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This is so wrong as to be almost laughable. My VC friends are working double shifts on financing companies that are disrupting nearly every market vertical. The

This is so wrong as to be almost laughable. My VC friends are working double shifts on financing companies that are disrupting nearly every market vertical. There’s almost an infinite greenfield out there right now. Quick example : a company founded in the last three or four months that provides appointment setting and calendar management for a single healthcare vertical. They are already profitable. There are at least 5,000 market verticals like this in the US alone. Tech to provide this is going to keep commodifying and that will leave early entrants as wealthy incumbents; journalism telling people to be certain that the opposite will happen is borderline irresponsible and certainly missing the situation full stop.

moneywoes 1y ago
I seem to be bad at market research but as someone who's tried appointment setting for healthcare verticals all user interviews indicated either their EHR e.g. Cerner, Oracle, Athena or if smaller ( independent) something like Calendly worked Am I missing anything, what's the differentiation
- JohnMakin 1y ago
  imagination
- vessenes 1y ago
  Not my space, but I imagine your user interviews didn't ask questions like: "How many FTEs do you use to manage appointment setting and calendaring for your practice right now?" "What's your no-show rate?" "How much more money would you make if your most lucrative patients on average booked appointments two to four weeks earlier and your money-losing ones booked two months later?" The answers to these questions likely end up with someone realizing you could save them $100k+ a year and make them $500k+ a year (I here imagine numbers for a small practice with absolutely no knowledge) and therefore they should absolutely take a free trial and then pay you $500/month in perpetuity.
RainyDayTmrw 1y ago
Intentional or not, that sounds too uncomfortably close to personal bragging.
- vessenes 1y ago
  Genuine q - why? FWIW I'm not a VC, although I am a former one. Tell me though, happy to hear.
ffsm8 1y ago
Totally off topic, but the term market verticals was new to me, so I googled it... It's definition is really strange for the used term. I expected something about verticality, like how apple provides their devices - with everything being provided by them: hardware, software and the shop it's being sold in. Or how BYD is creating their EVs, with everything coming from their own factories etc But instead, it's about specializing your product to the needs of specific customers / finding a niche and then provide exactly the service they desire. How is that in any way vertical? Etymology is strange
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  The structure within a large company that's trying to target it is vertical. You have your normal "horizontal" structure, where engineers try to build a general product, marketing tries to advertise it in the most promising places, and then sales tailors their pitch to whatever prospects they happen to have. Then you might have a vertical with e.g. healthcare sales, healthcare marketing, and engineers for your healthcare-focused product all under common leadership and executing on common goals.
  - shubb 1y ago
    Right, but isn't this sort of the opposite to the usual companies VC funded which were about massive potential scale based on solving a very common problem? Like, I thought the whole point with VC was to find ideas that could 100x your return, which by definition would be horizontal markets.
- robocat 1y ago
  The words horizontal and vertical get abused badly in business jargon. Often meaninglessly.
spitfire 1y ago
Didn’t Patrick McKenzie (patio11) do this already with appointment reminder?
- vessenes 1y ago
  Yes. Two ways to think of that: a) Market must be saturated, I should move on! b) A solo founder company with an old tech stack shows practices of many kinds need help in this area. Is Appointment Reminder a dominant force in my chosen market, using current (AI) tech to offer needed features? If not, I think the story would be encouraging, not discouraging.
ldjkfkdsjnv 1y ago
There's a quiet gold rush going on for people in the know
- vessenes 1y ago
  Yes. I am sure we will see the rise of some groups like Rocket Internet, but just spinning out the same stack lots of places. Rocket AI has a nice ring to it.
tim333 1y ago
I'm not sure David Gerard, the author is very good at this stuff. He's spent the last several years moaning about cryptocurrency in a not very deep way and now seems to have pivoted to moaning about AI and VC without a deep knowledge or either. He also pops up as a Wikipedia editor moaning about stuff https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248 For an alternative take check out say the FT "AI frenzy leads US venture capital to biggest splurge in three years" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248 (for amusement here he is going on about bitcoin being a pump and dump when it was $16 in 2011 https://newstechnica.com/2011/06/18/bitcoin-to-revolutionise-the-economy/ https://newstechnica.com/2011/06/18/bitcoin-to-revolutionise...)
- vessenes 1y ago
  Not surprising given the depth of analysis.
chis 1y ago
Only sane comment here lol. I just don't know what the point of reading rants like this is vs going to a primary source like Pitchbook, which will tell you that venture deals are almost as high as the 2021 craziness right now https://nvca.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Q1-2025-PitchBook-NVCA-Venture-Monitor-19001.pdf https://nvca.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Q1-2025-PitchBoo... Anyone even close to the space will tell you there are a million tiny AI-adjacent startups getting funded right now. Which if anyone is in one and looking for an early hire engineer please do reach out, I have the background but haven't found anything in my network yet.

