It’s a complex issue, but I’ll try to explain.
I wanted to start a company and to do so, I needed a custom platform for various reasons. I spent a lot of time debating whether to go fully custom through boutiques or customizing existing off-the-shelf products. Through a detailed process, I found a company with a product that was 90% of what I needed with huge benefits - they hosted the product and had developers customize it to my needs.
Lately, their work has gone downhill, and they’ve dropped communication and missed multiple SLAs across all severity tiers. I finally was able to have a frank discussion with them, and only two options are now available.
1 I seek legal actions for their missed SLAs, poor quality work, and potential financial losses due to slower time to market based on their work
2 They’ve offered to give me full access and ownership of the code on my own server. (which usually has a fairly large fee attached to it but they are doing it for free given their poor quality of work)
The second option sounds cleaner and easier as I would rather not do legal battles that could be fairly expensive. However, a huge reason I went with them was they had developers and SLAs to fix things when they broke- I can’t code, nor do I have the money for a full-time developer.
Any suggestions?
Sounds like every story I’ve heard from out-of-the-box saas solutions that are very close to what you need…directories and such. Legal actions will get you nothing, the end goal is to always use them as a crutch until you can make it yourself.
Go with 3.
- Endless money pit
- Endless money pit
- Use something off the shelf
With 2, you’ll throw yourself into an endless money pit and now YOU’LL get to understand why their SLA’s are lacking. Without proper developer management understanding and planning, you’ll speed much much more money.
Sadly, you’re just going to have to start all over :(