Who needs custom software development?
The company provides products or services in a well established market. There are probably tens of shrink wrapped software tools built to serve their needs. The owner or IT manager has experience with one or more of these tools. The experiences are good and bad, but all are costly. They know the tools have limitations. The software doesn't offer just a few features they really need. The original software developer is not interested in customizing the product just for one customer. The company knows that they could serve their customers (and operations) better with these additional features. Perhaps, they have grown tired of tracking this data in another application and having to do double data entry.
They need software that can be quickly built using the existing application as an outline. They need software that can have all of the features they need to manage and grow their business. They need software that they themselves might sell as a product someday. They need someone with experience building software for a variety of industries, so the product does not rely too much on the faults of their own industry.
This company has a clearly defined goal and hopefully, I will get a chance to help them achieve it.