Escape the Custom Work Trap: Your Guide to Product-Led Growth
For many B2B organizations, the path to sustainable growth begins with building tailored solutions for marquee customers. Yet, as the enterprise matures, the realization dawns that a product-led growth approach—one built on repeatable, scalable offerings—unlocks more predictable revenue and a clearer competitive edge.
I saw this firsthand in the early days of an industrial AI software company, let’s call it Tenure. Back then, we had a few major clients such as Caterpillar (who was also an investor) driving our focus on industrial predictive analytics. We built custom solutions for monitoring Caterpillar’s heavy equipment and locomotives, which required a fair amount of bespoke code. As we expanded and started signing up other large clients, ranging from aviation giants like Boeing to organizations in the healthcare sector, our one-off approach quickly showed its limitations. Code that worked brilliantly for Caterpillar’s machinery data needed to be substantially reworked for new asset types, like aircraft or hospital equipment.
Eventually, we recognized that continuing to build everything from scratch for each new client wasn’t sustainable. Instead, we needed a unified platform with flexible data ingestion, configurable analytics models, and a scalable approach to predictive insights—one that could be applied to different industries without duplicating core development effort. This realization would not only help Tenure serve more customers faster, it also changed our internal approach, as teams that had focused exclusively on Caterpillar’s needs began building solutions that served multiple clients.
In this article, we’ll explore how you can balance near-term obligations to key customers while steering your organization toward product-led growth and a cloud-first future. We’ll also outline proven tactics—like splitting teams, prioritizing product discovery, and tackling “sales debt”—to help you navigate this crucial transformation.
Recognize the “Consulting Trap”
Many B2B companies, including early-stage startups, kick off by customizing solutions for a few key enterprise clients. The upside is quick wins and stronger relationships with those big names. But it can morph into a “consulting trap” where your entire organization revolves around “yes” to every large client’s request. Here’s why the consulting trap can be a serious roadblock to growth:
- Scalability: Unique integrations or specialized data pipelines don’t necessarily translate to other clients.
- Resource Drain: Managing multiple bespoke solutions eventually burns out your product and engineering teams.
- Mixed Brand Perception: You risk being seen as a “special projects vendor” rather than a scalable, future-proof product provider.
Real-World Example
In the beginning at Tenure, our solutions were deeply customized for Caterpillar’s equipment, from mining vehicles to locomotives. It gave us a formidable enterprise reference but also locked us into a client-specific architecture that was hard to port to new industries and clients.
An example of a company that has successfully escaped this trap is Salesforce. They started as a highly configurable CRM, but in the early days, enterprise customers kept asking for deep customizations that essentially turned it into a professional services business. To scale, Salesforce pivoted toward a multi-tenant cloud architecture, encouraging customers to adapt to standardized features and custom-built extensions (via AppExchange) instead of demanding custom-built solutions. This shift allowed Salesforce to serve millions of customers rather than being trapped in a cycle of one-off client work.
Define and Communicate a Clear Product Vision
The first step away from custom-driven work is to articulate a robust product vision that aligns your entire organization.
Action Steps:
Zero in on the central pain points your product is best equipped to tackle, along with the target customer segments.
Develop a succinct, inspiring statement that energizes your teams—especially as you pivot to a more standardized approach.
Clarify which functionalities you will not develop. This helps you avoid returning to a purely “build-to-order” mentality under pressure.
Real-World Example
As new client logos appeared (like Boeing), Tenure formalized a platform vision: “A predictive analytics engine that can adapt to multiple asset types.” This north star guided decisions about which features to adopt broadly and which to relegate to premium add-ons or decline altogether.
Adobe made its leap from one-time software sales (Creative Suite; Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign) to Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions by articulating a clear product vision: continuous innovation and accessibility in the cloud. This shift wasn’t just about moving software online; Adobe framed it as a game-changer for designers, emphasizing benefits like instant access to updates, better collaboration, and flexible pricing. By setting clear boundaries (ending perpetual licenses) and communicating value, Adobe successfully transitioned customers without major churn – retention rates were higher than expected post-transition.
