← Apify
Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast
12 Simple Online Side Hustles Anyone Can Start
⏱ 28 min video · 4 min read19 May 2026
TL;DR
Chris Koerner explains how anyone can build a profitable micro-SaaS by 'unbundling' large platforms like OpenAI, Clay, or Apify — picking one feature, wrapping it in a clean interface, and charging a markup. He uses Nico, a former pasta chef now making $3,500/month in recurring revenue, as proof this requires zero coding knowledge.
Key points
1
The 'great unbundling' concept: massive platforms like Apify, Clay, and OpenAI bundle thousands of features, and the opportunity is to extract one feature, build a clean UI around it, and sell it to a niche audience
2
Nico, a former New Orleans restaurant worker with no tech experience, built a Google Maps lead scraper using Apify and vibe coding tools, now earning $3,500/month MRR with near-zero costs
3
API arbitrage: buy API access to a pre-built scraper or AI tool for pennies, resell access through your own branded website at a markup — customers pay for simplicity and focus, not raw capability
4
Vibe coding tools (Replit, Lovable, Cursor, Codex) mean you no longer need to know how to code — you can describe what you want and AI builds it, then a freelance technical partner can handle edge cases
5
The window for these opportunities is limited — the efficacy of any growth hack is inversely correlated with its lifespan, so the time to act is now, not after everyone else has copied it
Actionable insights
→
Go to Apify, browse its 30,000+ pre-built scrapers (actors), pick one relevant to a niche audience, vibe-code a simple website with a search bar and Stripe integration on top of it, and launch — total time investment can be one afternoon
→
Sell to Shopify store owners or Amazon sellers by building tools like Amazon review sentiment scrapers, import supplier finders, or customer service bots via Zapier + OpenAI — millions of potential customers share the same pain points
→
Test multiple ideas cheaply: build five wrappers, run $100 in paid ads to each, and double down on whichever has the lowest cost per acquisition rather than guessing which will work
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For real estate niches (RV parks, self-storage, mobile home parks, laundromats), scrape Crexy, LoopNet, or BizBuySell and build a Zillow-style clean UI for one asset class — design quality alone is a competitive moat
→
Scrape BizBuySell weekly, subtract sold listings, and identify the fastest-moving business categories before building a niche marketplace — let data tell you where demand is highest before you invest time
Notable quotes
“The phrase nothing is too niche has never been more true. A feature can be a company. So that advice is officially dead in 2026.”
“The efficacy of a growth hack is inversely correlated with its lifespan. When something works, the window is short before everyone copies it. And the better it works, the shorter the window is.”
“This is like the asymmetric bet of the century. The cost to start is almost zero. The tools are either free or cheap.”
Worth watching?
⏭️
Worth watching the full video?
The summary captures all 12 ideas, the core framework, and Nico's full story — skip the video unless you want to hear Chris riff on the bonus Apify ideas or you learn better by listening than reading.
Saved you some time? The creator still deserves a like.
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