"Our first customer, a Canadian social services department, was led by a Deputy Minister with a fondness for a wall chart showing the logic models under his cha

"Our first customer, a Canadian social services department, was led by a Deputy Minister with a fondness for a wall chart showing the logic models under his charge." Several years ago, a friend and I started a non-profit that tried to work closely with a Canadian social services department. Consequently, when I read this sentence, I cringed. Turns out that big Canadian government departments have these massive tomes called 'procedure manuals'. These procedure manuals spell out every single activity that the department could possibly perform, seemingly in the name of getting rid of ambiguity, judgement and any sort of innovation. Consequently, trying to innovate alongside a government department is, more often than not, an extremely frustrating experience that results in a pissed off client and a stymied startup. Long story short, just because someone comes at you with money, it doesn't mean that your demand is validated. Rather, sometimes the wrong kind of customer is worse than having no customer at all!