Shift from Custom Engagement Management to Product Management
A service-based model can feel like reinventing the wheel with each engagement. A product-oriented model, by contrast, orchestrates development around a data-informed visionary roadmap serving multiple customers at once. In this model, product managers prioritize features that deliver the most impact across markets. Sales teams learn to position the product’s core offering rather than promising endless one-offs. Meanwhile, pricing shifts from hourly or project-based work to subscriptions or licenses, with opportunities for premium upsells where needed.
Some companies manage this transition by offering dual licensing and piloting new cloud platforms with select clients before a broader rollout, which helps ease customers through change without losing trust.
Address “Sales Debt” Before It Spirals
Over time, you may accumulate “sales debt”—commitments that deviate from your established roadmap. This is especially common in B2B sectors where big customers wield a lot of influence.
Steps to Address Sales Debt:
- Catalog Existing Obligation
- Conduct an audit of all custom promises, from minor feature tweaks to entire modules.
- Evaluate Strategic Fit
- Determine which obligations can be integrated into your broader platform—and which must remain bespoke (if at all).
- Renegotiate Where Possible
- Communicate openly if an existing commitment conflicts with your platform strategy, exploring alternative solutions or premium pricing.
Real-World Example
While working with big clients, we at Tenure consistently found ourselves “locked in” by earlier commitments. Eventually, we had to renegotiate certain deliverables or re-scope them under a premium umbrella, helping us refocus on a more unified platform approach.
Consider Splitting Product Teams for Parallel Progress
As companies transition from custom-built solutions to scalable platforms, product teams often struggle to balance existing customer commitments with future platform development. A proven approach is to split product-development teams so both short-term revenue and long-term platform growth receive dedicated focus.
- Maintains and enhances existing solutions (often on-prem or heavily customized).Ensures enterprise customers remain successful while meeting contractual obligations.
- Drives innovation based on real customer needs—identifying features that could scale to the broader platform.
- Works closely with sales and customer success to refine offerings and reduce churn.
- Develops the next-generation platform (often cloud-based) with a focus on extensibility.
- Systematically evaluates validated ideas from the legacy team to incorporate into the platform.
- Operates with KPIs tied to adoption, efficiency, and long-term product-market fit.
- Collaborates with the legacy team to enable smooth transitions for customers who are ready to migrate.
Why This Works
Splitting teams helps reduce internal conflict by giving each group a clear mission and avoiding competing priorities. The legacy team stays focused on maintaining customer relationships and delivering incremental improvements, while the platform team drives long-term scalability. Innovation continues as validated customer needs from the legacy team inform the platform’s evolution. Customer trust remains intact because enterprise clients receive ongoing support and enhancements rather than being pushed into premature migrations. As the platform matures, high-value features from the legacy team can be strategically incorporated, creating a smooth and sustainable transition path.
Atlassian Example
Atlassian transitioned Jira and Confluence from self-hosted enterprise solutions to a multi-tenant SaaS platform by:
– Assigning a dedicated team to support and enhance legacy customers while identifying patterns in their requests.
– Allowing a separate team to focus purely on the cloud-based product, ensuring long-term scalability.
– Gradually migrating high-priority legacy features into the core SaaS offering.
This dual-team approach allowed Atlassian to retain key enterprise customers while scaling its cloud business, proving that legacy teams can be a source of innovation—not just maintenance. By structuring your teams this way, you can continue to serve existing customers while methodically evolving toward a scalable, platform-driven future.
Make Hard Choices (and Monetize Them)
When a large client requests a feature that doesn’t align with your platform roadmap, the natural impulse may be to say “yes” to maintain the relationship. But free customization forever isn’t sustainable. Some requests may be so far off-track that the best response is to politely decline or direct the client to an integration partner. For cases where a feature is truly critical to a specific client, offering it as a paid add-on or “white-glove” service helps maintain the value of customization without straining resources.
