How TapTheory Built a Niche SaaS for BJJ Practitioners and Achieved $5K MRR

Honestly, I got tired of spending almost all of my time doing things that had nothing to do with the life I actually wanted. I was in school, teaching coding classes, commuting, and constantly feeling like my days were getting eaten up. At the same time, I cared a lot about training and about building something of my own, but I barely had room for either. I was also failing multiple math classes and putting a ton of energy into a path I knew deep down I didn’t really want. That was the bigger frustration. It wasn’t just that I wanted to build an app. It was that I felt like I was watching my time go toward a version of life that didn’t fit me. Around then, I realized if I was going to take a risk, this was probably the right time to do it. I already loved Jiu-Jitsu, I saw a real gap in how people trained off the mats, and I knew I wanted to build something around that instead of staying stuck doing work that didn’t excite me.

One growth tactic that worked really well for me was short-form content, especially TikTok slideshows. Once I figured out the kinds of hooks, topics, and formats that actually got attention in the BJJ niche, I started doubling down on them. The big thing was learning that views alone are not enough. The content had to both perform and make people curious enough to try the app. The slideshow format helped because I could package ideas in a way that was easy to consume, easy to share, and easy to connect back to TapTheory. I still use that approach now because it has been my best organic channel by far. One thing that completely flopped was relying too much on memes early on. I started out posting mostly memes because they were easy, fast, and felt native to the niche. Some of them got solid engagement, but they did almost nothing for downloads. I even had one video do around 6 million views, and it still barely moved the business. That taught me a huge lesson, attention is not the same thing as intent. Viral content is cool, but if it does not connect clearly to the product, it is mostly vanity.

The biggest complaint is usually not that people dislike the product itself; it’s that they are hesitant to pay. A lot of people get turned off the moment they see a paywall, especially on mobile. That’s something I’m still learning and improving because even when people think the app is cool, there is still a level of payment anxiety or skepticism that comes with asking someone to subscribe. Some people are unsure whether the app will really help them enough, and others just naturally hesitate before paying for anything related to training. The way I’ve handled it so far has been a mix of lowering friction and talking directly to users. Offering a free trial helps a lot because it gives people a chance to feel the value before committing. I’ve also personally sent access through DMs or answered people one-on-one when they had questions. That direct contact helps because it makes the app feel more real and less like some random paywall they ran into online. It also gives me feedback fast. Long term, I think the answer is continuing to improve the product, make the value more obvious, and communicate more clearly why TapTheory is actually useful.

One thing a lot of people get wrong about the BJJ market is they assume they already know what practitioners want without really understanding how they think or how they train. I remember talking to someone who had actually tried to build for this audience before, and he had a lot of assumptions about what people would and would not use. For example, he thought people would never want something more game-like or interactive, and that a note-taking style app made more sense. My experience has been basically the opposite. People in BJJ absolutely do want to learn, but they also want something engaging enough that they will actually come back to it consistently. I think people oversimplify this market. They think if an idea sounds useful on paper, that is enough. But in reality, execution matters way more than the general idea. Two things can be true at once, practitioners want serious tools that help them improve, and they also want those tools to be enjoyable and easy to use. If you miss either side of that, the product usually falls flat. The market is not just about information. It is about delivering the information in a format people will actually stick with.

Over the next 6 to 12 months, the biggest focus is improving the visuals and overall experience of the app. That is probably the most important long-term fix and also one of the more expensive ones. A lot of users want better visual explanations of moves, more animations, and more clarity around what is happening during BJJ exchanges. I think improving that side of the product would make the app more immersive, easier to understand, and more valuable for both newer and more experienced users. I also want to keep expanding the core content and making the sparring experience even better. Beyond that, I am open to expanding into adjacent grappling sports like wrestling in the future, but only if I feel I can do it the right way. I do not want to force that too early. For now, the priority is making TapTheory better, deeper, and more polished for BJJ first.

We're at $1,350 MRR, $2,250 revenue in the last 28 days, over 6k downloads on iOS, and 18k followers between TikTok and Instagram.

Before building TapTheory, I had some coding experience, but I definitely was not coming from a traditional background with a big resume or formal industry experience. I had taken coding classes in school, built a few small projects on my own, and spent a lot of time learning by doing. I had also tried starting a couple of small businesses before, both technical and non-technical, so I was already interested in entrepreneurship and building things from scratch. Most of what helped me was being self-taught and willing to figure things out as I went. I did not have formal product experience, and I had never worked some high-level software job before starting this. What I did have was curiosity, a willingness to learn fast, and a strong personal connection to the problem I was trying to solve. Since I trained BJJ myself, I understood the audience and the frustration better than I would have if I were just picking a random niche.

I relied too much on AI to handle the BJJ logic within the sparring rounds in the app when starting. It caused me to make a huge pivot a month or two after I had launched, which took a long time to finish and set me back at least a month. I had to basically scrap the entire sparring system within our app and build out a more rule-based, probability, and deterministic engine. I knew it was a problem earlier but tried to make it work because I was scared of what I would have to do to actually fix it.