Security teams create policies without understanding operational impact, causing friction, outages, and productivity loss. Ops teams push back, creating organizational deadlock.
A tool where security teams define proposed policies/configurations, and the platform automatically models the operational impact — affected systems, services, user workflows. Generates a shared impact report both teams review before rollout, with rollback plans built in.
subscription — tiered by number of systems/policies managed, starting ~$500/mo for teams
The Reddit thread is a goldmine — 119 comments of raw frustration from ops professionals. Phrases like 'might switch careers/retire early' and 'strong arm me' indicate career-level pain, not minor annoyance. This is a daily friction point in every mid-to-large enterprise. However, it's a process/people problem that many orgs have learned to tolerate via meetings and politics, so some will resist tooling the solution.
TAM is narrower than it appears. Target is mid-to-large enterprises (100+ employees) with SEPARATE security and ops teams — probably 50K-100K companies globally. At $500-$2000/mo, that's a $300M-$2.4B TAM. But realistic SAM is much smaller: companies that (a) recognize this as a tooling problem vs. a people problem, (b) have budget authority that spans both teams, and (c) aren't locked into ServiceNow/existing GRC. Realistic early SAM is $50-100M.
This is the weak link. The pain is felt by ops teams who typically DON'T control security tooling budgets. Security teams — who DO have budget — may see this as admitting they cause problems. Budget ownership is split and unclear. $500/mo is reasonable but enterprise sales cycles will be 3-6+ months. The tool essentially asks organizations to admit their internal process is broken, which is a harder sell than 'buy this to stop hackers.'
This is the hardest part. Automatically modeling operational impact requires: (1) deep integration with the target environment's CMDB/asset inventory, (2) understanding of application dependencies, (3) mapping policies to affected user workflows — which varies wildly per organization. A generic 'impact model' will be too shallow to be useful; a deep one requires per-customer configuration that's basically professional services. A solo dev cannot build a meaningful MVP in 4-8 weeks. You could build a COLLABORATION tool (shared policy review + manual impact tagging) in that timeframe, but the 'automatic modeling' is a multi-year, multi-engineer problem.
No one is solving this specific problem. Every competitor is either: (a) security-team-only tooling that doesn't involve ops, (b) network-policy-specific rather than holistic, (c) focused on security risk not operational impact, or (d) too expensive and heavy for this use case. The 'shared impact report reviewed by both teams' concept has zero direct competition. The gap is genuine and large.
Naturally recurring — security policies are proposed continuously, not one-time. Each policy change cycle uses the platform. Stickiness is high once integrated into the change review process. Usage grows with organizational complexity. Tiered by systems/policies managed creates natural expansion revenue.
- +Genuine, intense pain validated by real practitioner frustration — this isn't invented demand
- +Zero direct competition in the 'bridge' positioning — every existing tool serves one side
- +Natural workflow integration point (policy review is already a process, just a broken one)
- +Strong recurring revenue dynamics — policies are continuous, not one-time
- +Regulatory tailwinds (SOC2, ISO 27001, NIS2) increasing policy volume and thus friction
- !The 'automatic impact modeling' core promise is technically very hard — risk of building vaporware or a glorified spreadsheet
- !Split budget ownership (security vs ops) creates unclear buyer and long sales cycles
- !Enterprises may see this as a process problem solvable by better meetings, not software
- !Requires deep environment integrations to deliver value — cold-start problem per customer
- !Security teams may resist a tool that frames them as the problem
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Drop the 'automatic modeling' for MVP. Build a collaborative policy review platform: (1) Security team creates a 'Policy Proposal' with what they want to change, (2) Platform provides a structured impact assessment TEMPLATE (affected systems checklist, user workflow disruption categories, severity ratings) that ops fills in, (3) Shared dashboard showing proposal status, impact scores, and approval state, (4) Built-in rollback plan template attached to each proposal, (5) Audit trail of who reviewed and approved. Think 'pull request reviews for security policies.' This is buildable in 6-8 weeks by a solo dev using standard SaaS tooling. The 'automatic' modeling becomes a v2/v3 feature layered on top once you have customers and their environment data.
Free tier (up to 5 active policy proposals, 2 teams) -> Team plan $500/mo (unlimited proposals, 10 systems, integrations with Jira/ServiceNow) -> Enterprise $2000+/mo (SSO, CMDB integration, automatic impact modeling, audit exports, API access) -> Scale via professional services for custom integrations and impact model training per environment
3-5 months. Month 1-2: Build MVP (collaborative policy review). Month 2-3: Beta with 5-10 companies sourced from Reddit/sysadmin communities (the people posting ARE your buyers). Month 3-5: Convert 2-3 to paid at $500/mo. Enterprise deals will take 6-12 months but community-driven SMB/mid-market can move faster.
- “a lot of the people working in security has never worked in operations”
- “the gap and disconnect”
- “strong arm me into doing something that I tell them is a bad idea”
- “They know just enough to be dangerous, but never enough to actually be helpful”
- “how difficult it is to apply security principles without being overly invasive to worker productivity”
- “ISO teams and their demands are maybe the #1 factor in why I might switch careers/retire early”