Hey, I’m back with another weekly edition of the ESD newsletter.

Here’s what I’ve got for you this week:

Let’s gooo!

You’ve probably used iLovePDF to compress or merge a file at some point. What you might not know: this boring little website gets more traffic than Canva and Dropbox combined. And it was started by a designer who just wanted to merge two PDFs. He wasn’t trying to build a company.

The accident

In 2010, Barcelona design student Marco Grossi needed a simple way to edit a PDF. Adobe invented the format, but even their own tool was clunky and hard to use. So Grossi built his own solution, for himself, over a weekend. He called it iLovePDF.

People said the name was silly. But it was memorable. And when people Googled “merge PDF” or “compress PDF,” they clicked the first link they saw: iLovePDF.com.

There was no launch. No funding announcement. Just a useful tool and smart SEO.

The scale

Fast forward to today:

All from solving one small but universal pain point.

Meanwhile Adobe, the company that invented the PDF, built its own free tool with the full weight of its resources behind it. And it still couldn’t outrank iLovePDF in search. Why? Big companies build features. iLovePDF solved a problem.

The empire, on his own terms

Today iLovePDF runs with around 43 employees. Roughly 90% of revenue comes from subscriptions, with plans starting at $4/month. The founder still cycles to work. He’s turned down acquisition offers and refuses outside investors, building a small internet empire entirely his own way.

The lesson

Everyone’s chasing fancy AI startups. But sometimes the biggest opportunities are the boring, unsexy ones used by billions. Solve a simple problem deeply, and you don’t need hype. Just utility.

ESD Trending: 5 hot startup stories of the week

Modal just crossed $1B in revenue and raised $750M at $15.75B

The New York AI cloud company runs models and sandboxes for developers. Accel led the Series D, with Kleiner Perkins and every existing investor joining. Usage tripled in the five months since its last round at $4.65B. Customers include DoorDash, Ramp, Linear, Cognition, and Runway. Sandboxes alone are already $300M a year. If your product is “we run agents,” Modal is the bill.

Lightsprint raised $6.1M so non-engineers can ship on the real codebase

A YC Spring 2026 company, with 645 Ventures leading the seed. PMs, designers, and ops direct agents on the actual repo while engineering keeps the merge button. They claim teams ship 3x more code, about 80% of merged code is agent-written, and non-technical people have already landed 1,000+ pull requests. Most AI coding tools assume the person typing is an engineer. This one doesn’t.

Amazon’s Bee is now a $75 wristband that records your day

Amazon bought the startup last year. This week it shipped Bee Frontier, a lighter wearable for your wrist or clothes, plus a $100 card that sticks to the back of your phone. Both listen, summarize conversations, and turn them into to-dos. The free tier keeps 14 days of memory; $12/month unlocks unlimited history and Alexa. Most personal AI still lives in an app. Amazon just put a cheaper version on your wrist.

Websites are starting to lock the door on AI agents

Users of Muse, Dots, Instinct, and Grok are hitting walls. Yelp only lets agents in if they pay for data. Delta won’t let them book tickets. JPMorgan and Charles Schwab are blocking account access. Amazon already cut off Muse for shopping. Meta’s counter is that turning away an agent means turning away the customer. If you’re building one that “just does the task,” the site on the other end is now the hard part.

Anthropic got a junk credit rating weeks before its IPO

KBRA rated the company BB+ in June, the top of speculative grade, one notch below investment grade. It came alongside a $35B Broadcom chip financing led by Apollo. Q3 revenue hit about $16.8B, up 46% from the prior quarter, its second straight quarter of adjusted profit. The equity story is still a $1.5-2T November listing. The debt market is less excited.

Qatar wants your startup. Through the Startup Qatar Investment Program, backed by Qatar Development Bank, the country is handing out funding and perks to founders willing to launch or expand there. Two tracks:

START, up to $1.1M for startups launching in Qatar. You’ll need a validated concept or MVP, a clear tech roadmap, a viable business model, a strong team, and evidence of market readiness.

GROW, up to $5.5M for established startups expanding in. This one generally wants 3+ years of operations, financial stability, a qualified management team, a solid growth outlook, and a real funding history.

Beyond the cash, you also get: entrepreneur and flexible work visas, registration and license-renewal fee waivers, subsidized coworking space and housing, talent and internship support, access to R&D grants, mentoring, local industry adoption, and product showcases at events.

Sectors they want: AI/ML, B2B SaaS, FinTech, HealthTech, Cybersecurity, ClimateTech, AgriTech, EnergyTech, EduTech, IoT, Marketplaces, PropTech, Robotics & Drones, SportsTech, and Supply Chain Tech. The list isn’t exclusive, disruptive startups outside these areas can apply too.