1. The new feature increased the reliability of a user onboarding function. If I hadn't built it, I likely would not have remained in business. 2. The company would go bankrupt? I don't see your point. 3. One and a half years. It didn't get me anything, because I didn't plan for the added metadata until about nine months in. If the question is "what did the nine months between when you came up with the idea and when you were forced to build it get you?" the answer is "a world of hurt." At the time, the cost of migrating was low. When my users 100xed, the cost of migrating had increased over a thousand-fold.