TradeLedger

Why a ladder instead of one target

This idea is assessed at six MRR levels, not one fixed target. Outcomes for one-trade software are skewed. Most products stall at a handful of shops. Some reach a comfortable monthly figure. A few, like Rentman, break out after many years. One "$20k MRR" number hides the most useful information: how likely each level is, and what each level costs in hours.

The anchor: there is no verified base rate

No verified base rate exists for bootstrapped B2B micro-SaaS. Nobody publishes "the share of new B2B micro-SaaS products that reach $X MRR within 24 months". What does exist (10):

The odds below are judgment estimates, anchored loosely to these proxies and to two real trade-software stories:

• ZenMaid: full trade access, and about 7 years to reach ~$63k MRR.
• Rentman: full trade access, bootstrapped for 8 years, and $15–20M ARR after about 10.

Three things push the odds up compared with a consumer app:

• Few customers are needed. At ~$150 a month, $10k MRR is ~67 shops, not thousands of payers.
• The records are required by law and the work recurs, so a shop that moves its history in rarely moves it out.
• Buyers are listed, in the NAFED directory, city contractor lists and The Compliance Engine jurisdictions.

Three things push them down:

• Every sale takes a call and a data migration, and the hours limit how many a founder can do.
• The niche is small. No verified count exists, but it's probably a few thousand US shops. $20k+ means a large share of it.
• The low end is already served by FireInspected and other small tools, and the mid-market by ServiceTrade and BuildingReports.

Odds at each MRR level (reached by month 24)

The three alternative-trade columns assume full-time work and trade access, so they're comparable with the right-hand column.

The recommended version (fire extinguisher) is set out in WHAT-TO-DO-AND-AVOID.md and assumes all 4 founder-only conditions:

• trade access;
• 5 shops paying before building;
• live calls in US business hours;
• hours per week stated honestly.

If trade access is missing, multiply the recommended odds by ~0.4. If any other condition is missing, multiply by ~0.7.

Notes on the alternatives:

• Pest control has the biggest market (16.5k–33k firms), but 109 products compete. GorillaDesk, built by pest and lawn operators, sells to small shops at $49 per route.
• Party rental's incumbents are cheap ($19–59 entry) and rated 4.8–4.9. Its only real gap is inflatable compliance in a few states (MD, PA), and the business is seasonal.
• Backflow has the most reachable buyers (utilities publish tester lists), but they're mostly solo testers with a low budget. The per-test fees are charged by portals you can't remove. It's best as a later module (02).

How to read the ladder

• $1k–3k (7–20 shops) is a realistic outcome for a founder with trade access. It can be sold by phone and email from a directory.
• $5k–10k (34–67 shops) needs a repeatable channel: search pages, directory outreach and referrals that bring shops without a founder call for each one.
• $20k (~134 shops) is a stretch in 24 months, even full-time. It usually needs a second product line for the same shops (hood suppression, sprinkler, backflow) or a second country.
• The two columns split most between $5k and $20k. Each shop costs about 3–5 founder hours to sign and migrate until onboarding is automated. At 15 hrs/week, that caps new shops at about 4–6 a month in year 1.

Portfolio definitions (for comparison with other ideas)

• Tier A needs ~555 shops at $150, and likely more than the whole reachable US niche. It isn't the goal.
• Tier B sits slightly below the $20k rung. Margin (~88–90%) and retention are not the problem. The problem is profitability after the part-time support hire that $20k usually needs.

How this compares with the other ideas in this portfolio:

• Higher than BhashaCity and AstroCompanion at every level. It needs 10–60x fewer customers for the same MRR.
• Lower than CreatorDesk's Tier B. That figure was set on an earlier, more generous calibration, before the ladder format.
• Its distinctive shape: strong odds at $1k–5k, steep falls above $10k, and the widest gap between ~15 hrs/week and full-time. The work is sales and onboarding, which scale with hours.

Fundable in current form?

No, and it doesn't need to be. A one-trade system of record has a good-business ceiling, not a venture one. The horizontal version that could be venture-scale is already ServiceTitan ($961M revenue) and Jobber (400k+ users). See 06-fundability.md.

One-paragraph verdict

The thesis is right, and it's backed by ZenMaid and Rentman. Small trades run on paper and spreadsheets, and a system of record that holds a shop's history is sticky and hard for AI agents or generic apps to displace (IDC's opinion, Sept 2026). But the idea as written names no trade, and "any trade" is a head-on fight with the best-funded field-service companies in the world.

Pick portable fire-extinguisher inspection and service, US shops with 1–10 techs. Every extinguisher has a legally required history, and the work recurs on fixed cycles. Owners already pay for software, cities charge them per report, and a vendor now charges $5 a report just to re-key their data.

Build the asset register, the due-date engine, the offline tech app and jurisdiction-ready reports, and do the data migration for them. Only start with trade access. On those terms, $1k–5k MRR is a reasonable expectation, $10k needs a channel that works without you, and $20k in 24 months is a stretch that needs full-time hours and a second product line.