Gaus

What do they actually do

Gaus is a consumer web app that lets retail investors set up persistent, customizable “AI analysts” to watch specific tickers or portfolios, surface prioritized alerts, generate short research briefs, and answer questions in chat. Examples on the site include price/volume moves, earnings context, and analyst target changes, and there’s a guided flow for creating strategies tuned to price, fundamentals, news, and analyst updates (site; YC launch).

Users can optionally connect their brokerage so Gaus can read holdings and tailor monitoring. The company says it supports 20+ brokerages and tracks 30k+ stocks, ETFs, and crypto, enabling portfolio-aware alerts and reports (site). A typical workflow is: sign up, connect a brokerage (optional), create one or more Analysts with the cadence and signals you care about, receive automated alerts/briefs, and use chat for follow-ups (site).

Pricing is tiered: Free (limited messages, up to 2 strategies with weekly cadence), Pro (unlimited messages, up to 5 strategies, portfolio insights, and daily reports), and Max (unlimited strategies, “advanced data feeds,” early access). The site lists monthly/yearly prices for Pro and Max (pricing). The product is early-stage and YC-backed, with public materials showing a small team and no public user numbers (YC company page).

Legally, Gaus states it is applying for registration as an investment adviser with the SEC and, until registration is effective, it does not provide investment advisory services to the public. Today the product is positioned as research/analysis tools for retail investors, not regulated advice (site).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Active self-directed trader (stocks and crypto): Struggles to keep up with fast-moving price swings, headlines, and analyst notes across multiple sources; wants prioritized alerts so they don’t miss trade setups.
• Busy long-term investor with a diversified portfolio: Lacks time to read filings and earnings; wants concise, source-backed summaries of only the developments that matter to their holdings.
• DIY portfolio manager focused on risk control: Worries about drawdowns and allocation drift; needs automated monitoring and simple explanations for why positions moved to inform rebalance or hedge decisions.
• New or part-time retail investor: Finds finance jargon confusing; wants clear answers about what happened and whether a news item is material for their positions.
• Power user with multiple brokerages: Wants institutional-style monitoring without terminal costs; needs consolidated feeds, concurrent strategies, and higher-quality data options.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founder-led outreach to 10 active retail investors from networks and YC contacts, offering 3 months of Pro and doing live onboarding to capture feedback and build use-case writeups (site; YC launch).
• First 50: Seed communities (Reddit, Discord, StockTwits) with invite codes and short demo content tied to current market events; convert via group onboarding sessions and ready-made Analyst templates (site).
• First 100: Scale the best-performing inbound channels (paid social lookalikes, creator demos, SEO for earnings queries) and add a simple referral program offering a free Pro month on paid upgrades; track activation metrics to optimize spend (site).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Retail participation is broad: Gallup reports ~62% of Americans own stocks (directly or via retirement accounts) in 2024–2025, indicating tens of millions of potential retail investors (Gallup). Robinhood alone reported ~25 million funded accounts in 2024, underscoring the scale of self-directed platforms (Business of Apps, company data). Hearts & Wallets estimates online brokerage penetration at ~60% of U.S. households (~75 million), highlighting a large pool of retail brokerage users (InvestmentNews/Hearts & Wallets).

Bottom-up calculation:

Focus on a U.S. consumer-research TAM: assume ~75M brokerage households and that 10% are active, tool-seeking self-directed investors (~7.5M). If 10–20% of this active segment pays $15–$25/month for monitoring/research agents, that implies ~0.75–1.5M subscribers and ~$135M–$450M in annual revenue potential.

Assumptions:

• Use Hearts & Wallets estimate of ~60% brokerage penetration (~75M U.S. households) as the base (InvestmentNews).
• Only ~10% of brokerage households are active, self-directed, and tool-seeking (conservative filter).
• Willingness to pay and ARPU range aligns with consumer finance subscriptions (assumed $15–$25/month given Gaus’s multi-tier positioning (pricing)).

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Trade Ideas: Real-time scanner and AI trade engine (“Holly”) that publishes entry/exit ideas and moment-to-moment alerts for active traders—competes for users who prioritize instantaneous trade signals over portfolio-style research.
• Benzinga Pro: Streaming market news with audible squawk and customizable alerts built for day traders—overlaps on prioritized news/alerts but emphasizes raw, real-time newsflow rather than persistent, portfolio-tailored analyst agents.
• Seeking Alpha (Premium): Crowdsourced analysis, quant ratings, transcripts, and portfolio alerts for self-directed investors—competes on concise research and earnings coverage but is a content subscription, not agent-driven monitoring.
• Koyfin: Integrated market data platform for watchlists, charts, transcripts, and portfolio dashboards—serves power users wanting rich self-service data over automated agent alerts/briefs.
• TradeStops / TradeSmith: Portfolio-risk and trailing-stop alerts to protect capital—directly competes for users prioritizing risk monitoring and exit signals versus open-ended research chat or multi-signal agents.