E6 — IRS e-file credentials and tax logic deter clones; no tracked leader
Need
6
N6 — zero corpus signal; established paid 1099/payouts compliance category generally
Time-freedom
7
T7 — API/SaaS productized, but compliance support and filing seasons stay manual
Scale
6
S6 — global marketplaces, but 1099-NEC is US-only regulatory scope
What the five commandments measure
C — Control
Do you own the customer, or does a gatekeeper stand between you and revenue?
E — Entry
How hard is this to copy once it works? A rival's existence isn't the question — the durability of their advantage is.
N — Need
Is demand proven with money rather than vibes?
T — Time
Can income detach from your hours, or did you buy yourself a job?
S — Scale
How far does it reach without linear cost?
Scored on the evidence below, against CENTS as we've adapted it plus a Buffett-style moat reading of every rival — the same referee for every idea, including the ones we generate ourselves. The verdict follows the arithmetic: we never relabel a score to make it read better, and the weakest commandment is always named. The exact rubric stays in-house so the scale can't be written for.
02 — The pace test — $1M/yr
At $499/mo (assumed category price), you need 168 subscribers for a $1M/yr pace.
No tracked rivals with verified revenue to benchmark against.
Part II — The Evidence the receipts, good and bad
03 — Rival scan
No similar products found in the radar corpus — either genuinely novel, or too small to track.
Openforce — Already does independent-contractor payouts plus compliance — direct overlap with the whole wedge
Polsia (Keelson + Tributara) — Attacking exactly classification (W-2 vs 1099) and gig 1099 reconciliation simultaneously
WagePress / 1099-etc / Tax1099-style filers — Commodity 1099 e-filing at low prices erodes the filing half of the value prop
04 — Demand evidence
No radar-tracked products, no funded companies, no Reddit signal — demand for this specific wedge is unproven in the evidence.
X chatter is near-zero: promo posts at 0–low single-digit engagement, no organic discussion.
Only concrete pain cited: one complaint that DualEntry lacks IRS 1099 e-filing, plus scattered gripes about platform 1099s.
Multiple independent launches (Keelson, Tributara, WagePress, Openforce, FinTax) imply builders believe in spend, though none show revenue here.
05 — Risks
Stripe Connect, the default marketplace payout rail, already issues 1099s — buyers may see this as redundant.
Seasonal revenue concentration around January filing deadlines makes MRR lumpy and churn-prone.
Long B2B integration cycles with tiny vertical marketplaces that have few contractors each — weak unit economics.
06 — Kill switches — what kills this with one decision
Stripe/Adyen payout platforms expanding native classification and withholding features — Bundled free into the rail every target customer already uses, zeroing the wedge
IRS e-file authorization (TCC / IRIS access) — Losing or failing to obtain transmitter status removes the ability to file at all
DOL/state classification rule changes — A rewritten ABC-style standard invalidates the scoring model and its legal assumptions overnight
No data on what marketplaces currently pay for payout compliance or filing volume.
Cannot assess founder's access to IRS transmitter credentials or tax-counsel backing.
Scores judge the market and business model — not your ability to execute. Verified MRR = independently tracked revenue; reviews/upvotes = platform-reported. Judged 2026-09-17.
08 — The wedge & the next step
Classification risk scoring — the part Stripe Connect won't touch — sold to one regulated vertical (e.g. home services or trucking) marketplace as liability insurance, with 1099 filing as the bundled sweetener.
Cheapest next step: Cold-email 20 operators of 50–500-contractor vertical marketplaces asking how they handle classification risk today and what a scoring API would be worth; book five calls this week.
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