You’ve spent years mastering your industry. You see inefficiencies everywhere. You watch businesses struggle with software that clearly wasn’t built by someone who understands how the work actually gets done.
You’ve probably thought: “Someone should build software that actually works for our industry.”
Here’s the secret: that someone could be you.
As an industry insider, you have advantages that generic software companies and VC-funded startups simply can’t match:
You understand the nuances that outsiders miss:
Despite these advantages, most industry experts never become SaaS founders because of three major barriers:
“I don’t know how to code” stops most people before they start. But here’s the thing: the most successful SaaS founders aren’t programmers—they’re domain experts who partner with technical talent.
Traditional custom software development requires $100K-$500K upfront with no guarantee of success. Most industry experts (wisely) aren’t willing to risk their financial security on software development.
Building software while running an existing business seems impossible. The traditional development timeline of 12-18 months feels like an eternity when you have current responsibilities.
These barriers aren’t insurmountable—they just require a different approach:
Traditional Approach: “I want to build project management software for construction” Better Approach: “Construction projects consistently run over budget because of poor communication between trades, and no existing software handles the handoff process properly”
The more specific your problem definition, the more likely you are to build something people actually want to pay for.
Before writing a single line of code:
The key is finding developers who:
Most industry experts want to solve every problem at once. Start with one workflow that creates immediate value, then expand.
Just because you understand the industry doesn’t mean you understand software design. Partner with people who can make complex workflows simple.
Industry experts often undervalue their own knowledge. If your software saves users 5 hours/week, price it accordingly.
The most successful industry-expert-turned-SaaS-founders partnered with complementary skills early. Don’t try to become a developer overnight.
Construction: A project manager built software for specialty contractors, focusing specifically on equipment scheduling—something generic PM tools handle poorly. Now processing $50M+ in annual project volume.
Healthcare: A practice administrator created patient flow software for specialty clinics. Generic EMRs don’t handle the complex scheduling these practices require. Now serving 200+ clinics nationwide.
Agriculture: A farm operations manager built livestock tracking software that integrates with feed management and veterinary records. Nothing else on the market understood the day-to-day reality of large-scale livestock operations.
If the traditional development model still feels too risky, consider partnership models where development companies share the risk with you:
Here’s the reality: if you don’t build the software your industry needs, one of three things will happen:
You have the knowledge to build something truly transformative. The only question is whether you’re ready to take the next step.
Your journey from industry expert to SaaS founder starts with one simple step: clearly defining the problem you want to solve.
Spend this week documenting one workflow in your industry that consistently causes frustration. Talk to three colleagues about their experience with this same issue.
If you can clearly articulate a problem that affects thousands of people in your industry, you’ve already taken the most important step toward building a successful SaaS business.
Ready to explore how your industry expertise could become a scalable software business? Let’s discuss how to transform your knowledge into your next entrepreneurial venture.
In baseball, a "fat pitch" is the perfect throw right down the middle—impossible to miss. Warren Buffett adopted this term for investing, waiting patiently for the perfect opportunities rather than swinging at every deal.
We apply this same philosophy to software development: instead of building generic solutions for everyone, we wait for the perfect software opportunity in a specific industry—then we swing hard.
Our Fat Pitch Strategy: Partner with industry experts, identify the one missing tool that would transform their entire vertical, then build it together with zero upfront risk—making it a no brainer for everyone involved.