Got a call "We need contract analysis automation. Budget is $50k. Can you help?"
My reality: Built same thing 19 times already. Could deploy in 20 minutes. Charged them $12k. They thought they got a bargain.
THE "CUSTOM" BUILD
Opened contract_analyzer_template.json
Changed 4 API endpoints
Updated their logo in notifications
Tested with their contracts
Deployed to production
Sent invoice
Actual work time: 22 minutes. Meetings and demos: 4 hours.
WHAT THEY THINK THEY BOUGHT
"Custom AI contract analysis system"
"Proprietary extraction algorithms"
"Enterprise-grade security"
"Dedicated infrastructure"
WHAT THEY ACTUALLY GOT
My template #19 with their logo
THE NUMBERS
Template development: 60 hours (over 8 months)
Deployments: 19
Total revenue: $73,000
Average per deployment: $3,842
Actual work per deployment: Under 1 hour
THE VALUE REALITY
They don't care it's a template. They care it finds termination clauses, catches auto-renewals, alerts on liability limits, extracts payment terms, and it works TODAY not in 3 months.
MY TEMPLATE LIBRARY VALUE
Contract analyzer: $73,000 generated
Invoice processor: $84,000 generated
Research aggregator: $41,000 generated
Medical form parser: $67,000 generated
Total template revenue: $265,000. Total unique builds: Maybe 15.
THE LESSON
Clients buy outcomes, not originality. My "copy-paste" saves them 30 hours/week. Worth every penny of that $12k.
How many times have you rebuilt the same thing from scratch?