The vendor decisions you do not get a vote on

What we're tracking

• •When a partner can switch off your integration Most software does not work alone. You buy one tool for scheduling, another for messaging, another for payments, and you rely on them passing data to each other through an integration. It is easy to treat that integration as plumbing — a permanent pipe between two systems. It is not. An integration is an agreement between two companies, and an agreement can end.
• •Seeing who can actually reach your files The second story is calmer but points at the same nerve: control over your own data. One of the hardest questions to answer in any growing organisation is simply who can see what. Files get shared with a colleague, then a contractor, then someone outside the company for one project, and the permission outlives the reason it was granted. Nobody is being careless. The sharing just accumulates faster than anyone reviews it.
• •Choosing a vendor that may still be here The third story seems to be about founders, not buyers, but it carries a message for anyone choosing software. SaaStr's advice on exit strategy opens with a blunt figure: "The vast majority of startups will never get one strong acquisition offer" [3]. That is written for people building companies. Read it as a customer and it says something useful about the companies you buy from.
• •The thread, and what to do about it The three stories are different in tone — a broken partnership, a reporting feature, a line of advice to founders — but they rhyme. In each one, a decision that affects your business is being made by someone other than your business. A vendor ends an integration. A platform decides how much its reports will reveal. A company's future is shaped by markets and acquirers you never meet.