Building the Product

How do I set a roadmap when half my revenue comes from one big customer who keeps asking for custom features?

A starting point

One big customer steering your roadmap is how a product startup slowly turns into a services shop for that one account. As a starting point: say yes only to custom asks that at least three other customers would also want, charge separately for the ones that are truly one-off, and keep a visible line between 'our product' and 'their project'. Common for founders selling to Indian enterprises: the deal is real revenue, but let it fund the roadmap, do not let it become the roadmap.

Go deeper

Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time.

2 resources 2 link-checked

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📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it When half your revenue comes from one customer's custom asks, the real risk is not the roadmap slipping, it is quietly becoming a dev shop wearing a software costume. This piece names that trap plainly and gives you a litmus test: if you added 100 customers tomorrow, would software handle them or would people? That is the question to hold up against every custom feature that big customer requests.

Service as a Software: The Startup Trap That Looks Like SaaS but Scales Like Consulting

From Startup Folsom by Rich Foreman

  • Scalability comes from repeatability, so treat manual, one-off custom work as temporary learning, not the business model.
  • Use a simple test on each ask: would this still be handled by the product if you had 100 customers, or only by human effort for this one?
  • Revenue concentrated in a single customer's bespoke needs can look like traction while quietly locking you into a services business.
Open startupfolsom.org →
✍️ Essay
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Patrick McKenzie is one of the clearest writers on the line between bespoke work and a repeatable product, and this essay maps exactly how to turn one-off custom asks into something that scales instead of trapping you. For a founder whose biggest customer keeps requesting features, the move is to productize the pattern behind the ask rather than deliver it as pure service work. Read it as a starting point for deciding which requests become roadmap and which stay paid, scoped, one-off work.

What Consulting Companies Can Learn From Product Companies

From Kalzumeus by Patrick McKenzie (patio11)

  • The core skill is converting one-off engagements into recurring, productized value rather than endless custom delivery.
  • A custom ask can often be reframed as a repeatable offering (a package, a tool, a standard workflow) that other customers will pay for too.
  • Recurring, productized revenue gives you the pricing power and cash flow that pure bespoke work never will.
Open training.kalzumeus.com →

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