Founder Notes · Published August 8, 2026
A Full Post-Mortem of a Project We Should Not Have Taken
Vague requirements, seven decision makers and a budget nowhere near the expectation. The project failed in slow motion.
In 2021 we took on an internal management platform: a budget of three hundred thousand yuan and the expectation of a complete ERP. Seven months later we had delivered a third of the scope, nobody was satisfied, and the final payment took a year.
Three warning signs we ignored
The first meeting had seven attendees. Each claimed to represent the requirements, none could decide.
The reference system was a large group's in-house platform with more than two hundred features.
The contract had no acceptance criteria, only one sentence about meeting business needs.
What changed afterwards
We added a paid discovery phase, billed hourly. Even if the deal falls through, the problem gets named.
When budget and expectation clearly diverge, we offer an alternative such as starting with one business line.
Every contract now carries an acceptance checklist that maps back to the quote.
The failure cost about four hundred thousand yuan and produced the intake process we use today. Some tuition is only paid once.
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