Lesson learned the hard way: don't sell "Odoo can do everything" to enterprise logistics clients
Small mistake early on that cost us a redo: we once told a prospective port client that Odoo could handle their entire operation "out of the box." It couldn't. Not because Odoo is bad — because ports need EDI integration (BAPLIE, CODECO, COPRAR) that no standard Odoo module ships with, and we hadn't scoped that properly.
Took us a real evaluation project with a terminal client to actually map out: what Odoo handles natively vs. what needs custom build vs. what needs a separate system entirely (like a TOS for real-time crane dispatch).
The trust we lost from overselling early took longer to rebuild than the technical work itself.
If you're building or selling into any regulated/high-complexity vertical (logistics, healthcare, finance) — curious how you handle the "can your product do X" conversation when the honest answer is "60% yes, 40% custom work"? Do you scope it upfront or let discovery reveal it?
Wrote up the full technical findings from that port project here, including the honest limitations: https://theintechgroup.com/blog/odoo-for-port-management/
The overselling pattern is surprisingly common even outside product features. We did the same thing with distribution — told ourselves (and our early users) that "Google Ads will get us installs, it's just a paid channel." Spent around €150 before facing reality: Google Ads can't do contextual distribution for a conversation-based product any more than Odoo can natively handle BAPLIE messages.
The trust lesson is the same though. Once you tell someone "X will work" and it doesn't, you're not just fixing X — you're rebuilding the belief that you understand the problem. That's always more expensive.
How we handled it: stopped selling the channel and started selling the moment. Instead of "our tool helps with Threads," it became "here's the Threads conversation happening right now that you'd have something to say to." Same product, different framing, but the "60% yes, 40% custom" became "this works for THIS specific scenario" — which is a much easier conversation to be honest about.