moneywoes 1y ago

I seem to be bad at market research but as someone who's tried appointment setting for healthcare verticals all user interviews indicated either their EHR e.g. Cerner, Oracle, Athena or if smaller ( independent) something like Calendly worked Am I missing anything, what's the differentiation

JohnMakin 1y ago
imagination
vessenes 1y ago
Not my space, but I imagine your user interviews didn't ask questions like: "How many FTEs do you use to manage appointment setting and calendaring for your practice right now?" "What's your no-show rate?" "How much more money would you make if your most lucrative patients on average booked appointments two to four weeks earlier and your money-losing ones booked two months later?" The answers to these questions likely end up with someone realizing you could save them $100k+ a year and make them $500k+ a year (I here imagine numbers for a small practice with absolutely no knowledge) and therefore they should absolutely take a free trial and then pay you $500/month in perpetuity.

RainyDayTmrw 1y ago

Intentional or not, that sounds too uncomfortably close to personal bragging.

vessenes 1y ago
Genuine q - why? FWIW I'm not a VC, although I am a former one. Tell me though, happy to hear.

ffsm8 1y ago

Totally off topic, but the term market verticals was new to me, so I googled it... It's definition is really strange for the used term. I expected something about verticality, like how apple provides their devices - with everything being provided by them: hardware, software and the shop it's being sold in. Or how BYD is creating their EVs, with everything coming from their own factories etc But instead, it's about specializing your product to the needs of specific customers / finding a niche and then provide exactly the service they desire. How is that in any way vertical? Etymology is strange

SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
The structure within a large company that's trying to target it is vertical. You have your normal "horizontal" structure, where engineers try to build a general product, marketing tries to advertise it in the most promising places, and then sales tailors their pitch to whatever prospects they happen to have. Then you might have a vertical with e.g. healthcare sales, healthcare marketing, and engineers for your healthcare-focused product all under common leadership and executing on common goals.
- shubb 1y ago
  Right, but isn't this sort of the opposite to the usual companies VC funded which were about massive potential scale based on solving a very common problem? Like, I thought the whole point with VC was to find ideas that could 100x your return, which by definition would be horizontal markets.
robocat 1y ago
The words horizontal and vertical get abused badly in business jargon. Often meaninglessly.

spitfire 1y ago

Didn’t Patrick McKenzie (patio11) do this already with appointment reminder?

vessenes 1y ago
Yes. Two ways to think of that: a) Market must be saturated, I should move on! b) A solo founder company with an old tech stack shows practices of many kinds need help in this area. Is Appointment Reminder a dominant force in my chosen market, using current (AI) tech to offer needed features? If not, I think the story would be encouraging, not discouraging.

ldjkfkdsjnv 1y ago

There's a quiet gold rush going on for people in the know

vessenes 1y ago
Yes. I am sure we will see the rise of some groups like Rocket Internet, but just spinning out the same stack lots of places. Rocket AI has a nice ring to it.

tim333 1y ago

I'm not sure David Gerard, the author is very good at this stuff. He's spent the last several years moaning about cryptocurrency in a not very deep way and now seems to have pivoted to moaning about AI and VC without a deep knowledge or either. He also pops up as a Wikipedia editor moaning about stuff https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248 For an alternative take check out say the FT "AI frenzy leads US venture capital to biggest splurge in three years" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248 (for amusement here he is going on about bitcoin being a pump and dump when it was $16 in 2011 https://newstechnica.com/2011/06/18/bitcoin-to-revolutionise-the-economy/ https://newstechnica.com/2011/06/18/bitcoin-to-revolutionise...)

vessenes 1y ago
Not surprising given the depth of analysis.

chis 1y ago

Only sane comment here lol. I just don't know what the point of reading rants like this is vs going to a primary source like Pitchbook, which will tell you that venture deals are almost as high as the 2021 craziness right now https://nvca.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Q1-2025-PitchBook-NVCA-Venture-Monitor-19001.pdf https://nvca.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Q1-2025-PitchBoo... Anyone even close to the space will tell you there are a million tiny AI-adjacent startups getting funded right now. Which if anyone is in one and looking for an early hire engineer please do reach out, I have the background but haven't found anything in my network yet.