Unattractive or morbid business ideas, such as cemetery management software, often face less competition. This lack of saturation means entrepreneurs willing to enter these "grim" niches have a higher probability of financial success and market capture.

'ATM as a Service' is an easy sell for regional banks that lack scale. However, it's a very difficult sell for large national banks like JPMorgan, which already have the scale to manage their own ATM fleets efficiently and are hesitant to outsource critical infrastructure.

The logistics of servicing ATMs create a powerful local density advantage. Adding a new bank's ATM to an existing route has minimal extra cost, leading to extremely high incremental gross profit margins of 60-80% on new service contracts.

The investment thesis for NCR Atlas isn't about selling more ATMs (the "razor"). It's about increasing the lifetime value and profit per unit through its high-margin "ATM as a Service" offering (the "razor blade"), which increases the price of the service over time.

Industries widely considered "terrible businesses," like restaurants, often signal opportunity. The high failure rate is usually due to a low barrier to entry and a lack of business acumen among participants. A disciplined, business-first approach in such an environment can create a massive and durable competitive advantage.

Rival Diebold isn't pursuing the lucrative 'ATM as a service' model. This isn't just conservatism; it's because they lack NCR Atlas's existing proprietary ATM network, which is crucial for building the initial route density needed for the service to be profitable.

While consumer fintech gets the hype, the most systematically important opportunities lie in building 'utility services' that connect existing institutions. These complex, non-sexy infrastructure plays—like deposit networks—enable the entire ecosystem to function more efficiently, creating a deep moat by becoming critical financial market plumbing.

Counterintuitively, the tobacco industry thrives despite losing millions of customers. As casual smokers quit, the remaining base is more addicted and less price-sensitive. Companies exploit this by raising prices faster than sales volume declines, increasing profits from a shrinking market.

Like Redbox DVD kiosks were displaced by streaming, a key risk for NCR Atlas is that ATMs will be rendered obsolete by digital banking and mobile payments, despite arguments about niche use cases or a slow, manageable decline.