Niche SaaS: 18 Months in Back Offices to $10M ARR

Sufian Chowdhury burned through $80,000 building the wrong product, then COVID wiped out 70% of his customers. Instead of quitting, he built a niche SaaS company that now handles 7 million rides a year and is approaching $10M ARR. Learn how Kinetik became the first vertical SaaS platform for non-emergency medical transportation by physically sitting in customer back offices for 18 months. Sufian shares why building niche SaaS requires domain expertise most outsiders lack - he personally drove for his first customer to understand the market. The result: billing cycles cut from 60 days to 21 days and 40 hours of manual work reduced to 30 minutes. This episode is a playbook for building niche SaaS in industries where pen-and-paper processes still dominate and healthcare SaaS opportunities hide in overlooked verticals. Key Lessons 🎯 Deep immersion reveals niche SaaS opportunities others miss: Sufian personally drove for his friend's transport company and spent 18 months in customer back offices to understand an industry no outsider had tried to build vertical software for. 📉 Building for one customer kills niche SaaS products: Kinetik spent six months and $80K building a custom product before discovering every company operated differently, forcing a restart. 🔄 Use downturns to expand your niche SaaS platform: When COVID wiped out 70% of customers, Kinetik hired 20 engineers and built a scheduling product that grew TAM from $150M to $3B. 💰 Sell financial outcomes when customers don't understand tech: Transport companies saw no value in software until Sufian framed billing automation as saving 39 days of payment delays. 🤝 In-person sales close niche SaaS deals with non-technical buyers: Sufian flew to rural locations for four years because mom-and-pop transport companies would not adopt technology from a phone pitch. Chapters Introduction Favorite quote and live audience What Kinetik does and who it serves Multi-sided marketplace and customer segments Business size: approaching $10M ARR with 100 employees Origin story: the Excel spreadsheet that started it all Building the wrong product for six months Finding first customers door-to-door Selling niche SaaS to non-technical transport companies Five years to first million in ARR COVID impact: losing 70% of customers Pivoting to a bigger vision during COVID Why nobody had solved this problem before Sitting in back offices every day for 18 months Building the scheduling platform How brokers accidentally sold the vertical SaaS product Landing the first health plan contract Enterprise sales cycles from 1 month to 2 years Medicaid market size and future vision Advice for founders in the early years Lightning round Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/360 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email