Untapped Opportunities in Mid-Market and Enterprise Operations

“Arbitrage” is a dirty word, but there are tons of mid-market and enterprise untapped opportunities, also collaborating with consultants and SMEs.

And if you’re thinking forex or hedging global trade, it doesn’t end there.

1. Publishers + Industry Experts columns

Distribution in AI era is a mess. Publishers lack SEO but still have loyal audiences, and experts don’t have proper channels.

Solution: build newsletter/podcast networks from mid-sized publishers with audiences recruiting columnists, hosts, webinar regulars.

This is what HubSpot has been doing for ages – acquiring The Hustle, starting podcasts with Sam and Shaan, backing ex-executives in ventures.

2. Tech in VCs (entrepreneurs in residence)

Plenty of VC funds are ran by finance experts and politicians (not referring to the top 1% or the heavy tech Bay Area ones).

You end up with fund managers allocating capital but struggling to assess deal quality, pipeline, GTM motions, or the viability of decks for digital businesses.

I’ve met DOZENS of VC managing partners with very limited tech capacity inside to gauge this.

3. Digital Operating Partners for PE

Many OPs in PE companies apply from alumni groups, country clubs, and other networks shared with PE partners or common contacts.

Trust is imperative – nothing wrong there – but the same silo and same background isn’t always scalable when diversity of experience is missing.

I always seek GTM strategists or entrepreneurs in my own hiring process, facilitating short sprints, quick launches, agile MVPs and pivots. This is ever more important in this era.

4. Ops consultants in boring businesses

Lots of great operations experts from high tech and enterprise, some laid off in the past 2 years, others struggling in this market of operational efficiency, running with skeleton crews or just not excelling at what they do best.

Meanwhile, regulatory, license management, chemical component businesses still running on paper checklists and lacking CRMs in 2026 (speaking from experience).

Chasing “hot” industries instead of finding epic alignment to deliver incredible results in a boring business is a flawed strategy.

Instead of joining a fairly efficient business, you can bring from 80% to 85% in 2 years, you can go from 10% to 70% for a proven and reliable business, and change the entire landscape of the industry.

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And if you maintain a strong network of boring businesses or struggling publishers, this is a business model in itself: acting as a mediator.

If you’re not excited to be a dispatcher (neither am I), it’s a fairly simple model to set up a doola LLC and get an extraverted sales-driven partner to bridge the gaps as well.

Going offline and putting aside all the Bay Area VC-funded fad, or the glorious industries, and AI funds – that helps to uncover the millions of other great businesses with untapped opportunities there.