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Comment by ryandrake

Been through this at medium sized companies struggling to sell. This kind of customer is alluring but poisonous. Company: We sell Product X! Toxic Customer: I don't want Product X, I want Product Y. If you're willing to bolt Product Y onto one of your menus I will pay you this stack of money for it! Company: $$$!

Bam! The company just went from being a product company to a custom engineering service. You will have to drag Product Y along with your product forever as a big lump of technical debt. After a few repeat iterations of the above, you will have a franken-product with random features hanging off of all ends, confusing to general users and impossible to maintain.

If you're a Product X company and one customer wants Product Y, stand your ground and tell them to go find Product Y somewhere else. If tons of customers want Product Y, maybe pivot and become a Product Y company and ditch Product X.

parent ryandrake 10 years ago

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