How do you know when custom feature requests are killing your core product roadmap?

Early on, you want to please every single paying customer especially the ones paying top dollar. But I realized that building custom workflows just for one loud client was turning our clean software into a messy patched up tool nobody else wanted.

Saying "no" to big money is genuinely terrifying when you're trying to keep the lights on but holding your ground is the only way to build something scalable.

Have you ever turned down custom work because it pulled you away from your core vision?