Method
How we turn 2,914 bills into a handful of opportunities.
Every score, every memo, every recommendation traces back to a specific bill and a transparent methodology. Here's exactly how the pipeline works.
The pipeline
Ingestion
LegiScan API + OLISEvery bill filed in the Oregon legislature is pulled into our system within 24 hours. We also ingest federal bills in policy areas relevant to Oregon — agriculture, energy, housing, healthcare, and small business.
Prefilter
Rule-basedA keyword and pattern filter drops obvious noise: memorials, commemorative renamings, internal procedural motions, and bills with no economic substance. No AI involved — just hard rules.
AI triage
GPT-4o-miniSurvivors are scored by a fast, cheap model looking for eight signal patterns: new licensing requirements, compliance mandates, funding allocations, tax changes, market creation, industry restructuring, deadline-driven demand, and geographic advantages.
Deep analysis
GPT-4oBills that pass triage get a full opportunity memo: specific business ideas, revenue model suggestions, competitive landscape, risk factors, and timing windows. A second model independently scores each opportunity to prevent score inflation.
Enrichment
Web researchHigh-conviction opportunities (score ≥ 7) get additional web research: existing competitors, market sizing data, analogous legislation in other states, and relevant news coverage.
Conviction scoring rubric
Every opportunity is scored 1–10 across seven weighted dimensions. The composite score is what we call the conviction score. It's designed to be honest — most opportunities land between 5 and 7. A score of 8+ is genuinely rare.
Market size
25%How large is the addressable market created or disrupted by this bill? We estimate TAM based on affected industries, population, and analogous markets in other states.
Timing urgency
20%How narrow is the window? Bills with implementation deadlines, phase-in periods, or expiring provisions score higher — first movers win.
Capital required
15%Can a solo founder or small team act on this? Lower capital requirements score higher. We penalize opportunities that require regulatory capture or heavy lobbying.
Defensibility
15%Does the bill create structural advantages for early entrants? Licensing requirements, certification mandates, and exclusive provider frameworks score well.
Recurring revenue potential
10%Does the opportunity lend itself to subscription or repeat business? Ongoing compliance, annual certifications, and recurring reporting requirements score highest.
Competition
10%How crowded is the space? We cross-reference against existing service providers, pending competitors, and analogous markets in states that passed similar legislation.
Specificity
5%How concrete is the business model? Vague "consulting" opportunities score lower than specific product or service ideas with clear unit economics.
What scores mean
Clear business opportunity with favorable timing, addressable market, and manageable capital requirements. Act now.
Emerging signal worth watching. May need more legislative progress, market validation, or a specific founder profile to be actionable.
Speculative or long-timeline opportunity. Included for completeness but not recommended for immediate action.
A note on honesty
We intentionally calibrate our scoring to avoid inflation. Most bills don't create strong business opportunities, and our system reflects that. A score of 5 is not a failure — it means the signal is real but the opportunity isn't urgent. We'd rather tell you 3 things worth doing than 15 things worth considering.
Every memo links to the source bill text on OLIS or Congress.gov. We show our work so you can verify it.