Build to Buy

In our May 2025 meeting the Austin CTO Club took on the theme of “Build versus Buy”. Much of the discussion centered around the trade-offs between the two, with the addition of open source as a third alternative.

One participant described a “Build to Buy” strategy that I had not heard expressed explicitly before. When evaluating “buy” options, one may not know enough to evaluate the alternatives effectively. So they build something in order to become a well-informed buyer.

They build something to throw away when they buy. This means they do not need to build something at full production quality. Instead, the build is a learning exercise. Having built it, they buy with an understanding of how such a system operates, what limitations they should pay attention to, what maintenance problems to look out for, where the UX issues will arise, how difficult integration is likely to be, and so on.

Build to become be a good buyer. Many organizations pay lip service to learning. Yet few recognize the need to explore dead ends in order to learn, thinking instead that you must focus always on building for production. Here the recognition rises to the strategic level. What excellent MVP thinking!