I wanted to build vertical SaaS for pest control. I took a technician job instead.

A GTM consultant, frustrated by declining access to research interviews in traditional industries, took an actual job as a pest control technician to understand the market from the inside. Over several months, he got licensed in 13 days using a custom training GPT, transitioned into a sales role, and closed $30k ARR in 21 days. The experience revealed deep operational inefficiencies — a heavily modified Salesforce stack, fragmented tooling, slow internal processes, and a culture resistant to change. Rather than selling SaaS to incumbents, he decided to acquire a local operator, build tooling around it, and grow a platform from first principles.