Viktor Madič

BD Lead & GTM Systems

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Market data · Dec 2024 to Oct 2026 · aggregated, no names

Why companies said no to custom apps

Selling for Futured, a Brno studio that builds mobile and web apps, I counted every company I reached as a deal: how far it got, and if it said no, why. 2,209 companies in 22 months, from my outboxes, my phone calls, the CRM and our lead notes.

From first message to signed project

  1. 2,209companies reached
  2. 351replied, 16% of delivered
  3. 95interested or asking
  4. 47meetings booked
  5. 12proposals (SQL)
  6. 2won

A person replied at one in 6 of the companies my messages reached. About 27% of the replies turned into interest, and 49% of those into a meeting. Of the 12 proposals, 2 were won, 7 lost and 3 are open or postponed. Price decided 4 of the lost ones.

This page counts outreach only. 3 more qualified deals came from outside this outreach, which makes 15 in total.

Why they said no

270 companies replied with a no or a not-now. Each answer is counted once, under the main reason the company gave.

  1. We build it in-house or have our own team67 25%
  2. We don't need or plan an app51 19%
  3. Not now, maybe later41 15%
  4. Not interested, no reason given26 10%
  5. We already have a supplier or agency24 9%
  6. We already have an app14 5%
  7. Budget or price11 4%
  8. Ready-made, white-label or SaaS9 3%
  9. Head office or group decides8 3%
  10. Interested, then silence6 2%
  11. Project cancelled or strategy changed5 2%
  12. Lost a tender to someone else4 1%
  13. Other4 1%

Shares are of the 270 no's. Not counted as a no: 35 replies that sent me to a colleague and 10 without a position. 36 companies showed interest or bought. The real number of no's is higher: many refusals on LinkedIn never made it into the CRM.

“We'll build it ourselves” is growing

Share of no's that named in-house development, by half-year of the reply.

  1. 14%H1 202510 of 74
  2. 29%H2 202516 of 56
  3. 24%H1 202616 of 66
  4. 34%H2 202625 of 74

In H1 2025, 14% of the no's said they build it themselves. In H2 2026 so far, it was 34%. It is the most common reason overall: 67 of 270, about one in 4.

Price rarely ends the conversation (4% of no's), even though it decided 4 of the lost proposals. Ready-made, white-label or SaaS came up only 9 times. Supplier or agency answers are back in the latest half-year: 13 of 74.

The channel mix changed over time, LinkedIn in 2025 and email in 2026, so read this as a direction, not a precise rate. Without the replies to our AI automation offer, the shares move by 4 points at most.

What I expected, and what the data says

I expected big companies to build their own teams and small ones to buy white-label. The data says otherwise.

Company size (people)No'sIn-houseSupplier, ready-made or “we have one”
Small, under 503513 37%3 9%
Mid-size, 50 to 2495611 20%10 18%
Large, 250 and more6411 17%13 20%

Small companies name their own developers most often. Large ones more often already have a supplier or an app.

Only the 155 no's with a known headcount. Small samples, so this is a correction of my assumption, not a market estimate.

Where the replies came from

Sequences bring reach. The personal channels bring replies: only 4 of the 47 meetings started with an automated sequence.

First contactCompaniesRepliedMeetingsProposals
Automated email sequence1,08948 4%41
Personal cold email50074 15%92
LinkedIn message, by hand359139 39%237
Follow-up after a website visit15149 32%72

Companies whose first message was delivered. LinkedIn replies count only where I logged them in the CRM, and the channels ran in different periods and segments, so this is not a fair head-to-head. Calls and events are left out of the table: mostly answered calls got logged.

How this was built