After years of working with purchasers throughout numerous industries at Dreamix, sure patterns repeat. Not the technical work—that varies enormously—however within the conversations that occur earlier than the work begins. The assumptions purchasers carry right into a vendor choice course of typically form the result greater than the expertise selections that comply with.
Three of these assumptions are value questioning earlier than signing something.
1. Don’t design the staff earlier than scoping the issue.
A consumer arrives with a set requirement for 5 senior engineers, a selected tech stack, and product availability by a sure date. The challenge scope comes later.
I perceive their reasoning. Senior engineers are scarce and costly, and securing them early appears like getting forward of the issue. What this truly does, nevertheless, is optimize for the incorrect variable.
Purchasers are the consultants on their enterprise—what must be solved, what success appears to be like like, what the constraints are. Translating that into the fitting staff composition is a special form of experience. Mixing the 2 up or doing them out of order typically creates issues that present up later.
Senior engineers are constructed for complexity—ambiguous issues, high-stakes architectural selections, conditions the place expertise is the differentiating issue. When the work seems to be well-defined and execution-focused, that very same engineer is more likely to disengage.
We had one case at Dreamix the place a consumer strongly insisted on a closely senior staff earlier than correct scoping was carried out. We expressed our reservations, however ultimately went together with it. Inside months, the lead engineer was visibly demotivated—the work wasn’t complicated sufficient. What started because the consumer’s very best situation grew to become a retention downside, then a restructure. By the point we introduced in a extra appropriate staff, the challenge misplaced weeks, and a major quantity of institutional information walked out with that engineer.
2. Don’t assume the answer is AI earlier than validating the issue.
Boards are pushing AI initiatives downward, and by the point they attain a vendor dialog, they’ve typically hardened into necessities. The issue is that not each course of that appears like an AI use case truly is one.
We usually encounter purchasers who arrive with an AI transient that, after correct evaluation, seems to explain a rule-based downside—one {that a} easy workflow can resolve extra reliably, at decrease price, and with much less upkeep. Typically the response to that evaluation is: “Can we nonetheless name it AI?”
When the issue genuinely requires AI, that’s a special dialog totally. The distributors greatest positioned to advise listed here are these whose groups are actively working with AI—constructing with it, testing its limits, following the place the expertise is heading. That hands-on publicity is what makes the distinction between a suggestion grounded in actual expertise and one based mostly on what a consumer needs to listen to.
A 2025 MIT study discovered that 95% of enterprise AI pilots ship little to no measurable impression on profitability, whereas the 5% that do succeed share one attribute: They centered on a single, concrete ache level fairly than broad adoption.
A vendor who talks you into AI whenever you don’t want it’s optimizing for his or her engagement, not your final result.
3. Don’t depart the enterprise outcomes undefined at kickoff.
Purely technical groups generally tend to pursue high quality past what the enterprise truly requires. A system acting at 90% accuracy sounds inadequate till you be taught that the earlier baseline was 80%. At that time, 90% is already a major outcome, and pushing to 95% means spending time and funds on a typical nobody requested for.
We had precisely that dialog with a consumer. The engineering intuition was to maintain enhancing the mannequin, however monitoring enterprise outcomes alongside technical ones prompted us to examine in first. What we’d already delivered was, of their phrases, transformational. The extra invaluable subsequent step was releasing it, not refining it.
Earlier than the construct begins, align along with your vendor on what success appears to be like like in enterprise phrases. What hole are you closing? What are the must-have options versus those that may wait? What’s the timeline, and why does hitting it matter?
THE VENDOR CONVERSATION IS PART OF THE WORK
These three errors often occur earlier than the primary line of code is written, they usually set the situations for the whole lot that follows.
vendor partnership runs in each instructions. Purchasers who include clearly outlined enterprise outcomes and openness to pushback are inclined to get higher outcomes, as a result of they create the situations for sincere recommendation.
Denis Danov is CTO of Dreamix.
