5 Signs Your Business Needs a Custom Software Solution
When off-the-shelf tools stop working, here's how to recognize the moment — and what to do about it.
When off-the-shelf tools stop working, here's how to recognize the moment — and what to do about it.
Spreadsheet gravity
There is a spreadsheet somewhere in every business that nobody admits owns a mission-critical workflow. When it passes a dozen tabs, fifty formulas, and one bus-factor-of-one owner, you have already started paying for custom software — you're just paying for it in risk.
Integration spaghetti
Zapier, Make, Retool, a half-dozen CSVs and a rescheduled cron. If the integration layer has more edge cases than your product does, a small custom service will save you more than it costs within a year.
The "one weird request"
Your best customers keep asking for a thing your SaaS vendor will never build, because it's core to your moat but irrelevant to their broader market. That's the signal.
Seat-licence math
You're paying per-seat for software that three-quarters of your users only touch to check one number. A purpose-built read-only internal tool can replace that seat cost — and be paid off inside a quarter.
You've outgrown the vendor's roadmap
The vendor used to ship features you wanted; now they ship features for their fastest-growing customer segment, which is not you. The gap is widening. Custom is how you catch up.