How to start a Ghost Contact Cleaner for Microsoft 365 business: plan and growth
An MSP engineer spent three hours on why Exchange autocomplete suggests the real manager James plus a phantom James with a different surname, and there's no official fix.
An owner can start “Ghost Contact Cleaner for Microsoft 365” from a complaint people already posted. The offer, in one line: Detect and safely remove AI-generated phantom contacts that pollute Exchange autocomplete. It is for sysadmins and MSPs. Charge a B2B subscription, and test a price between $10 and $49 a month. Begin in more than one country. Buyers already talk about this in r/sysadmin. One thread gathered 102 votes and 34 replies across Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026. Use that room to meet the first twenty buyers. Do not export it, and do not republish the posts. The idea, the evidence, and the market estimate on this page are free to read. Two paid prompts finish the job: one drafts the offer, the price, and a ninety-day calendar; the other drafts a month of conversations and proof. One credit unlocks both. A software specification is not on this site. When the company is the product itself, a single link further down opens the founder library.
Unkillable ghost contacts created by AI in…r/sysadmin · Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026 · 102 votes · 34 replies · Open the thread
Who would pay
Sysadmins and MSPs. Start in more than one country, and charge a B2B subscription, testing a price between $10 and $49 a month.
The thread above is the public complaint this business can learn from. Verbatim quotes are not invented. Further sources, when a later report adds them, stay with the evidence.
What buyers use today
- PowerShell scripts
The offer, in our words
A niche tool for M365/Exchange admins that finds and safely removes 'ghost' contacts created by AI autocomplete features before they clutter the address book.
Score 3.40, Warm. Pain, willingness to pay, demand, and the gap in current options drive it. We are not scoring how fast you can code.
Market size
An estimate, built from the bottom up: real customer counts × a realistic price. It shows the size of the prize, not a forecast.
TAM Total addressable
$24M a year
40,000 MSPs · US managed service providers (est.)
SAM Serviceable
$9.6M a year
16,000 MSPs · MSPs reachable through MSP communities
SOM Obtainable in 3 years
$192K a year
320 MSPs · 2% of the reachable segment in three years
What that means
320 MSPs at $50/mo = $192K ARR
Medium confidence · estimated Oct 2026
How we estimated this
- Base: 40,000 US managed service providers (est.).
- Has the problem: 100% (nearly every MSP manages Microsoft 365 tenants).
- Revenue per MSP: $600 per year ($50/mo per MSP).
- Reachable: 40% (MSPs reachable through MSP communities).
- Three-year capture: 2% of the reachable segment.
TAM is customers with the problem × revenue per customer. SAM is the part a new business can reach. SOM is a cautious three-year share of SAM. The bars use a log scale. A share marked “assume” is our judgment, not a measurement.
Source: CompTIA counts 100,000+ US solution providers and MSPs; we assume 40% run managed services
The business-plan prompt
The offer, the price, and a ninety-day calendar, written for an agent. 1 credit unlocks both prompts for this idea: this plan and the growth playbook below.
# Business plan prompt: Ghost Contact Cleaner for Microsoft 365 You are writing a practical plan for one owner who will sell this as a business. Do not write a software specification, a venture memo, or a feature list. Use short sentences. Where a number is unknown, give a range and say what to measure. ## The business Working name: Ghost Contact Cleaner for Microsoft 365 What the customer gets: Detect and safely remove AI-generated phantom contacts that pollute Exchange autocomplete. Who pays: Sysadmins and MSPs
Locked · the first lines are above
Unlock both prompts for this idea · 1 credit ($9.99)
One credit opens the business plan and the growth playbook together, for good. Credits work on both businessideastobuild.com and realstartupideas.com.
Sign in once with your Real Startup Ideas account; the same credits work on both sites.
The growth playbook
Thirty weekdays of conversations and proof. Not an ad plan. Included with the plan above, on the same credit.
# Growth prompt: Ghost Contact Cleaner for Microsoft 365 You are planning thirty days of distribution for a business that already has an offer. The offer: Detect and safely remove AI-generated phantom contacts that pollute Exchange autocomplete. The buyer: sysadmins and MSPs. Price band: between $10 and $49 a month. Do not propose ads, a viral loop, or a rebrand. Propose conversations, proof, and a repeatable weekly rhythm. ## Starting point A public thread in r/sysadmin drew 102 votes and 34 replies. The pain, in the owner's words: An MSP engineer spent three hours on why Exchange autocomplete suggests the real manager James plus a phantom James with a different surname, and there's no official fix.
Locked · the first lines are above
Unlock both prompts for this idea · 1 credit ($9.99)
One credit opens the business plan and the growth playbook together, for good. Credits work on both businessideastobuild.com and realstartupideas.com.
Sign in once with your Real Startup Ideas account; the same credits work on both sites.
Questions
How much money do I need to start?
Enough to talk to buyers and deliver the offer once. A service version can start with a written process and a way to take payment. A software version is a larger bet and is not required to test the price. The band to test is $10–49 a month.
How should I price it?
Test a price between $10 and $49 a month, charged as a B2B subscription. Raise it after three paid pilots, not before the first conversation.
Where do the first customers come from?
r/sysadmin is the clue. A related thread gathered 102 votes and 34 replies. Show up there, follow the room's rules, and ask for conversations. Do not scrape it.
Do I need to write code?
No. The prompts on this page draft a plan and a month of growth. Code is a later choice. The founder site linked once below is where the build document lives, if you want it.
The coded version, and the option to hire it out, are on the founder site. Open the founder version
A two-week build starts at $10,000 on that site, after a $1,000 scoping fee.
Plans and growth playbooks
One credit opens both prompts for this business.
The idea, the evidence, and the market estimate stay free. The business plan and the thirty-day growth playbook for Ghost Contact Cleaner for Microsoft 365 cost one credit, together, and stay unlocked.
Credits work on both businessideastobuild.com and realstartupideas.com. Sign in once with your Real Startup Ideas account; it is the same wallet.