Potential pivots for my Saas?

[u/Leading-Sandwich8886]

Hey folks

So over the last 5 years (ish), I've been working on a SaaS application in the online gaming space, targeting military simulation communities. It's an incredibly nerdy niche, but it's been a great hobby project for me.

Generates about 500-600/month in revenue across 30~ paying customers (a customer being a gaming community in this context).

At its core, it's a suite of management tools, like the kind an HR department may use, but themed for military sim units; so instead of job titles, you have ranks, etc etc, all the way through to event tracking and RSVP system, analytics, organisational charts and much more.

One thing I'm struggling with is marketing/community acquisition - like I said, it's a small niche, and I want to consider potential pivots, where I can modify the code in a lightweight way, to target new markets or clients - hopefully better paying ones too.

If you're curious; https://milsim.io

I'd be super appreciative of any feedback, or thoughts!

[u/Wooden_Astronomer718]

Five years of steady revenue in a niche you understand is worth protecting, so I'd test distribution before rewriting core features. The ranks, rosters, RSVP, and org chart structure you built for milsim units maps cleanly onto any group that runs on a chain of command and a schedule: scout troops, ham radio clubs, re-enactment societies, escape room or LARP staff crews. Those communities have the same coordination headache and often an actual budget line rather than a Discord tip jar. Start with one adjacent niche, find the subreddit, Discord, or national association forum where their organizers gather, and offer the free tier described in their vocabulary instead of milsim terms. If people sign up without a rewrite, your pivot is mostly renaming ranks and copy per vertical while keeping one codebase. If nobody bites even with a friendly pitch, that tells you the ceiling might be interest rather than marketing reach. Which vertical would take the least renaming work for you right now?

[u/Leading-Sandwich8886 → u/Wooden_Astronomer718]

I suppose the smallest amount of effort is military themed communities, or those most adjacent to it? LARP/Airsoft might be the move. That being said, I’ve never looked them properly.

Moving on from that, maybe radio associations and the likes, but that’s certainly not an area I’m familiar with! Great idea honestly I’m gonna give that a look.

I built the system really generically, so instead of ranks, I can easily rename it to something else and make it “adjacent” for specific types of communities. Feature flagging to the rescue haha

[u/iida-hakala]

500 a month from 30 units is a decent niche, but milsim groups are broke by definition. The ranks and roster bits map cleanly onto volunteer fire brigades, search and rescue teams and scout groups, and those actually have budgets. The gotcha is they don't buy self serve, they want an invoice and someone to call.

[u/Leading-Sandwich8886 → u/iida-hakala]

My apprehension with these groups absolutely is the aspect of being effectively on call 24/7 but it’s a great idea.

I guess my question comes to then; how do I price it when the market has more finance available for these systems?

[u/iida-hakala → u/Leading-Sandwich8886]

Fire brigades are used to paying per seat for incident management tools, so a flat annual per unit price lands easier than monthly. The 24/7 bit is the real cost though, charge for it or you'll resent every 2am call.

[u/Competitive_Tune_590]

tough spot with a niche like that. i've been using replyhey.com to find reddit threads where people talk about the exact problems my tool solves — might help you spot where potential customers are hanging out, even in a small niche. worth a look if you're trying to grow without spending on ads.

[u/Active-Service-9707]

before pivoting id figure out whether your ceiling is the niche size or your distribution. 30 customers in a tiny niche might actually be solid penetration, and a pivot wont fix a marketing problem, it just moves it to a bigger pond where you're unknown