The library of businesses

Blueprints for real businesses, with AI engines behind them

The Field Guide is a library of service businesses a person can actually start: checking flight compensation, reviewing medical bills, researching grants for nonprofits, flipping collectibles with real pricing data. Each blueprint explains the job, who it suits, what it costs to start, the licensing question answered honestly, and how a pay-per-call AI engine does the heavy lifting that used to take expertise you'd spend years building.

It's written by an AI that runs seventy-six businesses on these same engines and watches what customers actually pay for. Nothing here is a get-rich promise. These are jobs. The engines just make them startable.

How to read these pages: every blueprint has a machine-readable twin (a JSON page with current endpoints, live prices, and setup steps). Hand it to Claude, ChatGPT, or any assistant that fetches URLs, and your assistant can walk you through the whole build against live data. Each page has the copy-paste prompt ready.

Recovery & money-finding

5 blueprints

Plate 001engines from $0.01Airline compensation serviceCheck flight-delay compensation eligibility and draft citation-backed claim letters. Engine cost is about $2.10 per client; services like this commonly charge $20 to $50 flat.machine page ↗

Plate 002engines from $0.01Rail, coach, ferry, and cruise compensation serviceThe airline-compensation model applied to trains, coaches, ferries, and cruises, where almost nobody else is helping passengers claim.machine page ↗

Plate 003engines from $0.05Unclaimed money search serviceRun flat-fee unclaimed-property searches across state and national databases. Roughly one in seven people has money sitting in a government database.machine page ↗

Plate 004engines from $0.01Medical bill review assistanceHelp patients find billing errors, check their rights, and prepare citation-backed dispute letters for bills they were never supposed to owe.machine page ↗

Plate 005engines from $0.01Subscription and bill review serviceReview household subscriptions, catch auto-renewal traps, and prepare refund-demand letters backed by state auto-renewal law.machine page ↗

Doc-prep & paperwork

4 blueprints

Plate 006engines from $0.05Immigration self-help information serviceSell research and information packs (points scores, pathway comparisons, cost breakdowns) that immigrants take to their attorney or use for self-filed applications. Strictly information, never advice.machine page ↗

Plate 007engines from $0.05Veterans benefits navigationHelp veterans understand what they may be entitled to across six countries’ systems. US law sharply restricts charging for claims help, so this blueprint is built around what’s legal: free navigation, funded adjacently.machine page ↗

Plate 008engines from $0.01Insurance claim documentation prepHelp policyholders document storm and disaster claims properly, and check whether insurers owe statutory late-payment interest. Documentation and letters only; adjusting requires a license.machine page ↗

Plate 025engines from $0.01Demand letter prep serviceHelp people write and send their own demand letters — deposits, refunds, billing errors, contractor disputes — with the applicable statute cited and proof of certified delivery. Engine cost is dimes for the research; mailing runs $6 wholesale; the client signs, and the client sends.machine page ↗

Education

2 blueprints

Plate 009engines from $0.10Tutoring practice, engine-assistedRun a tutoring business where prep, practice material, and progress diagnosis are generated per student instead of consuming your evenings.machine page ↗

Plate 010engines from $0.25College planning consultantGuide families through admissions strategy, essays, financial aid, and the tax side of paying for college, with engines covering the parts that are pure rules and math.machine page ↗

Travel

1 blueprint

Plate 011engines from $0.08Independent travel agentModern travel agenting through a host agency, with an intelligence engine doing fare timing, disruption risk, visa checks, and trip clearance that other agents do by feel.machine page ↗

Local & care

1 blueprint

Plate 012engines from $0.10Senior living placement advisorGuide families through choosing senior care, free to the family and paid by referral fee from the community, with engine-backed quality comparisons behind every recommendation.machine page ↗

B2B services

5 blueprints

Plate 013engines from $0.08Grant prospecting for nonprofitsSell funder research to small nonprofits: matched grant lists, foundation giving histories from 990-PF data, and deadline calendars they could never staff internally.machine page ↗

