We launched the same product for a second niche without building a new one

The best thing we built in September was nothing.

No new app. No new brand. Not a single feature.

And yet we launched for a new audience.

PagoCRM was built for sports clubs. Monthly fees, families, cards that fail at the worst possible moment. But the problem was never really about sport. It's about any group of people who pay a regular fee to belong to something.

Cultural associations fit that perfectly. Members, regular fees, and often volunteers doing the admin in their spare time. The pain without any of the tools.

So in mid-September I started writing to associations. Members' fees collected automatically, with no spreadsheets and no manual chasing. Because they're associations, the cost is almost symbolic. And the offer was a 10-minute demo.

Not a new product. The same one, explained in their words.

The temptation to build something "for them"

The natural instinct is the opposite.

When a new type of customer shows up, it's tempting to build something just for them. Different screens, different features, maybe a different name. It feels more serious. More respectful.

It would also double the work, split our attention and delay everything by months.

It's like moving house every time a new friend comes to dinner. Very hospitable. Also exhausting.

I think every new type of client feels like it deserves its own thing. Most of the time it doesn't. It deserves to be understood.

So we changed the way we talk about it. A page for them. Their language. A demo short enough for a volunteer to fit into a lunch break. If associations end up needing something clubs don't, we'll hear it. We'll build it then. Not before.

A second niche isn't a second product. It's the same solution, told to someone who has the same problem.

Yes, another low price

I know how it sounds. After my no-discount rule and the 49 € decision in March, here I am again with an almost symbolic price.

The difference is the goal. This isn't about revenue from associations yet. It's about finding out whether the product travels. A low price is the cheapest way to get that answer.

And launches have to be cheap, because of how we work. The same month, a new website project got going for a large healthcare client, with weekly meetings. Client projects keep the lights on. Products grow on the side, slowly, paid for by that work.

That's patient money. You don't get to spend six months building a version nobody asked for. You get to change a page, send some emails and see who answers.

Honestly, I prefer it that way. Constraints are a great editor.

We could have built a second product.

Instead, we found a second audience for the first one. Without writing a line of code.

P.S. The hardest part of the launch was resisting the urge to add a feature. It's still on my list. Crossed out.