HAMPtitles’ Counterintuitive GTM Strategy: Why They Bought a Title Agency Before Building Software
Every founder entering a new vertical faces the same question: how deep do you need to understand the industry before you start building? Most choose to learn as they go, launching MVPs and iterating based on customer feedback. Shane Bigelow made a radically different bet.
In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Shane McRann Bigelow, CEO of CHAMPtitles, revealed that he spent years running an actual title agency before writing a single line of automation code. It wasn’t a research project or an advisory role—it was full operational immersion. And it became the foundation for everything that followed.
The Decision to Buy, Not Build
When Shane first entered the title industry, he could have followed the standard playbook: interview potential customers, map their workflows, identify pain points, and build software to address them. Instead, he acquired a title agency in Pennsylvania and became a title operator.
“We bought a title agency in Pennsylvania and we ran it,” Shane explains. “We did all the title work in house, did all the closings in house.” This wasn’t a short-term learning experience. The team committed to years of processing actual title searches, handling real closings, and managing genuine regulatory compliance.
The decision came from a hard truth about certain industries. “There’s this old adage, you know, software eats the world. And I think in a lot of verticals that’s true,” Shane notes. “But in title, title eats software companies.”
This recognition—that the title industry’s complexity would destroy software companies that didn’t deeply understand it—shaped the entire trajectory of CHAMPtitles. Rather than building software to disrupt title, they would become title experts who happened to build software.
What Operations Taught Them
Running an actual title agency revealed insights that no amount of customer interviews could uncover. The team experienced firsthand which tasks were genuinely complex and which were just tediously manual. They learned where human expertise was essential and where automation could add value without introducing risk.
“Every single closing that comes through the door requires a search of the public records,” Shane explains. “You have to go find them, pull them back, review them, type findings, type exceptions into a commitment document.” This work consumed enormous time but required relatively little expertise. “That type of work is just manual labor. It doesn’t require an immense amount of subject matter expertise.”
These observations became the foundation for CHAMPtitles’ product philosophy. Rather than trying to automate judgment calls or replace title officers entirely, they would focus on eliminating the repetitive busywork that prevented skilled professionals from applying their expertise effectively.
The operational experience also revealed what not to automate. In title work, certain decisions carry significant legal and financial liability. A software company observing from the outside might try to automate these judgment calls. A company actually carrying that liability understands why human expertise must remain in the loop.
The Credibility Advantage
When CHAMPtitles eventually began approaching potential customers, they had something most proptech startups lack: credibility. They weren’t outsiders promising to fix an industry they’d studied from a distance. They were title professionals who understood the work because they did it themselves.
This credibility manifested in every sales conversation. When discussing workflows, CHAMPtitles didn’t need customers to explain why certain steps mattered—they already knew. When addressing concerns about automation, they could speak from experience about maintaining quality and managing liability. When proposing features, they understood which would actually get used and which sounded good in theory but failed in practice.
The operational experience also informed how they positioned the product. Title agents are naturally skeptical of automation because they understand the liability involved. CHAMPtitles could address this skepticism directly, demonstrating that they understood the risks because they carried the same risks themselves.
Why This Works in Regulated Industries
The operations-first approach proved particularly valuable because title is a heavily regulated, liability-driven industry. In markets like these, credibility matters more than in typical SaaS verticals. Potential customers aren’t just evaluating whether software works—they’re evaluating whether it works within complex regulatory frameworks and doesn’t expose them to unacceptable risk.
Software companies building from the outside struggle to navigate these concerns. They can hire industry advisors or interview extensively, but they don’t carry the actual liability. They don’t experience the regulatory complexity firsthand. They don’t know what happens when something goes wrong.
CHAMPtitles’ operational experience gave them a perspective that competitors simply couldn’t replicate through research. They knew which regulations mattered and which were rarely enforced. They understood which risks were manageable and which were existential. They knew where automation could safely increase speed and where caution was essential.
The Trade-offs
This approach isn’t without costs. Buying and operating a title agency requires significant capital that could have gone into product development. It takes time away from building software. It creates operational complexity that pure software companies avoid.
Shane and his team accepted these trade-offs because they believed the alternative was worse. They’d rather spend extra time and capital building the right product than move quickly in the wrong direction. They’d rather have operational complexity and deep industry knowledge than achieve software-company margins while building something that didn’t actually work.
The bet was that in regulated, complex industries, domain expertise is more valuable than technical sophistication. That understanding the business deeply enough to automate it correctly matters more than being first to market with an elegant solution that fails in production.
When This Strategy Makes Sense
Not every B2B company should buy operations before building software. But certain characteristics suggest when an operations-first approach might be worth considering.
High regulatory complexity favors operational experience. When different jurisdictions have different rules, and those rules carry real liability, firsthand experience becomes invaluable. Industries where mistakes have significant consequences—financial, legal, or safety-related—benefit from builders who understand risk from the inside.
Markets with high skepticism toward automation require credibility that operations provide. If your target customers have seen software companies fail in their industry, proving you’re different requires more than a good demo—it requires showing you understand their world because you’re part of it.
Finally, industries where workflow complexity is high but not well-documented benefit from operational immersion. If the knowledge of how work actually gets done lives primarily in practitioners’ heads rather than in process documents, becoming a practitioner yourself may be the only way to truly understand it.
The Long Game
CHAMPtitles’ operations-first strategy paid off not just in product development but in every aspect of go-to-market. Their messaging resonated because it came from genuine understanding. Their feature prioritization aligned with actual needs because they felt those needs themselves. Their credibility with prospects was unassailable because they were prospects once.
The approach requires patience, capital, and conviction. But for founders entering complex, regulated industries, it offers a path to building products that actually work—and customers that actually trust you. Sometimes the best way to move fast is to start by moving slow.
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