The four filters
Every vertical that gets built here passed four tests. Most candidates fail at least one, and failing one is enough.
One: a real trade with real budgets
The work has to be somebody's job, and that job has to control spending. A hobby with enthusiasm behind it is not a trade. If nobody in the vertical signs a purchase order, there is nothing at the end of the ladder.
Two: fragmented tooling with no default
If the trade already has an obvious answer, the answer is already published and we would be adding a four hundred and first row. The opportunity is specifically where a competent person cannot tell what to buy.
Three: search demand that compounds
Some demand spikes and dies. Some accumulates. We want the second kind — the questions people will still be asking in three years, because the underlying job has not changed.
Four: the scatter has to be expensive
This is the one that cuts the most candidates. Assembling the knowledge yourself has to cost something real: months, a bad hire, a wrong contract.
If a beginner can reach competence in a weekend of reading, we do not build it. Cheap scatter is not a wedge. Someone else has already written the weekend, and they wrote it well enough.
Pass all four and the vertical gets a domain and a deadline. Pass three and it goes on the watchlist, where several are sitting right now.