[stylejam]

Customization can actually be an important part of a business model. The problem is how to behave when it's not part of it, and here I agree with the author, the customer is asking for "something else".

I've been in a startup that used to say yes to every stupid request possible to get a customer and yes, it destroyed the product, because we had some general and generic features available to everyone and a lot of stuff that was very specific and not reusable. This means that even if you get the client, you're raising maintenance and development costs (and probably performance - if it's very specific if/else are your friends) without investing in your product and in future clients, and this is very bad for a business, because the customer owns the product and you don't.

Actually, I believe it's the single worst thing that can happen to a startup - case is, it always happen when who is in charge is not a tech guy but a seller, and the reason is that while costs are hidden to his eyes (developers do weird things in dark rooms) the benefits are high.

Unfortunately, you're gonna pay such decisions sooner or later :)