Product Tutorials
Find a Vertical SaaS Niche With Main Street Index
Last updated: April 2026
Most solo founders build for other founders, because that is the market they can see. Main Street Index shows you a different one: 75,000+ businesses for sale across 130+ industries, each a real operator with real earnings. This guide walks through turning that data into a niche you can build for, or a business you can buy.
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Step 1: Start from the Software Gap Score
In Main Street Index, start with the Software Gap Score for each industry. The score is half operator density (how many businesses in the industry are for sale) and half software scarcity (how few products serve it). 70 and above is wide open, 50 to 69 underserved, below 50 served.
Skip any industry marked unknown. That means the software side could not be read, and a gap we cannot see is not a gap.
Step 2: Check what the owners earn
Then read the industry benchmarks. Median SDE tells you what a typical owner takes home, which caps what they will pay for software. The median asking multiple tells you what a buyer pays for a year of those earnings.
Benchmarks are split by currency and earnings basis. US and Canadian listings quote SDE, UK and Australian listings quote net profit. Compare like with like only.
- Use the size band closest to your target customer, not the all-sizes cell
- Treat any cell marked indicative (fewer than 30 listings) as a hint, not a number
- Multiples are asking prices, so closed deals usually come in lower
Step 3: Read the stated reasons and the theses
The stated reason for selling tells you who the owner is. A market full of retiring owners is a market where the next owner will want to modernise. It is what the listing says, not a verified motive.
Then open the theses for the industry. Each one names the system it replaces, the buyer and the wedge, and only theses that survived an adversarial review are shown.
Step 4: Validate demand, then decide build or buy
Cross-check the industry against complaint data and the Stripe Index to see whether operators already pay for software and what they complain about. If you would rather buy a business, filter listings in the industry by country, state, asking price and SDE, compare each asking multiple to the industry median and its middle half, and read the stated reason for selling on every listing.
The full method and every data limit are in the Main Street Index docs. The overview is on the Main Street Index page.
FAQ
Which plans include Main Street Index?
Every paid plan: Lite, Basic and Pro. CSV export of listings is part of Pro Lifetime, or available with the $200 export add-on.
Are the multiples what businesses actually sold for?
No. They are asking multiples from listings: asking prices divided by disclosed earnings, not closed deals. Treat them as the opening position in a negotiation.
Why do some industries show no score?
When the software side of an industry cannot be read, or the industry has too few listings, it is marked unknown rather than scored. That keeps a blind spot from looking like an opportunity.
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