58% of firms regret a software buy

58% of businesses regret a software purchase they made in the last 12 to 18 months.

That's from a 2023 Capterra survey of US businesses. Of the ones with regrets, more than half said the financial hit was significant or worse.

AI tools are what everyone's buying now, and I expect the same pattern to repeat.

I've watched owners spend fifteen thousand euro on software they didn't need. Every one of them skipped the same step. They went from "we need something" to "let's buy this" with nothing written down in between.

A demo is built to make you want the tool. Writing things down first keeps you anchored to the problem you walked in with.

So before you sit through any AI demo, write five lines.

1. The problem, in one sentence.
2. Who it affects, by name.
3. What it looks like today as a number, like hours a week or days waiting.
4. Your budget ceiling.
5. Who's allowed to approve the spend.

Treat the ceiling as a tripwire. If the real cost goes past it, you stop and decide again, instead of letting a good salesperson move the line for you.

Then paste the five lines into Claude or ChatGPT and ask it what's missing and what you've assumed without checking.

Sometimes the honest answer is that you don't need to buy anything yet. Doing nothing is a good outcome too, and it costs you nothing.

Those five lines are what keep you out of the 58%.