By now you might be familiar with the following pattern: a consultant pitches a solution, everyone nods in the meeting, they make you feel outdated if you hesitate, they take you out for dinner, everyone’s onboard, then the contract gets signed.
However, six months after the implementation your team is maintaining parallel spreadsheets because the “integrated system” that cost a small fortune doesn’t match how you actually work. To add more features, the vendor wants money, and the relationship with the consultant has gone cold.
Walking away now means admitting failure. The project flopped, but no one wants to tell the board you wasted money.
You’re not alone, and it’s certainly not your fault.
The playbook bad consultants use
We recently talked to a conservation NGO that fell into this trap three years ago.
A consultant sold them a “specialized” booking system for their nature expeditions. Today, they’re still handling €3,000+ bookings in spreadsheets because the tool fundamentally doesn’t align with their operations. No one internally championed it, and the vendor now charges thousands just to discuss changes. Everyone knows it failed, but getting money to rebuild it won’t happen anytime soon.
This isn’t incompetence on the consultant’s side. It’s a deliberate business model.
Here’s how consultants trap people:
- They recommend pre-packaged partnerships, not solutions tailored to you. Discovery is minimal because the pitch was set before they met you. It’s easier to recycle the same tools across clients without having to understand your operations.
- They move fast until the contract is signed, then communication slows or stops. The money’s in the bank. What’s the rush?
- They create just enough value to make abandonment painful. You’ve invested money, time, and internal buy-in. Walking away means facing tough questions or admitting a mistake to stakeholders.
- They leave before consequences become obvious. The original consultant is gone, too busy, or charging premium rates to re-engage, as the contract conveniently omits ongoing support. You’re left defending their failure, making up for it with spreadsheets.
Consultants often count on inexperienced software buyers who hesitate to push back. They can sense the insecurity from a mile away. They also rely on management being swayed by “best practices” from large companies, overlooking the fact that real work is messier and staff need tools that fit their daily realities. Their pitch is very convincing. Even governments get caught in these expensive traps.
What we did to help them
We gave the NGO a free audit and recommendations to try to salvage the situation. We also offered to be free strategic advisors for their vendor situation, to help them prepare the technical questions the vendor would need to answer to evaluate whether the system could be salvaged, or if they should cut losses and move on.
Even confirming what they knew as detached outsiders was powerful. The team deserved more than the mismatched tools they ended up with, and we’re ready to step in when they’re set to rebuild.
Red flags to watch out for before you sign anything
When evaluating consultants or solutions, these warning signs should give you pause:
- A demo with clean data, no pilot with your messy field reality
- “This is what everyone uses” (not: “here’s why this fits your specific operations, with examples”)
- A solution chosen before they understood how you operate
- An “all-in-one platform” that promises everything (it will do nothing well)
- Reluctance to discuss alternatives or limitations
- No references from similar organizations
- Vague data ownership language in contract (you could end up hostage)
- Licensing fees without clear implementation costs (they can multiply your budget by several factors)
- Pressure to decide after demos only
- Not involving your end users in the decision (without them, adoption will tank)
- A solution that works great in the big city with coverage and fast internet, but doesn’t work in the field
- Requirements assuming literacy levels your actual users don’t have
Questions you should ask them, and they should answer easily:
- How will this work with our actual workflow? (Show us, don’t tell us)
- What happens when you leave? Who owns the knowledge?
- What are the integration costs you’re not telling us about? How long will the transition take?
- Can we pilot this with real data and real users for two weeks minimum?
- What does success look like from our perspective, not yours?
If you only take away one thing, make it this: get the people who will use the system in the decision room. Without them, you risk making expensive mistakes you’ll have to live with for years.
If someone makes you feel stupid for asking basic questions, walk away. Past dinners or rapport don’t outweigh what the contract will actually deliver.
What good looks like
Good tech always starts with your context.
In a previous role, we automated a billing system early on, against conventional wisdom (“wait for product-market fit, it’ll consume engineering time, we don’t need it”). This eliminated manual errors, curbed invoice editing chaos, and laid a foundation that allowed the new finance director slash month-end closes from three weeks to days. It gave the team extra time back, and no one missed having to check the spreadsheets.
It wasn’t magic: we aligned code with business reality, making the numbers reliable and defensible. Good custom software feels like finally using the right tool, rather than fighting disparate systems.
That NGO’s booking system failed because the consultant prioritized sales over understanding operations.
What makes us different
We’re a four-person coop. We’ve scaled systems under tight constraints at YC startups, and now we apply that to mission-driven work. We left the ‘move fast and burn people out’ culture to build something different, where craft matters more than speed.
When working with clients, we follow a few tried and tested practices that protect everyone and lead to better work:
- Free strategic advisory to start. We offer an initial 2-hour call to discuss your challenges, share insights, and see if we could work together. There’s no sales push from us. If it’s not right, either side can say so. Sometimes the answer is ‘not yet, but here’s what you can do to change it’—better to know before the money’s spent. After that, it’s paid engagements only.
- We spend longer upfront for real alignment. We’ll have multiple calls, real discovery. We will want to talk to a representative sample of future users of the software, and we will spend a lot of time with you trying to understand your realities (even the things you don’t think are worth mentioning).
Lastly, we will say no to bad ideas or teams that aren’t ready. Software is a tool that amplifies your processes; it can’t fix broken ones. We’ll guide you there, step by step, building tools that endure and evolve with your mission.
If your team is maintaining spreadsheets alongside an expensive system and you think you’re out of options, book a free 2-hour strategic call with us. Worst case: you get free strategic clarity on your particular situation. Best case: we help you avoid wasting another year. If you’re dealing with post-consultant mess, we’ll help you figure out what’s salvageable and what’s not, or at least you’ll be able to articulate a solid plan of action to your board.