Inside the Platform Philosophy That’s Redefining Niche E-Commerce
According to Will Hanna, the best marketplace platforms require more than technical expertise; they require taste, strategic thinking, and a deep understanding of the community.
Hanna brings all three. Before dropping out of law school to co-found Miniswap with his Cambridge roommate Zak Singh, he spent years advising Fortune 500 CEOs on strategic positioning and navigating geopolitics at a Washington, D.C.-based advisory firm. There, he learned how the world’s most successful leaders think about markets, competition, and building sustainable advantages.
But when he applied those lessons to Warhammer miniatures, a seemingly unlikely market, he saw something others missed.
“Most marketplaces optimize for volume and speed—list fast, search fast, transact, move on,” says Hanna, who studied economics and philosophy at McGill before his postgraduate work in the history of philosophy at Cambridge. “That works for generic goods. But for complex hobbies with passionate communities, you need fundamentally different infrastructure built around precision, curation, and community.”
That insight has produced Miniswap, a marketplace that just raised $3.5 million to build what Hanna calls “infrastructure for niche creative communities.”
The Product: Precision Over Volume
Warhammer has a 40+ year history with tens of thousands of unique miniatures across different game systems, factions, units, editions, and manufacturers. A serious player looking for a specific squad from a specific edition in specific condition faces a nightmare on generic marketplaces.
“Try finding Primaris Intercessors from 8th edition, unpainted, on eBay,” Hanna explains. “You’ll get thousands of results. Maybe 1% are actually what you’re looking for. The rest is noise—people gaming search algorithms with keyword stuffing.”
Hanna recognized this as a strategic problem. In my work advising CEOs, I learned that the best competitive advantages come from getting a niche,” he says. “Miniature wargaming players represent a massive, highly engaged market that’s been systematically underserved.”
The solution required building the most comprehensive taxonomy of tabletop wargaming miniatures ever created.
The team cataloged every tabletop wargaming miniature manufactured in the last decade, not just broad categories, but with granular detail down to specific units, variants, and editions.
“It’s a taxonomical ontology that understands connections between game systems, factions, units, and individual models,” Singh explains. “Sellers select from a structured catalogue. Buyers drill down through precise categories.”
But Hanna’s role was translating that technical capability into product philosophy.
“Every feature we build starts with the same question: does this serve the obsessive hobbyist?” Hanna says. “These are people who spend 50 hours painting a single model. Our platform has to match that dedication.”
From Marketplace to Community Platform
Hanna’s ambitions extend beyond transactions. He sees Miniswap as infrastructure for an entire ecosystem.
On Miniswap’s roadmap is a commission system connecting professional miniature painters with customers, complete with portfolios and secure payments. “Right now, commissioning a painter means Instagram DMs and PayPal with zero protection,” Hanna says.
He thinks community features like this will help hobbyists connect and collaborate. “We’re not building a marketplace,” Hanna clarifies. We’re building infrastructure for niche creative communities to thrive.
This reflects Hanna’s strategic thinking: start with a wedge product solving an acute pain point, then expand into the full ecosystem.
The Craftsmanship Philosophy
Hanna and Singh’s backgrounds taught them that the best companies have clear philosophies guiding every decision.
For Miniswap, that philosophy is craftsmanship.
“Warhammer hobbyists are craftspeople, sculptors, painters, storytellers,” Hanna says. “They deserve platforms built with equal seriousness.”
Early users provide detailed feedback, test features, and evangelize organically. “They give us super detailed feedback on what they like and don’t like,” Hanna says. “Because they know we’re part of this community.”
Strategic Expansion: The Platform Play
Hanna’s vision extends far beyond Warhammer.
“Everywhere you find passionate communities with complex products and underserved marketplaces, we see opportunity,” Hanna says. “We are into other hobbies too. Model trains, custom fountain pens, and mechanical keyboards are all product spaces where we have domain knowledge.”
The insight comes from his economics training and strategic advisory work: these communities share structural characteristics that generic platforms can’t serve.
“A custom keyboard creator has more in common with a Warhammer player than either has with someone selling furniture on Facebook,” Hanna explains. “Both need sophisticated taxonomy, detailed condition reporting, and community features.”
This is why investors backed Miniswap’s $3.5 million raise, as a platform approach serving dozens of passionate niche communities.
“We’re starting with what we know best,” Hanna says. “But the playbook we’re developing—obsessive attention to taxonomy, community-first design, craftsmanship over compulsive consumption- applies to any hobby with dedicated practitioners.”
Long-Term Thinking
Hanna’s approach reflects patient, strategic thinking rather than a typical growth-at-all-costs mentality.
“We’re not trying to flip this in three years,” Hanna says. “We’re building a platform that can serve these communities for decades.”
“We’re building a marketplace worthy of our community,” Hanna explains. “We are by no means anti-AI,” Hanna clarifies. “We use the best tools available, including LLMs. But we don’t want the tool to dictate the product’s direction. We refuse to sacrifice quality for expediency.”
It’s a philosophy forged through Hanna’s unique combination: economics and philosophy training, strategic advisory work with global CEOs, entrepreneurial experience, and years immersed in the Warhammer community.
In the race to automate everything, Will Hanna is building something decidedly human, platforms built with care for communities that value the carefully crafted over the automated, the idiosyncratic over mass appeal.
And with $3.5 million in backing, investors are betting his strategic vision can build the future of niche e-commerce.