What consultants say their tools don't do

13 product ideas, each derived from a public thread where consultants described a problem their current software does not solve. Every entry quotes the practitioner and links the discussion, so you can judge the evidence yourself.

Sourced from threads posted in August 2026, not from a brainstorm. These are hypotheses, not validated businesses: a thread shows someone felt a problem, not that anyone will pay to fix it. We refresh this page each month; the archive lives on GitHub.

Ideas are cheap; fit is the deciding variable. Score any of these against your own background, competition, distribution, moat, and build cost.

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The ideas

  1. Per diem expense tool applying government-regulated meal allowances for various locations.

    what we do is that we just use the government's own regulation that sets a per diem expense for meals.

    Difficulty setting fair and justifiable meal expense limits.

    Source thread, Aug 26 · mentioned in thread: GSA

    Score this against your background →

  2. AI platform generating strategy decks and financial models from raw data with high accuracy.

    Claude does everything with 80-85% accuracy in hours, if not minutes.

    Time-consuming manual creation of strategy decks and financial models.

    Source thread, Aug 4 · mentioned in thread: Claude Cowork, Claude Code, n8n

    Score this against your background →

  3. Platform for creating and sharing custom AI instruction sets for consulting tasks.

    Skills are custom instruction sets you define for Claude to do certain repeated tasks. So for example, you might have a skill that runs market research, or drafts a BD memo, etc.

    Repetitive manual execution of common consulting tasks.

    Source thread, Aug 13 · mentioned in thread: Claude

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  4. Project planning and estimation tool forecasting timelines and resources for complex, multi-supplier engagements.

    Our partner has been asked to deliver 24 months of work (estimated by our team) in 9 months under Fixed Price

    Partners are selling undeliverable work with unrealistic timelines.

    Source thread, Aug 18

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  5. Proposal validation platform assessing feasibility and risk of aggressive timelines and fixed-price contracts.

    All warnings ignored. Management are getting frustrated we're not enthusiastic or helpful.

    Management is ignoring warnings about undeliverable work.

    Source thread, Aug 18

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  6. Contract management system tracking scope, changes, and penalty clauses for fixed-price consulting projects.

    They're basically going to say yes, with penalty clauses and it will be a horrible experience

    Fixed-price contracts with penalty clauses are being signed for undeliverable work.

    Source thread, Aug 18

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  7. Project plan generator creating detailed, credible delivery models beyond generic AI-generated slides.

    They don't have a credible plan, just poorly formatted slides with AI and generic delivery models

    Current plans are poorly formatted and generic.

    Source thread, Aug 18

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  8. Internal cybersecurity posture management platform ensuring consulting firms practice what they preach.

    It’s kind of wild that a company that sells cyber security consulting at a premium... keeps getting breached.

    A cybersecurity consulting firm keeps getting breached.

    Source thread, Aug 12 · mentioned in thread: EY

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  9. PowerPoint add-in using AI to format unformatted text into professional slides.

    I would write the content of the slide in completely unformatted text boxes and have Claude then create the slide.

    Manually formatting PowerPoint slides from unformatted text is time-consuming.

    Source thread, Aug 17 · mentioned in thread: Claude

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  10. PowerPoint add-in generating data-driven slides from Excel tables.

    I even envision a world where slides (like tracker or timeline slides) are fully done within an Excel table and you feed Claude the Excel to create the slide.

    Manually creating tracker or timeline slides from Excel data is inefficient.

    Source thread, Aug 17 · mentioned in thread: Claude

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  11. Knowledge management tool linking and retrieving granular project details from notes and meeting transcripts.

    remembering random facts like what assumption I made in a model last month or things a client said during a meeting a couple of weeks ago is ago is a struggle for me, even if written down.

    Struggling to retain specific project details (assumptions, client comments) even with notes, impacting work speed.

    Source thread, Aug 25

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  12. AI assistant automatically formatting graphs with consulting best practices like axis names and bar highlighting.

    For graphs - axis names, highlight the main bar, separate bar color for projections vs historic. group bars on the x axis by cohort, create secondary axis if needed etc. - all the best practices that

    It takes too long to manually format graphs to consulting best practices.

    Source thread, Aug 24

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  13. Claude-powered tool sharpening articulation and transforming headings into insight-led statements.

    General language - sharper articulation, no simple headings but insight led statement etc

    Achieving sharp articulation and insight-led statements in writing is time-consuming and undervalued.

    Source thread, Aug 24 · mentioned in thread: Claude

    Score this against your background →

None of these are validated. That is the point: pick the one where you already know the buyers, then test it.

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Frequently asked questions

Where do these consultants ideas come from?

Each one is derived from a public discussion where consultants described a problem their current tools do not solve. Every entry links the thread it came from and quotes the practitioner verbatim, so you can read the original before deciding whether the problem is real. The threads on this page were posted in August 2026.

Are these validated business ideas?

No. Each is a hypothesis derived from a discussion, not proof of demand, feasibility, or willingness to pay. A thread shows that someone felt a problem; it does not show that anyone will pay to have it solved. Where a thread named specific products, they are listed as starting points for competitive research, not as a complete market map.

How do I know which of these fits me?

Fit is the deciding variable, not the idea. The same idea can be a dead end for one person and an unfair advantage for another, depending on whether you already know the buyers and can reach them. Run a scan with your own background to see how these score on competition, distribution, moat, and build cost for you specifically.

Other markets

This page describes a market-research and idea-discovery tool. Nothing here is professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Ideas in regulated spaces are marked, but the marking is not a compliance review: licensing, privacy, and liability rules vary by jurisdiction and change often. Verify current requirements before acting on anything on this page.