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Advisory · 06

Build, buy, or wait?

Rigorous build-vs-buy analysis grounded in real costs. Engineering effort, opportunity cost, vendor lock-in, exit cost — everything that matters, written down and defensible.

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§In this practice
§ 01The problem

The problem we solve

Build-vs-buy decisions are usually made by the loudest voice in a meeting. Build for the wrong reasons (NIH, vanity) and you burn engineering capacity. Buy for the wrong reasons (lazy procurement) and you spend years escaping a vendor. We work the analysis properly, with TCO over a realistic horizon.

§ 02Capabilities

What we evaluate

  • 01Engineering effort: build, integrate, operate, maintain
  • 02Opportunity cost: what your team isn't building instead
  • 03Vendor cost: list, negotiated, expected at scale
  • 04Lock-in cost and realistic exit path
  • 05Time-to-value comparison
  • 06Strategic alignment: is this differentiating or commodity?
  • 07Risk: vendor viability, security, compliance
  • 08Multi-year TCO with growth scenarios
§ 03Deliverables

What you receive

  • Written analysis with recommendation and justification
  • Multi-year cost model with growth scenarios
  • Vendor shortlist if buy is the recommendation
  • Implementation roadmap for either path
§ 04Stack

Common decisions

Auth (build or Clerk / Auth0 / WorkOS)
Billing (build or Stripe Billing / Lago)
Search (build or Algolia / Typesense)
Analytics (build or Mixpanel / Amplitude)
Feature flags (build or LaunchDarkly / Statsig)
Observability (open-source or Datadog)
§ 05Ideal for

Ideal for

  • → Companies considering building an internal platform
  • → Engineering leaders pressured to build by an opinionated team
  • → Founders evaluating their first significant vendor decision
  • → Procurement decisions involving multi-year commitments
§ 06Process

How an engagement runs

  1. 01

    Scope

    Agree what the decision actually is — often the question isn't framed well.

  2. 02

    Cost both paths

    Realistic engineering cost, realistic vendor cost, both with growth scenarios.

  3. 03

    Risk analysis

    Lock-in, exit, viability, strategic fit.

  4. 04

    Recommend

    Written decision with justification. We name the trade-offs of the path we didn't recommend.

§ 07Engagement

How to engage

01

Build-vs-Buy Sprint

1 — 2 weeks

Specific decision worked end-to-end with written recommendation.

02

Multi-Decision Strategy

3 — 4 weeks

Several related decisions evaluated together (platform-wide decisions).

§ 08Common questions

Frequently asked.

01Don't you have an incentive to recommend build?

We earn the same engagement fee either way. Frequently we recommend buy — the honest answer is to skip the build and use the proven vendor.

Have a problem worth solving well?

Tell us the outcome you want. We'll tell you what it takes — honestly, within a week, in writing.

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