Sat on a business idea for 2 years. Built it in 7 days for $23.60.

Two years ago someone in a Facebook group paid me $200 to format their journal paper in LaTeX. I'd learned LaTeX just to build my own resume — never thought it could be a business.

I sat on that idea for two years.

Finally in December 2025 I stopped procrastinating and launched The LaTeX Lab - a professional conversion service for researchers who need their Word documents and PDFs converted to submission-ready LaTeX.

The market is tiny. Roughly 10,000 potential customers worldwide. PhD students and researchers losing weeks fighting LaTeX errors before submission deadlines. Automated tools break their equations. No dedicated service exists that guarantees compilation. That's the gap.

How I built it in 7 days using Claude Pro ($23.60):

• Day 1 - market research, competitor analysis, GTM plan

• Day 2–3 - AI-assisted formatting pipeline (the core delivery system)

• Day 4–5 - fully custom WordPress theme from scratch. PageSpeed 96 desktop, 80 mobile

• Day 6 - SEO-optimised copy for every page

• Day 7 - QA and launch

Total cost: $23.60.

The honest part: Claude doesn't do everything. You still need to know what you're building and QA everything yourself. But the leverage for a solo founder is real.

Now figuring out the harder part - getting discovered by researchers who don't even know a service like this exists.

Happy to answer questions on any part of the build — the AI pipeline, the WordPress theme, or the niche itself.

Note - used Claude to format this story.