For Investors
The empty quadrant in trade bookkeeping.
BlueLedger is an AI-native bookkeeping SaaS for the 1.73M US trade businesses that today rely on shoeboxes and year-end CPA scrambles. We're raising $35K to ship the MVP in 75 days and onboard 50 design-partner shops.
QuickBooks sees rows. BlueLedger sees jobs.
Market sizing
Target market
1.73M
US trade businesses (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, contracting)
SAM (projected)
$192M
ARR at $39/mo × ~410K addressable shops
No bookkeeper
73%
Of trade shops with no bookkeeper today (PE diligence cycle, 2026-04)
Competitive landscape
The market splits four ways. Generalist bookkeeping (QBO, Bench, Pilot) is priced at $129–$500/mo and doesn't understand jobs. Trade-ops platforms (Jobber, ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro) start at $129/mo and treat bookkeeping as a bolt-on. AI-native bookkeeping (Digits, Puzzle) targets venture-backed SaaS, not trades. The trade-specific, sub-$50, AI-native quadrant is empty.
Generalist bookkeeping
QBO, Bench, Pilot — $129–500/mo. No job concept.
Trade ops
Jobber, ServiceTitan — $129+/mo. Scheduler-first; books are bolt-on.
AI-native books
Digits, Puzzle — built for SaaS founders, not trades.
BlueLedger
Trade-specific, AI-native, $39/mo. The empty quadrant.
Financial model (projected)
All figures below are projections from the PE diligence cycle, not achieved revenue.
- Investment needed
- $35K
- Time to MVP
- 75 days
- Time to break-even
- Month 17
- MRR at break-even
- $117K
- Trial-to-paid (modeled)
- ≥28%
- Price
- $39/mo
Coming in v2
Month-by-month cashflow
Pulls from the financial-modeler agent output once that step is wired in.
Path to product
-
Phase 01
60 days · $0
Validate the wedge
Ship POC site, drive 500 waitlist signups, run 30 customer-discovery calls
Go signal: ≥500 signups + ≥18/30 calls confirm willingness to pay $39/mo
-
Phase 02
90 days post-funding · $35,000
Seed + MVP
Build Plaid → LLM categorizer → job-tagging UI → P&L-by-job; ship GLBA / §1033 compliance; onboard 50 design partners on free 90-day trial
Go signal: 50 active design partners with ≥40% week-4 retention
-
Phase 03
Months 6–12 · $0 incremental
Public launch + pricing
Flip to $39/mo with 60-day trial; CAC channels = trade schools, supply-house POS, HVAC/plumbing YouTube
Go signal: 1,000 paying subs (~$39K MRR projected) at ≥28% trial-to-paid
-
Phase 04
Months 13–17 · Self-funded from MRR
Break-even + optional Series A
Scale to $117K MRR projected (~3,000 paying subs); ship defensive Jobber / ServiceTitan / Housecall integrations
Go signal: $117K MRR sustained 3 months → optional Series A or stay bootstrapped
Honest risks
- 01
Red-team memo currently null (synthetic FUND patch in place); no external pitch until the audit gap is closed.
- 02
Jobber and ServiceTitan could pivot into the trades-AI-books quadrant within 12–18 months given existing distribution.
- 03
Trial-to-paid conversion modeled at 28% (Jobber benchmark, not the optimistic 35%) — tradespeople are skeptical first-time SaaS adopters.
Capital ask
We're raising $35,000 to ship the MVP in 75 days and onboard 50 design-partner shops. 17-month timeline to projected break-even.
- Engineering (1 FT contractor, 75 days) $18,000
- GLBA / CFPB §1033 compliance setup $8,000
- Plaid + infra (Render, Supabase, OpenAI), 12 months $4,500
- Design partner incentives (Visa cards, $50 × 50) $2,500
- Legal / ToS / Privacy $2,000
- Total $35,000
Looking for
A founding partner / first 1099 engineer who has personally hated bookkeeping for a side hustle or trade business — not a generalist SaaS PM. Equity, not salary, until break-even.
Ideal background: 5+ years full-stack (TypeScript + Python), prior fintech-ledger or LLM-categorization experience, comfortable owning Plaid integration end-to-end. Trades-adjacent personal background (parent/sibling/spouse in a trade) is a strong signal.
Current status
As of 2026-05-07
✓ Completed
- • PE diligence cycle complete (score 7.0, FUND verdict)
- • Market sizing validated (1.73M trade businesses, $192M SAM)
- • Competitive map confirmed empty trade-specific sub-$50 quadrant
- • POC site live at blueledger.nltlabs.ai
- • Pricing model stress-tested ($39/mo, 28% trial-to-paid)
○ Pending
- • Close red-team memo audit gap (synthetic FUND patch in place)
- • Seed close ($35K)
- • MVP build (75-day post-seed window)
- • 50 design-partner cohort onboarding
- • GLBA / CFPB §1033 compliance setup