A Good Software Agency Should Sometimes Tell You Not to Build
A software agency makes money by designing and building software.
That creates an obvious risk during a discovery call: every business problem can somehow become a custom-development project.
The prospect explains a challenge. The agency describes a platform, estimates several months of work, and sends a proposal.
But sometimes the correct recommendation is not to build anything.
Discovery should solve the problem before it sells the project
During Codisar discovery calls, if I know an existing product already solves the prospect’s problem, I tell them to use it.
That may mean there is no project for us.
Recommending an existing product creates two useful outcomes
Sometimes the prospect did not know the existing solution was available.
They can use it instead of spending months commissioning custom software. They avoid development cost, delivery risk, ongoing maintenance, and the responsibility of owning a new system.
That is a successful discovery call even when the agency earns nothing from it.
In other conversations, the prospect says:
“We already tried that product.”
They then explain the workflow it cannot support, the business rule it handles incorrectly, or the specific operating need that makes the standard solution unsuitable.
This is equally valuable because the conversation has moved from a broad idea to the actual requirement.
The failed alternative reveals what must be tailored
A request such as “we need our own management platform” leaves many important questions unanswered.
- Which part of the available products fails?
- What is unusual about this business?
- Which workflow creates the competitive advantage?
- What must integrate with the company’s existing operation?
- What would make a standard subscription product genuinely insufficient?
A prospect who has evaluated existing solutions can often answer these questions with concrete evidence.
For example, the existing product may support the normal approval flow but not the company’s combination of regional permissions, customer pricing rules, and external provider checks.
Now the need is no longer “build us a platform.”
It is a defined set of business behaviors that standard tools cannot represent properly.
Custom software should earn its additional cost
There are usually three possible answers
A useful discovery process should be willing to recommend any of these:
- Use an existing product.
- Improve the current workflow with a small change or integration.
- Build custom software around a requirement that existing products cannot satisfy.
Sometimes the most useful thing a software agency can tell you is:
“You do not need us to build this.”
