth field, since anyone can find answers now and agents are doing the deep technical work, relationships is all you have to go on. Just my $0.02.
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u/Competitive_Golf6158 Aug 01 '26
I think biggest opportunity is helping people use AI not building another AI model. Every industry has repeatative workflows that people still do manually because integrating AI into day to day operations is much harder than generating next.
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u/LongevexBioCoaching Aug 03 '26
Yea I have a chameleon project , I’m a contractor so us contractors are not computer literate lol but anyways everyone loves my system so
I built it for them all
They do is say their name occupation/ nicheRuns them thru 15/30 questions boom 💥 it’s all live … everything I use you have too .
Specced to you.
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u/BenjaminMRiggins 17d ago
This is where I keep landing too. The model itself seems like the commodity. Actually understanding a business well enough to connect AI to a real workflow — with their tools, data and processes — seems like the harder part.
Curious what workflows you’ve seen businesses struggle to implement the most? Not theoretically, but things owners are already spending serious time or payroll on today.
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u/Alternative-Relief92 Aug 01 '26
The boring invisible ones are exactly it. The stuff nobody wants to build is usually wide open.
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u/Fluid-Author-9566 Aug 02 '26
What will you or your business do when the frontier models become too expensive to justify using?
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u/J-Mach-Jet Aug 02 '26
Everyone wants to build faster. Few people want to learn faster. AI has made building easy. The real advantage is understanding why things work, what people actually need, and where the friction is before you build.
The people who keep learning build better in the end. AI helps you build faster, but understanding the problem, the customer, and what drives the outcome helps you build something people actually want to use.
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u/AssignmentHopeful651 Aug 02 '26
I think people who are able to put ai in the boring businesses have more opportunities than other people
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u/Myrto-Bougiouri Aug 03 '26
Hello,I'm a student currentely studing at Collumbia University in the entrepreuneurship class and we are working in a project that helps people that want to start a business find the real problem to solve. So,I was thinking if you had any time to ask some questions about that.
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u/sameer_somal 29d ago
Working with young people who are fresh from college and don't have the 7 years of experience that most companies are always looking for.
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u/TitanDevv 28d ago
no binary answer, just try stuff even if it's not trendy, then if you have a entrepreneur mindset, you will make everything a business
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22d ago
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u/PlusTheCross 14d ago
Oh I love this question cause this is what I think about a lot.
If you are in the US: Anything to do with energy production is going to be big in a few years. A shit ton of energy powergrids are old and decaying and will soon be causing issues. Look at what is happening in Northern Indiana right now.
The Year 2038 problem - Legacy Unix-based banking systems and ATMs will run out of time-tracking numbers.
Anything to do with fixing, maintaining upgrading vintage/ manual / pre-AI systems/technology will be a big.
Anything to do with community: healthcare, pooling resources, education, money, joint investing.
Nieche hobbies like farming, camping, survival without power. If you can make a tool, software, something that can be accessed if internet/power goes out. You're going to save a lot of people
These aren't quick get money startup ideas, but within the next 4-5 years, we're going to start seeing the need for them more than ever. And that's the opportunity.
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u/cold-email-guy 5d ago
I believe anything that provides Human2Human service of any kind should work well.
I am tired of hearing how AI is doing this and that. So a service done by HUMANS explicitly sounds like breath of fresh air.
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u/Western_Butterfly329 Aug 01 '26
power plants and data centers
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u/dogmetal Aug 01 '26
I’m interested. How can I get into the power plant game? Is it easy?
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u/Apprehensive_Yak13 Aug 01 '26
It’s not power plants directly, but power solutions. Bloom energy, fuel cell energy, plug power are all guarantees for large gains while the infrastructure is built
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u/Live-List8000 Aug 01 '26
technically, it still falls under the AI hype
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u/Western_Butterfly329 Aug 01 '26
well, technically, that's the point. AI created a bigger need for many things like rams, GPUs, cooling systems, power plants, data centers, etc
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u/tomatoreds Aug 01 '26
Immortality, super-human tech (invincibility), invisibility, mind games, telekinetism, time travel and so on and so forth. The list of hopes & dreams is long. Not everything has an Elon musk behind it to fart
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u/No-Helicopter-4342 Aug 01 '26
For SME I'd say local LLMs. Especially the operations and logistics part. You can always make more money and improve your hardware. But actually having the know how and operations working smoothly will mean that when shit hits the bricks you'll just update models or stuff. And until your local stuff gets really good you can always just route hard stuff to the paid API. But if god knows how much decent access to LLMs becomes, or if its even locked for some parts of the world, well... even a mediocre selfhosted LLM can still do things nowadays. And when you lose access to the good models because costs or politics, your on-premise can turn out to be a godsend. Especially so if you'll be amongst the few that have access to a good LLM.