Turn Your Industry
Expertise Into SaaS
An established business often has internal methods that customers or peers would pay to use. We test the buyer, the workflow and the commercial case before turning that expertise into a separate software product.
$150B
VERTICAL SOFTWARE MARKET, 2024
One workflow
FOR THE FIRST PRODUCT
Yours
EQUITY, CODE AND DATA
Start with the industry workflow
An established specialist business often has a repeatable method customers already value, but it is still delivered through senior staff, documents and local spreadsheets.
Turning that method into software creates a separate product decision: target buyer, product owner, support model, data boundary, sales route and the part of the expertise that should remain human.
We define that boundary before building the first product workflow.
CONSULTING YOUR EXPERTISE
- Sells once, dies on your calendar
- Capped at billable hours
- Lives in your head, leaves with you
- Hard to sell without you attached
- No equity, no asset
PRODUCTISED AS SAAS
- Sells without filling your diary
- Capped only by who you reach
- Rules written into the product
- Recurring revenue line
- No equity by default
What the first product needs
Lettings agents, locum doctors, marine surveyors, scrap dealers. The industry changes. The product still has to line up around the buyer's actual workflow.
The wedge
The one job your customer hates doing every week. Narrow enough to win, big enough to charge for. The thing nobody else has bothered to build.
The data model
Your industry's nouns. Cases, jobs, sites, claims, batches, vessels. Modelled the way insiders talk, not the way a generic CRM forces it.
The rules
The regulatory and operational logic you carry in your head. FCA, RICS, CQC, ICO, HMRC, whichever ones apply. Encoded once and kept current.
The AI layer
The bit that does the reading, drafting, classifying and checking. Vertical AI belongs in the workflow from day one, not in a chat box bolted on later.
The billing
Stripe, contracts, seat management and VAT. This is the operational work that turns a tool into a business with recurring revenue.
What the leadership team gets
You bring the industry knowledge and customer access. We bring product and engineering, with each phase tied to evidence from prospective or real users.
The first engagement establishes the buyer, commercial case, product boundary and technical assumptions before a larger product investment.
BOOK A PRODUCT CALLWedge workshop
Two days with us in a room. We walk through your industry the way you'd brief a new hire, and we pick the one workflow worth building first. Out the other end: a named product, a target buyer, a price point, and what we're not building.
Model the industry
We turn your know-how into the data model, rules and model instructions that run the product. You test the proposed workflow before the production build, so errors can be corrected in the next design iteration.
Launch the first version
Branded, live, billable. Auth, payments, the core workflow, the AI layer, an admin back office. Enough product to sell, learn and stop guessing.
Iterate to product-market fit
Releases against real customer feedback. New views, new integrations, the second workflow once the first is sticky. You decide when you've learned enough to take it in-house, or keep us as your product team.
The market for vertical software
Three public examples from restaurant, construction and home-services software. Each started with a narrow workflow, then built around it.
Toast, $20B IPO.
MIT News says Toast's three MIT alumni founders moved from an ecommerce idea for restaurants into POS after running into dated restaurant systems. Toast closed its NYSE IPO in September 2021; CNBC reported an initial market cap of about $20B.
Procore, NYSE listed.
Procore says Tooey Courtemanche founded the company in 2002 to connect construction teams on a software platform. In Procore's own partner guide, he ties the idea to seeing disconnected construction work while building his home. Procore began trading on the NYSE in May 2021.
ServiceTitan, $9B Nasdaq debut.
ServiceTitan says Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan originally built the product to help their fathers run contracting businesses. It began trading on Nasdaq in December 2024; CNBC put its market cap at about $8.9B at the close of its debut.
Sources: Grand View Research vertical software market report, MIT News on Toast, Toast and Procore IPO releases, ServiceTitan company and investor pages, CNBC, Bessemer Venture Partners "Ten lessons from a decade of vertical software investing", Tidemark 2025 Vertical & SMB SaaS Benchmark Report.
Who this suits
You've been in the same industry ten years or more, and you can quote your customer's frustrations back to them word for word.
You've already built half of it in Excel, Notion, Airtable or a Google Form. Customers use it. You know which parts they open.
You can name the first ten companies you'd phone the day the product is live, and you've got their mobile numbers.
You have a product sponsor, commercial owner and subject experts, and need a delivery team that can work with all three.
The competition in your patch is either ancient on-premise software, a generic CRM, or somebody's underwhelming free trial. None of it fits how the work gets done.
You're prepared to be the first salesperson, the first onboarder and the first support line. We'll automate that out of you, but not on day one.
Our venture work starts with a real industry workflow
RiskMapped began with financial-advice expertise. BuildManager is being developed with experienced construction and quantity-surveying partners. The useful product boundary came from their working methods, not a generic SaaS feature list.
When this is worth discussing
We work best when there is a real operating problem, enough volume to measure and people from the affected teams who can make decisions.
Usually a good fit
- An established UK business, usually with annual revenue above £10m
- A repeated process with a known cost, delay, error rate or capacity problem
- A senior sponsor and a day-to-day owner who understand the work
- Access to the relevant staff, systems, sample records and security requirements
We may point you elsewhere
- A standard product already covers the process well
- The requirement is a one-off small build with no wider operating case
- There is no owner or access to the people and data needed to test the result
- The plan relies on AI making high-impact decisions with nobody responsible for review
Questions before committing
Who owns the product?
The agreement states ownership of the company, product IP, source code and data. If a different venture arrangement is proposed, the commercial and ownership terms are made explicit before product work begins.
Couldn't I just build this on Lovable or Bolt myself?
Those tools can be a sensible way to test an interface or internal process. Before external customers, payments or sensitive data are involved, the product needs a review of authentication, authorisation, data, monitoring, backups and provider limits. We can improve the existing build or recommend a controlled rewrite where required.
How much does it cost?
The initial product review and first release are scoped separately. The proposal states the cost, dependencies, ownership and evidence expected from each phase, with an option for continued support or internal handover.
What if my industry's already got software?
Good. Existing software is a useful signal: the buyer has a budget line and a habit of paying for software. Your job, and ours, is to be the better product on the wedge that matters most.
I don't want to leave my day job yet.
Good. You don't have to resign before the first version has customers and money coming in. We move at the pace your evenings can take, and we keep the scope small enough for that to work.
What about the AI part?
Built in from day one. Your industry's reading, drafting, classifying, summarising, checking. We put the AI where it removes work from the workflow, not in a CRM with a chat box bolted on.
Will you sign an NDA before I tell you the idea?
Yes. Send one over before the first proper conversation. Your expertise is the asset and we treat it that way.
Talk to us about the product idea
Tell us which internal method other companies ask you about and who would approve a purchase. We will test whether it belongs in software, a managed service or the business you already run.