I understand your point. The reality is that no solution will ever be perfect, be it an off the shelf SaaS or my homebrew no-code build.
There are a few things here which help us;
- Airtable has all the integrations a human being could ever need. Our stack is Airtable + Stripe + Zapier + Wordpress + ActiveCampaign.
- General awareness of the concept of UX. You need a product owner who fiercely defends the product. And .. you need a company culture which treats employee satisfaction as something that actually matters. I know that these things not common.
- I have no viable alternative. SaaS companies in the tour & activity space struggle to make money and struggle to invest in their product.
- A community of contractors. Airtable has a large community of able freelancers and contractors who can come help us out, if needed.