Why We Turn Down Most Project Requests

We get pitched constantly. Founders walk in with excitement, talking about the next big app that’ll change everything. Most of the time, we say no.

This isn’t snobbery. We’ve watched too many projects drain budgets and energy before anyone realizes the fundamental problem: the idea itself was flawed from the start.

Our Four Criteria for Saying ‘Yes’

We use four filters before taking on any software project. Miss one, and you’re building something technically impressive that nobody wants.

1. The problem has to hurt. We mean actual pain, not mild inconvenience. Your target users should be staying up late wrestling with spreadsheets, or losing money each month because their current process is broken. When someone builds a Frankenstein workaround using three different tools and manual data entry, that’s when you know the problem is real. Convenience features get ignored. Solutions to urgent problems get budgets approved.
2. Someone’s already trying to solve it badly. The best validation isn’t a detailed market analysis. It’s finding people who’ve jury-rigged their own solution. Those messy Excel files shared across a team? That’s evidence someone cares enough to suffer through the pain. Slack channels full of complaints about manual processes? That’s your proof of demand. These rough indicators predict actual adoption better than any pitch deck.
3. The founder can handle hard truths. We ask brutal questions in discovery calls. “Did users actually say that, or are you interpreting?” “What part of this surprised you?” “Which assumption turned out wrong?” The founders who get defensive here tend to ignore user feedback later. The ones who take notes and ask follow-up questions build products people actually use. Ego kills more products than bad code ever will.
4. There’s a business model hiding in here. We’re not building portfolio pieces. The product needs to generate revenue, open up new markets, or create enough value that someone will pay for it. If your exit strategy is “hoping someone acquires us,” that’s not a strategy. But if you can explain how this becomes a revenue stream, scales to new customer segments, or spins off into its own business unit, we’ll pay attention.

When All Four Align

Last year, OneDayOnly came to us. They run South Africa’s biggest daily deals platform, and their notification system was falling apart. Customers missed time-sensitive deals because the old notification logic was hard-coded and inflexible. Support tickets piled up. Click-through rates were dropping.

They passed our filters immediately. 

1. The problem was costing them money every day (urgent pain).
2. Customer feedback and support data proved people wanted better notifications (existing demand).
3. The OneDayOnly team brought user research to our first meeting and asked which parts of their assumptions we disagreed with (founder mindset).
4. They’d already mapped out how an improved system would support premium notification tiers and enterprise features (business vision).

We rebuilt their notification engine with configurable rules and a management dashboard. Two months after launch, deal alert click-through rates jumped 45%. Customer satisfaction scores improved across the board. OneDayOnly launched their premium notifications package, which added 12% to recurring revenue.

That project worked because all four elements were already there before we wrote a single line of code.

Why Most Ideas Fail This Test

The typical pitch goes like this: “I’ve got this idea for an app that would make [process] so much easier.”

Then we start asking questions. Has anyone requested this? “Well, not exactly, but I’m sure they would.”

How are people handling it now? “They probably just deal with it.”

What’s your budget for customer acquisition? “We’ll figure that out once it’s built.”

That’s three missing pieces out of four. Building that product means gambling your budget on the hope that a problem exists, people care about solving it, and you’ll figure out monetization later.

Skip the Sales Pitch

If your idea passes these tests, we should talk. If you’re not sure, we can figure it out together over coffee. No pressure, no pitch deck required. We’ll dig into whether the problem is real, what the evidence looks like, and whether building this makes strategic sense.

The goal isn’t to convince you we’re right for the project. It’s to figure out if the project itself is worth building at all.