How to Find Businesses Hidden in Free Data

TL;DR

Profitable businesses can package free, difficult-to-use information into convenient products that customers will pay to access. Oasis demonstrates the model by organizing public water-quality reports, adding independent tests, charging for detailed access, earning affiliate revenue, and attracting customers through repeatable short-form videos. Labor-law posters and barcodes illustrate the same broader opportunity at larger scales.

Transcript

all right so check this out I'm going to tell you about three products that are hidden in PL sight and the genius of these is that they take something that's free and they sell it they take a free thing and they sell it and I'm going to tell you about one example that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars another one that makes millions of dollars... Read More

Key Insights

• Free information can become a paid product when collecting, interpreting, and presenting it saves customers meaningful time or reduces uncertainty. The commercial value comes from accessibility and organization, even when motivated users could locate the underlying reports independently.
• Oasis is an app and website that reports on water quality for cities, counties, and bottled-water products. Its founder created it after moving from Minnesota to Los Angeles, noticing that the tap water tasted different, and becoming sick after drinking it.
• Water-quality reports are available from cities and bottled-water companies upon request, according to the discussion. Oasis aggregates those separate reports into a convenient interface, allowing users to investigate contaminants without contacting every government office or company themselves.
• Oasis earns revenue through a paywall and an affiliate arrangement. Users receive some information for free, while fuller access costs roughly $40 to $50 for an annual membership, and the company can receive a cut when users purchase recommended products.
• Oasis grew from about $10,000 in monthly revenue when previously mentioned to roughly $40,000 per month in the later discussion. At about $45 per subscription, the hosts reason that only a few thousand paying subscribers are needed to approach half a million dollars annually.
• Independent product testing strengthens Oasis beyond simple aggregation, but each test can cost a couple thousand dollars. The founder therefore uses incoming revenue to test products gradually, compare laboratory findings with company reports, and build a platform positioned as independent.
• Short-form educational videos are Oasis's primary customer-acquisition method in the discussion. Simple green-screen posts examine familiar products, sometimes receive more than a million views, direct viewers toward the app, and can be repeated across TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
• Labor-law posters and barcodes demonstrate that overlooked requirements can support much larger businesses. The episode categorizes water-quality testing as a million-dollar product, EZ Labor Law Posters as a $10 million product, and barcodes as a $100 million product.

Questions & Answers

Q: How can free information become a profitable business?

Free information can support a profitable business when it is fragmented, difficult to interpret, inconvenient to request, or connected to a decision customers consider important. The business collects the information, standardizes it, presents it through a useful interface, and charges for convenience or deeper access. Oasis applies this model to water-quality reports that people could otherwise request themselves.

Q: What is Oasis Water and what problem does it solve?

Oasis Water is an app and website that helps users check the quality of city, county, and bottled water. It addresses the difficulty of locating and comparing separate testing reports. Users can search for relevant water sources, see some information for free, and pay for fuller results rather than contacting individual cities and bottled-water companies themselves.

Q: Why did the founder create the Oasis water-quality app?

The founder, Cormac, grew up in Minnesota drinking tap water and even hose water without concern. After moving to Los Angeles, he noticed that the tap water tasted different and experienced an upset stomach. His effort to determine whether the water was safe led him to public reports, bottled-water reports, and eventually an app that organized the findings.

Q: How does Oasis Water make money from public data?

Oasis uses more than one revenue source. It provides limited information without charge, then asks users to pay roughly $40 to $50 for an annual membership that unlocks fuller reports. It also uses an affiliate arrangement, receiving a cut when users buy recommended products. Revenue can then help finance independent testing that supplements the aggregated reports.

Q: How much revenue does Oasis Water generate?

The discussion says Oasis was earning about $10,000 per month when it was mentioned several months earlier and later reached roughly $40,000 per month, which the hosts describe as about half a million dollars per year. A shared 28-day metric also showed $25,000 in monthly gross revenue, along with churn and other operating information.

Q: How does Oasis attract customers through short-form content?

Oasis posts simple short-form videos about recognizable bottled-water products and their reported contaminants. The format uses a green screen, a direct explanation, and a prompt to use the app for cleaner alternatives or more information. Some posts receive more than a million views, bringing attention, downloads, and sign-ups through TikTok and related short-form platforms.

Q: Why are labor-law posters an overlooked business opportunity?

Labor-law posters are required in workplace areas such as break rooms, and the discussion says they are updated every year. Although the underlying material is available without charge, businesses may pay a company to print and deliver a compliant poster because purchasing one is easier than locating, arranging, and printing the required information themselves.

Q: What business pattern connects water reports, labor posters, and barcodes?

Water reports, labor-law posters, and barcodes represent products or systems that people regularly encounter without noticing the businesses behind them. Each example packages something accessible, required, or hidden in plain sight into a more convenient offering. The episode frames them at increasing scales: a million-dollar water product, a $10 million poster product, and a $100 million barcode product.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• The featured business pattern is to identify information or resources that are technically free but inconvenient to find, understand, or use. Entrepreneurs can create value by collecting that material, organizing it clearly, presenting it through a convenient product, and charging customers who care more about speed and certainty than doing the research themselves.

• Oasis began after its founder struggled to determine whether tap water and bottled water contained contaminants. The app and website aggregate available water-quality reports, provide some information without charge, place fuller reports behind an annual membership, recommend relevant products through affiliate arrangements, and gradually fund independent testing to verify existing reports.

• The broader discussion presents labor-law posters and barcodes as larger examples of businesses built around accessible or required systems. It also emphasizes distribution: Oasis uses simple short-form videos about recognizable water products, repeats formats that perform well, and converts the resulting attention into app downloads and paid memberships.