A client spent $210,000 on a design agency in New York, expecting a well-designed B2B SaaS product, but received a poorly executed design that failed to meet basic user needs. The agency's portfolio claimed expertise in SaaS, featuring only landing pages rather than any actual product interfaces. When the client reviewed the designs, they found a consumer-style dashboard lacking data density, role-based views, and essential onboarding processes. Instead of addressing user requirements, the agency delivered generic designs with cheerful illustrations and empty states that offered no real guidance. The design process revealed fundamental flaws. The agency provided a single dashboard layout instead of the required three distinct role-based dashboards. Onboarding was limited to a welcome screen with no guidance or walkthroughs. Settings were poorly organized in an alphabetical list, making critical options hard to find. The developers quickly realized the design lacked user management features, even though the project was intended for teams of 3-50 people. The agency failed to ask crucial questions about user roles or permissions, highlighting a disconnect between their claimed expertise and the reality of their work. Further investigation into the agency's previous projects showed that their “SaaS experience” was largely fabricated. Their portfolio included landing pages, consumer banking apps, and visual refreshes of existing tools rather than actual B2B SaaS products. True SaaS design requires understanding complex user needs, multi-tenancy challenges, and the nuances of enterprise software. The agency’s claims of specialization amounted to marketing design for companies that sell software, not the product design expertise necessary for a successful SaaS platform.