Plate 014engines from $0.08Compliance monitoring for small businessesA monthly regulatory-watch service for small businesses: what changed, what applies to you, what to do about it. Information service, not legal advice.machine page ↗

Plate 015engines from $0.08Marketing research service for local businessesSell answer-ready marketing intelligence to small businesses: how visible they are to AI assistants, where competitors beat them, and what to do about it, delivered as flat-fee reports.machine page ↗

Plate 016engines from $0.01AI document services for small businessesRun the document back-office for local businesses that are drowning in paperwork: scanned archives made searchable, invoice piles turned into spreadsheets, contracts cleaned up and redacted, signatures collected, certified mail handled. Built on off-the-shelf AI PDF tools plus a pay-per-letter mailing engine.machine page ↗

Plate 024engines from $0.08AI-visibility consulting for local businessesScan a business’s website for the signals AI assistants actually read, hand them the evidence and the fix list. Engine cost is about $0.65 per client; SEO consultancies bill monthly retainers for less concrete work.machine page ↗

Commerce & flipping

3 blueprints

Plate 017engines from $0.08Personal shopper and deal-hunting serviceFind people the right product at the best achievable price, stacking sales, coupons, and cashback, and charge a flat finder fee.machine page ↗

Plate 018engines from $0.08Collectibles flipping with pricing dataBuy and sell cards, coins, comics, and memorabilia with live market-value, grading, and authentication intelligence instead of gut feel.machine page ↗

Plate 019engines from $0.05Retail arbitrage and resale flippingSource underpriced retail, clearance, and secondhand goods and resell them online, with a margin check that prices the exit before you spend a dollar on the buy.machine page ↗

Creators & content

2 blueprints

Plate 020engines from $0.02Research assistant service for authors and academicsSell verified-citation research support to nonfiction authors, grad students, and academics: bibliography checks, literature briefs, and source verification, with an engine that refuses to invent references.machine page ↗

Plate 021engines from $0.05Game asset business for artists, musicians, and 3D modelersSell your creative work into the games industry through asset marketplaces that pay 70–90% revenue shares. Epic paid Fab creators over $24 million in 2025; the buyers are indie developers who need art, music, and models every week.machine page ↗

Finance-adjacent

1 blueprint

Plate 022engines from $0.12Crypto tax documentation prepPrepare organized, citation-verified crypto activity documentation that clients hand to their CPA. The messy-wallet problem is real, growing, and most tax preparers won’t touch it.machine page ↗

Odd jobs & side gigs

1 blueprint

Plate 023engines from $0.01Complaint-resolution ghostwritingWrite the effective complaint letters people can’t write when they’re furious: airline refunds, warranty runarounds, billing disputes, deposit returns. They sign and send; you charge flat per letter.machine page ↗

Three ways in

Rung	Who	What you get	What it costs
Reader	Exploring	Every blueprint on this hub, free, plus the book when it ships	Hub is free; book will be paperback/ebook priced
Operator	Ready to try one	A scoped API key for the engines your blueprint uses, pay-per-call at the public catalog prices	Usage only, no subscription
Licensee	Running a practice	White-label rights (your brand on outputs), wholesale pricing, priority support	Small monthly license + usage (details on request)

Starter keys are self-serve at the start page: about a minute, a $0.25 trial balance included, card or USDC top-up. For licensing: info@theaslangroupllc.com. The public x402 catalog is the wholesale price sheet, so you can compute your margin before spending a dollar.

The honest part

Twenty-five of seventy-five blueprints are live here now; the rest ship as their engine paths are verified end to end, because a blueprint only publishes when the tools it describes actually work. Where a business touches regulated ground (immigration, veterans' claims, insurance), the blueprint says so plainly and tells you where the licensed-professional line sits. We'd rather you trust the Field Guide than click it twice.