When The Solution Wasn’t The Problem

Context

PegEx was building software for companies operating in environmental services markets. Organizations that bid on, execute, and manage complex projects under regulatory and operational constraints. At the time, the core product was a Dutch auction platform designed to help these companies bid on projects more efficiently. On paper, the model made sense and addressed a visible friction point in the sales process.

The Problem

Despite early traction, it became increasingly unclear whether the auction itself was the problem customers were most concerned with solving. While bidding mattered, it wasn’t where teams were spending most of their time or experiencing the most pain.

The Tension

The auction platform represented a significant investment, and momentum around the product was already in motion. Shifting direction meant questioning a solution that had already been designed, built, and positioned as the company’s core offering. At the same time, customer conversations consistently surfaced challenges that extended well beyond bidding: managing projects once they were won, coordinating operations, and handling billing and follow-through across teams.

My Role

I worked closely with customers and internal teams to better understand how the product was actually being used and where it wasn’t. My focus was less on defending the existing solution and more on clarifying what customers were ultimately trying to accomplish once a project moved from sale to execution.

How I Approached It

Rather than treating adoption issues as execution problems, I spent time reframing the conversation around the broader workflow customers were navigating. Through ongoing customer interactions, patterns began to emerge: while auctions helped initiate work, the real operational complexity came afterward. Sales, project execution, and billing were often disconnected, forcing teams to rely on manual processes and fragmented tools to keep work moving.

By stepping back from the auction model and looking holistically at the lifecycle of a project, it became clear that the greater opportunity wasn’t in optimizing how projects were won, but in helping companies manage the work they were already doing. That shift required letting go of the idea that the initial solution was the destination, and instead treating it as a signal toward a deeper, more durable problem.

Outcome

PegEx ultimately shifted its product focus and eventually the direction of the business toward providing a platform that supported environmental services projects end-to-end. The new approach helped customers manage workflows across sales, operations, and billing, aligning more closely with how their teams actually worked. What began as an auction tool evolved into a system designed around real operational needs rather than a single transaction point.

What It Reinforced

This experience reinforced for me that strong solutions often emerge only after stepping back from the initial idea and taking the time to understand the full context of the problem being solved.