Not being familiar with this product to begin with, I'm wondering if he gave up on his product too quickly!? In my experience customers are typically wrong and misinformed - the whole "faster horse" concept at play. Instead of acquiescing to his customers whims (I want what I want when I want it), could he have had a viable, differentiated product in the market if he would have worked on selling, onboarding and educating about his product's POV. More often SaaS products are selling an idea combined with a methodology (Slack is a good example of this). You need to sell the idea that your organization will benefit from doing it "our way" rather than "your way".