5 Signs Your Startup Has Outgrown "Off-the-Shelf" Software (and How to Regain Control)

  There's a specific kind of exhaustion that hits founders around month 18. You started lean. You duct-taped together Excel, Trello, Slack, and a handful of other tools because that's what you were supposed to do. Move fast. Stay cheap. Figure it out later. Now it's later. And instead of running your business, you're managing your tools. If you recognize yourself in that sentence, this post is for you. Here are five signs you've outgrown the off-the-shelf stack  and what to do about it. 1. Your data lives in five places, and none of them agree Sales numbers in one sheet. Inventory in another. Customer records in your CRM, which doesn't sync with your billing tool, which doesn't talk to your shipping dashboard. This is called data siloing, and it's more dangerous than it sounds. When your data is fragmented, decisions get made on incomplete pictures. Your sales lead thinks stock is available. Your ops team knows it isn't. By the time the two fig...