AvioTech Aerospace Consulting

The challenge

Before

AvioTech Aerospace Consulting — a ~30-person B2B aerospace consultancy — had built a deep internal toolkit over 12 years: proprietary inspection checklists, document templates, and compliance trackers used on every engagement. The principal believed it could be productized as SaaS and was preparing to fund a multi-quarter build. But he was uncertain whether the market would actually buy the tooling standalone, or whether it only worked because of the consulting wrapper around it. He wanted a clear, honest answer before committing the capital.

• A planned ~$400k SaaS build with no validated demand from prospective buyers
• Internal toolkit treated as productizable IP without market testing
• No mapped competitive landscape — assumed greenfield, never verified
• Pricing model based on cost-plus, not on willingness-to-pay signals
• No ICP definition — "anyone in aerospace inspection" was the working segment
• Founder pulled between consulting revenue today and SaaS upside tomorrow
• No exit criteria for the SaaS bet — no "kill it by this date" line in the sand
• Internal team morale at risk from a long, uncertain build

The solution

What we built

We ran a 2-week Digital Strategy engagement focused entirely on stress-testing the SaaS pivot. We ran ICP interviews with 6 prospective buyers — a mix of existing clients and cold leads — to test whether they would pay for the tooling without the consulting wrapper. We mapped the competitive landscape across 4 incumbent SaaS vendors already in the category. We explored pricing models against the willingness-to-pay signals we surfaced. And we delivered a written, honest thesis: the SaaS would be a commodity in a crowded category, and the firm should instead launch a productized service — fixed-scope inspection engagements priced by complexity, delivered with the same internal tooling. The "SaaS" framing was the wrong frame.

How the system flows

1. ICP Definition→6 Prospective Buyer Interviews→Willingness-to-pay Signals
2. Competitive Landscape→4 Incumbent Vendor Maps→Feature & Pricing Benchmarks
3. Pricing Model Exploration→Value-based vs. Cost-plus→Package Hypotheses
4. Strategic Options: SaaS / Productized Service / Stay Pure Consulting→Trade-off Matrix
5. Written Thesis→Recommended Path→Go-to-market Plan for Productized Service