--- title: "\"There's an app for that\" — except when there isn't" url: "https://www.octalhq.com.au/insights/articles/theres-an-app-for-that-except-when-there-isnt" kind: article description: "\"There's an app for that\" — until your process is specific enough that there isn't. How to tell when no product fits your operation, and what to do instead." published: "2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z" updated: "2026-09-21T02:39:30Z" topics: ["Buying software"] --- # "There's an app for that" — except when there isn't For most common needs, there really is an app. But for the specific way your business runs, often there isn't — and forcing a near-match causes more problems than it solves. For common needs, there genuinely is an app, and you should use it. But the specific, multi-step way your business runs its core operation often has no product that truly fits — and forcing a near-match into place causes the workarounds, double entry and spreadsheets you were trying to avoid. "There's an app for that" is true right up until your process is particular enough that there isn't, and knowing which side you're on saves a lot of wasted money. ## The short version - For standard needs, an app almost always exists — use it. - For your specific operation, a true fit often doesn't exist off the shelf. - A "near-enough" app forces you to change how you work and patch the gaps. - The more central and unusual the process, the less likely an app truly fits. ## Why does an app exist for common needs? Software companies build products where the market is big and the process is standard — invoicing, email, bookings, general CRM. Millions of businesses need roughly the same thing, so it's worth a company's while to build a great product and spread the cost across all of them. For these, "there's an app for that" is completely true, and building your own would be wasteful. This is the part people get right. Nobody should build their own accounting package or email client. The economics of shared, standard needs strongly favour buying, and the products are excellent because so many businesses fund their improvement. The confusion starts when people assume the same must be true of *everything* their business does. ## Why don't apps exist for my core operation? Your competitive operation — the specific chain of steps that makes your business work — is, by definition, less standard. The narrower and more particular the need, the smaller the market, and the less likely anyone has built a product that fits it exactly. That's not a gap in the app store waiting to be filled; it's the nature of a specific operation. Think about what an off-the-shelf product has to be: a compromise that suits thousands of businesses at once. The things that make your operation *yours* are precisely the things that don't generalise — so they're precisely the things a mass-market product can't build for. The more distinctive and valuable your way of working, the more certain it is that no single app captures it. ## What is the "near-enough" trap? Faced with no perfect fit, businesses pick the closest app and adapt. But adapting means changing how you work to suit the tool, and patching the parts it can't do. You end up with the app, plus a spreadsheet, plus a manual step, plus a person who remembers it all — which is exactly the mess a good system removes. The near-enough trap is seductive because each individual app looks reasonable in a demo. The problem only appears in daily use, when the 30% the app doesn't handle turns out to be the 30% that matters most, and the workarounds grow to fill the gap. You've paid for a product and still built an informal system around it by hand. ## How do I tell I'm in "no app" territory? - You've tried several products and each one is 70% right in a different way. - Fitting any of them means changing your process, not just your software. - Your operation is a genuine part of why customers choose you. - The demos look great, but every time you ask "can it do our specific thing?" the answer is a workaround. If that's you, the honest conclusion is that the perfect app doesn't exist — not because you haven't searched hard enough, but because the market for your exact process is a market of one. That's not a problem to keep shopping your way out of. ## So what do I do instead? When no app truly fits, the answer isn't the least-bad app — it's a system built around the way you actually run. That doesn't mean building everything from scratch or replacing the good apps you already use. It means keeping off-the-shelf for the standard needs where "there's an app for that" holds true, and building custom only around the particular operation where it doesn't. The result is the best of both: proven products for the common work, a fitted system for the part that's genuinely yours. ## Related reading - [How much of your business is actually standard vs genuinely unique?](/insights/articles/how-much-of-your-business-is-standard-vs-unique) - [When off-the-shelf software is the right choice (and when it isn't)](/insights/articles/when-off-the-shelf-software-is-right) - [Build, buy, or configure: the three ways to get business software](/insights/articles/build-buy-or-configure-software) - Part of our guide to [custom vs off-the-shelf software for Australian businesses](/insights/articles/custom-vs-off-the-shelf-software-guide). ## The honest first step When no app truly fits, the answer starts with understanding your process well enough to build the thing that does. That begins with mapping how you actually run — where the near-enough apps fall short, and what a system would need to do to fit. The value is in what we find. *Tell us what you run, and we'll show you what's possible.*