The more time we spend researching the lower middle market, the more we find ourselves drawn to businesses that aren't necessarily exciting on the surface but have something much more valuable underneath and researching further we have come across such businesses. These business are not flashy nor do they sound as cool as an AI SaaS, but businesses providing services that customers have to keep coming back for or say businesses that keep running because a regulation says they have to, not because anyone's fighting for market share. - Take Backflow Testing. Most people will never think about it, but commercial properties have to mandatory test their backflow prevention devices annually with compliance which is closely monitored by local water utilities where you miss the deadline, and in some cases the utility can shut off the building's water entirely. - Or Cooling Tower Water Treatment where a technician visits weekly or monthly, to manage the water chemistry, because skipping regular treatment could lead to a Legionella outbreak. - Clinical Engineering where companies take responsibility for maintaining an entire hospital’s medical equipment fleet through multi-year outsourced maintenance agreements. Revenue base keeps growing as hospitals add more equipment. - Emergency Generator Testing is another one. Hospitals, data centers, and other critical facilities don't get a choice about whether to test their backup power, it has to be done on a fixed schedule. - And the list doesn't stop there. OSHA-mandated crane and lift re-certification, industrial hygiene testing for things like silica and lead exposure, fire alarm and sprinkler inspections each is another version of the same story. The key is that these businesses may not seem exciting, but their services are essential because customers are required to use them by regulations or operating standards which is what creates recurring nature of revenue. Once you recognize this pattern, you can find many similar businesses across different industries. The more niches we explore, the more we find. One leads to two more, and suddenly you've spent an afternoon researching an industry you had never heard of before. Curious how others in the search community think about these businesses when underwriting them. Do you give a premium to this type of recurring revenue, or do you still value it more like traditional service revenue?