I don’t get many professional bragging moments. It’s been a few years, but lo and behold, one finally landed in my lap. So, naturally, I’m milking it for all it’s worth.
A while back, at a former job, a salesman and I were sent out to convince a client to buy our company’s “custom app development” services. I put that in quotes because, let’s be honest, the company had exactly one product (built by people long gone), a dusty pile of legacy code, and a bunch of smoke-and-mirror “value-adds” like social media management (translation: a college dropout with Hootsuite) and SEO consulting (translation: something no one needs, because all your sales are coming from Klout anyway, right?).
The real problem: everything they charged $60–80K for could be downloaded for free by your teenager in between Fortnite matches.
The client meeting was what we affectionately called a “jerk-off/bake-off.” Basically, the client brings in a handful of companies to “pitch their unique vision for the future.” Cue the buzzwords: paradigm shifts, cultural revolutions, out-of-the-box thinking, blah blah blah. Everyone plays 4D chess with PowerPoint until the client inevitably chooses the cheapest bid.
Halfway through, it was obvious we were toast. Too expensive, too irrelevant. Worse, the client was already using free tools that did what our one sad product could barely manage. Meanwhile, I could see exactly what they actually needed—an idea that nobody in the room was even sniffing at.
So, naturally, I pulled an all-nighter. Whipped up mockups, drafted a timeline, even scoped a budget. Walked into the 8 AM debrief ready to deliver fire, instantly pissing off everyone around me. The sales lead snorted and sniffed because he didn’t receive a commission on custom software development, only on product sales. The owner may have been mildly impressed, but was adamantly against reassigning the developers who were busy polishing the turd of our core product. My boss went all high-school principal on me, complaining my rebellious attitude had no place in a team-focused environment.
I maintain it’s the job of the business analyst to analyze business.
Fast-forward to today: I receive an article forwarded to me from a trade magazine. Guess what? That client just rolled out a shiny new product. Paradigm-shifting. Industry-revolutionizing. You know, the usual marketing drivel. And—get this—it looked 85–90% like the idea I pitched and was told to shut up about. The screenshots even looked suspiciously like the mockups I made. Except they bought it… from a competitor.
The article, of course, slobbers all over the competitor for being “forward-thinking visionaries.” Yeah. Sure. Once upon a time, this kind of thing would have enraged me. Now? Meh. Been here before. I’d written CRM software before there was even a name for it. I had my own, superior, version of SalesForce out in the market a year before they came in $25 bucks a seat cheaper and killed me. At my very first job we developed a lightweight scripting language and interpreter that teacher could use to create educational software for their classroom that looked a lot like what came out a short time later as HTML and XML. Oh, and toothpaste in a pump? Yours truly pitched that in a PEAK Brain Game competition in 1981. Never saw a dime from that innovation.
I don’t claim anyone stole anything. I’m just saying these “innovators” aren’t exactly outpacing me—or probably you, if you’ve ever had a decent idea while stuck in a meeting doodling on a legal pad.
So here’s my advice to all the fellow unsung visionaries out there: whenever you read these puff pieces, just mentally replace the competitor’s name with your own. Pretend the industry is praising you. Trust me, it really helps quiet the voices.
