Vertical SaaS has been a growing conversation in tech circles for a while. But sitting in a room full of founders, operators, and investors who are actually living it, that conversation gets a lot more interesting.
We hosted The Vertical Blend at Innovatemap headquarters—a morning built around conversations, community, and a fireside chat with two people who have spent decades building and backing companies in Indiana.
Mike Reynolds, Innovatemap CEO and founder, sat down with Scott Kraege, Managing Director at Ivy Ventures, and Eric Christopher, CEO of TechPoint, to talk about the Vertical SaaS moment, what it takes to build in the midwest, and where the real opportunities are right now.
Here's what we wanted to share.
Going vertical means going deep.
When you go vertical, you're not trying to serve everyone. You're committing to one industry, one workflow, one set of problems. And that specificity becomes your moat.
The best Vertical SaaS founders have lived the problem. They know their first five customers because they've worked alongside them for years. That domain expertise—the kind you can't fake—gives you an unfair advantage in both product and sales. Your network is your first pipeline. Your industry knowledge is your product roadmap.
"In Vertical SaaS, your moat isn't the technology. It's the founder who's lived the problem."
The TAM question is a distraction for the right founders.
Vertical markets can look small on paper. But TAMs open up. You start narrow, prove it works, and then add on with adjacent verticals.
That narrow initial TAM also does not account for the ways that Vertical SaaS companies can layer on high-value, scalable capabilities to their core that generate significant revenue gains. For example, OpenDate, a company Scott co-founded, started as a better calendar for music venues. Now ticketing and payment processing are core to the business.
The founders who succeed get narrow, get excellent, and expand from a position of strength.
"You can really be very narrowly successful on repeat and then layer later."
Indiana has a real opportunity, if we tell the story.
Eric made a point that stuck: Indiana's challenge right now isn't momentum. We have talented builders, strong industries rooted in agriculture, life sciences, and advanced manufacturing, and growing local capital. What we've lacked is the habit of telling our own story loudly enough for the rest of the country to hear.
That changes when founders stop treating their success as a well-kept secret. It changes when community gatherings become a regular occurrence. Storytelling attracts investors, talent, and the next wave of founders who need to see that it's possible to build, and succeed, here.
"Indiana is the best kept secret. And that needs to stop. We've got to tell our stories."
Why we do this.
We work with founders and operators every day who are solving real problems for specific industries. We see the clarity that comes from going deep. And we see what happens when the product or go-to-market story doesn't keep pace with the opportunity.
Events like The Vertical Blend exist because we believe a simple conversation can be the starting point for success. We want to do our part to provide the space and resources to build great companies. Whether that’s starting from a whiteboard session at our HQ, or over beers down the street—time and space are two valuable resources we’re always making room to give.
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