Foster an Internal Culture Shift
Moving from a service mentality to a product-oriented approach requires reprogramming how teams think and operate.
- Involve Product Management Early: New sales deals should be vetted by product leadership to prevent unrealistic commitments.
- Train Sales Teams: Enable them to champion the new product’s scalable benefits.
- Celebrate Standardized Wins: Whenever a new feature benefits multiple clients, highlight this success as proof that a platform approach works.
Keep Clients in the Loop
Clients who have been with you since the early days may be accustomed to customized features, making the shift to a standardized approach challenging. Clear communication helps ease this transition. Explaining the vision behind a cloud-based solution can highlight benefits like improved performance, security, and more frequent updates. Sharing the product roadmap builds trust by providing visibility into upcoming features and setting clear expectations. When turning down a request, offering alternatives such as third-party solutions, existing integrations, or future roadmap items helps address the client’s core needs while staying aligned with the platform strategy.
Proper Discovery & Experimentation: Validating the New Platform
Before you invest heavily in a wholesale pivot, prove the market demand for your new platform. In the Tenure story, we had big anchor clients, but that didn’t automatically guarantee a scalable product for multiple industries. We needed concrete validation that a unified approach to predictive analytics would resonate beyond a single marquee account.
- Conduct user interviews, surveys, and even “fake door” tests to see whether prospective clients are truly interested in a new platform.
- Understand specific pain points across diverse segments—healthcare, aviation, construction, etc.
- Launch a small pilot or beta for your cloud-based platform, inviting a subset of customers to test it.
- Measure adoption, usage, and satisfaction metrics. Iterate before rolling out to the broader market.
- Offer transitional licensing (on-prem and cloud concurrently) so current customers can switch at their own pace.
- Provide early-adopter discounts or exclusive new features in the cloud solution to encourage uptake.
Atlassian Cloud Migration
Atlassian transitioned from on-premise server solutions to a cloud-first model for products like Jira. By offering parallel run periods (no extra cost) and loyalty discounts, Atlassian saw strong adoption with minimal churn. They also validated new features through private alpha and beta groups before broader release, mitigating risk and ensuring product-market fit.
How to Scale Without Losing Your Legacy Customers
Shifting from a service-driven, bespoke approach to a standardized product or cloud-based platform is complex. You need a crystal-clear vision, strong product management discipline, and the bravery to say “no” to custom requests—or at least to monetize them. Yet, the payoff is massive: a scalable, resilient business model that serves an ever-growing market rather than being locked into one or two large accounts.
By defining a compelling product vision, splitting teams when necessary, conducting rigorous discovery, and keeping clients informed, you can navigate this balancing act. In doing so, you’ll preserve near-term revenue from your biggest customers (just as we did at Tenure) while laying the groundwork for a truly transformative platform—one that can serve broad needs across multiple industries with agility and efficiency.
Key Takeaways for Product-Led Growth
- Embrace a Product Vision: Pinpoint the core issues you solve best and rally the company around that mission.
- Experiment & Validate: Use MVPs, pilots, and phased rollouts to ensure real product-market fit in your new platform.
- Split Teams if Needed: Allow one group to maintain legacy revenue streams while another focuses on the strategic platform.
- Handle “Sales Debt”: Renegotiate old custom promises or integrate them thoughtfully into the roadmap.
- Drive Cultural Change: Align sales, product, and leadership on the value of scalable, standardized solutions.
- Communicate Transparently: Provide customers with a clear roadmap, transitional support, and compelling reasons to adopt the cloud-based product.
By applying these principles and drawing lessons from real-world examples like Tenure, Adobe, and Atlassian you’ll be well on your way to evolving your organization into a product-focused, cloud-ready enterprise. Your biggest customers can remain valued partners, while your product vision enables long-term scalability and deeper market impact.
