Here's the biggest challenge I think you face. Because ERP is so entwined in a how a company does business, it's really hard to create a "bottom-up" solution. Executives have to be involved, you'll need sales people to explain things, and - most important - you won't really know how it goes until after the implementation. This means there is little incentive to create good software. Once the customer has spent a ton of time customizing it and retraining employees, they're not going to switch away just because the product kind of sucks. The highest quality software is found in consumer apps like GMail that are really easy to switch away from.
Is there any way you can make your solution have minimal up front cost and to be rolled in gradually, similar to the way that Salesforce and now Google Apps spread? That way you can compete just based on quality - not on sales ability. That will in turn force you to make the solution great, and you'll end up kicking everyone's ass.
"Here's the biggest challenge I think you face. Because ERP is so entwined in a how a company does business, it's really hard to create a "bottom-up" solution."
Right! That's why packages are the default.
The way to break the "software package mindset" is to learn how to conduct analysis. There are a lot of good hackers out there, but hardly anyone knows how to do analysis anymore.
There's not much magic here. Just unrelenting legwork...
"So, Joe, what do you do with the Work Order Traveler when Julie runs out of X17 components? You give it to Fred? Fred, what do you do with it? What, Joe doesn't really give it to you, he passes it by Jose first? Is this true, Julie? Why does Jose need to see it?..."
"Then what happens?"
"What do you do if...?"
"How do you know if...?"
How do you know when you're done. When everyone agrees that you're done. Then you build it.
Is there any way you can make your solution have minimal up front cost and to be rolled in gradually, similar to the way that Salesforce and now Google Apps spread? That way you can compete just based on quality - not on sales ability. That will in turn force you to make the solution great, and you'll end up kicking everyone's ass.