Six months ago, a client was ready to pay me ₹1 lakh to start building an education portal.

I told him to pause. Because the core of his product depended on a third-party provider.

Instead of starting development, I asked him to sit with me and document everything:

• What he expects
• What the third-party actually provides
• What’s missing

The gap was huge.There were critical pieces the third-party didn’t support yet.

If we had started, the project would have stalled midway. Or worse, the cost would have doubled.

So I asked him to first fix those gaps with the third-party before paying a single rupee.

He initiated communication with the 3rd party and found that it’s not possible for them to provide as per our expectations.

Sometimes the best development decision is not starting development at all.

Was that a right approach ?