Why does every startup think they need enterprise software when they have 12 customers?

Company has 15 employees and 12 paying customers. Revenue maybe $8k/month. CEO goes we need to implement Salesforce for our CRM. I'm like why? You have 12 customers, you could manage them with a notebook. But no. They spend 3 months evaluating enterprise platforms, hire implementation consultants, train the whole team on software that has 400 features they'll never use.

Six months later they're paying $3,600/year for something that a $15/month tool would've handled perfectly.

Real example from last year marketing agency, 8 employees, maybe 20 active clients.

They needed enterprise project management software. Looked at Monday, Asana Business, even considered custom development. I asked what's wrong with a shared Google sheet?

"We need something scalable! Professional! Enterprise-grade!" Enterprise-grade for 20 projects? Really?

They spent $8k on software licensing and setup. I checked back 6 months later - they were using maybe 10% of the features and half the team had gone back to email for project updates.

Meanwhile their competitor manages 50+ clients with Trello and seems way more organized. The pattern is always the same

Startup sees successful big company using Enterprise Thing Assumes Enterprise Thing is why big company succeeded Buys Enterprise Thing despite being 1/100th the size Discovers Enterprise Thing is overkill and confusing Goes back to simple tools but keeps paying for Enterprise Thing

It's like a 5-person company buying an 18-wheeler to deliver pizza. The psychology is weird too. Simple tools feel unprofessional even when they work perfectly. Google Sheets = amateur Salesforce = serious business. But Google Sheets might actually be better for a 12-customer company. Easier to use, faster to set up, everyone already knows how it works.

I learned this the hard way with clients' businesses. They try to use professional tools from day one. HubSpot for 3 leads per month. Slack for a 2-person team. Advanced analytics for a website with 100 monthly visitors. They spend more time configuring software than talking to actual customers.

Now I tell early-stage companies start with the simplest tool that works, upgrade only when you're actually hitting limits. Need customer tracking? Start with Google Sheets Need project management? Try Trello first Need team communication? Maybe just text each other

Boring advice but it works. Save the enterprise stuff for when you're actually enterprise-sized.

Here's my rule: if your monthly software costs are higher than your monthly revenue, you're doing it wrong. Most startups could run their entire operation with $200/month in tools. Instead they're spending $2,000/month trying to look like Google.

Don't do it!