Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Most people building with AI are chasing the same thing: viral chatbots, cool demos or the next trending wrapper. But I think the real money — the serious, unicorn-level money — is somewhere else entirely.
It’s in the stuff nobody wants to touch. Tedious, time-wasting, must-do tasks. The things you hate doing, but have to. That’s where the next wave of AI companies will emerge.
Painful > pretty
AI that makes you laugh is fun. AI that gets your taxes filed, your Visa sorted or your documents organized? That’s life-changing.
When I moved to the UK on a Global Talent visa, I couldn’t find a single tool to track my absence days — something crucial for maintaining legal status. So I built it myself. Not to show off. Just to solve a problem I was quietly freaking out about.
That’s the kind of “boring” problem most people overlook. But if it causes stress, repetition or fear — it’s valuable.
There’s more money in fixing one painful workflow than chasing 100 likes on a fancy AI-generated avatar.
Related: Don’t Be Afraid to Embrace Boring Ideas
The more annoying it is, the bigger the opportunity
Scheduling medical appointments. Submitting invoices. Picking wines from a 40-page restaurant list. These aren’t sexy problems. But they’re everywhere, and no one enjoys dealing with them.
I’ve built apps that take care of those exact scenarios. Some were simple side projects, but they solved problems that people repeatedly run into. That’s the magic formula.
In a piece I wrote earlier — 7 AI-Based Business Ideas That Could Make You Rich — I pointed out that the most profitable ideas are often hiding in plain sight. This is another example of that.
No team? No problem.
The tools available now are ridiculous. With GPT-4o, Supabase, Vercel and Claude, I’ve launched entire products in a week — solo.
No designers. No backend engineers. Just a painful idea, an AI stack and a few cups of coffee.
I’m not the only one. I’ve seen one-person shops build apps that manage apartment leases, prep legal docs and even coach you through IVF. They’re quiet tools with unflashy interfaces, but they’re deeply useful.
If you’re a founder today, your MVP doesn’t need to be impressive — it just needs to make someone’s headache disappear.
Build for Tuesday, not for tech Twitter
Some of the smartest founders I know aren’t even trying to go viral. They’re building for Tuesd