- The miss is boiling the ocean: every feature, every flow, all at once.
- Pilot in parallel. Lights stay on. The replacement has to prove itself.
- The real risk is outside the company. Competitors are already cutting cost and building velocity.
The biggest mistake companies make when they try this on their own is not picking the wrong vendor. It is trying to do too much at once.
Raphael Bennett, Co-Founder and Principal at REV Global, has watched the DIY version stall for the same reason every time. The team maps critical features, the customer flow, and operations, then treats that map as a single project. The ocean does not boil. The old system stays. Six months later nothing has shipped.
The DIY miss
Mapping is useful. Mapping is not the work. The work is picking one system, putting a replacement next to it, and letting the replacement earn the cutover. That is the same discipline as the 60-day product swap: one layer, not the whole stack.
If you need a picture of the whole stack first, that is a Stack Audit, not a 40-tool teardown. You walk away with what to cut, what to keep, and what it is worth to own. Then you pilot.
Pilot in parallel
Lights stay on. The replacement has to prove itself before you cut over. Parallel is slower in the first two weeks and much faster than a big-bang cut that fails on a Friday close. It is also how you keep the people who were babysitting the old tool from becoming the reason the new one never launches.
The expensive wait
The real risk is not inside the company. Competitors are cutting cost and building velocity you do not have. Waiting is the expensive choice. If a competitor is already moving, it is going to be painful. The mistake is not knowing how fast this is gaining steam.
Pilot one system. Do not boil the ocean. Then look at the stack the way a buyer will, which is the next piece in this series.
UnSaaSing in practice, part 6 of 8. Previous: How Long Does UnSaaSing Take? · Next: How a Cleaner Stack Affects the Exit