How we chose between building vs buying software
summary
A practical decision framework called 7 C's (core capability, cost, complexity, competence, cohesion, competitive advantage, culture) directs whether to build, buy or acquire. Examples: Trusted Health built payroll to handle weekly W2 pay, complex overtime and multi‑country failovers and gained a recruiting edge; customer engagement is bought: Salesforce, Intercom, Front, Zendesk for real‑time scale; Apartment List bought email after its homegrown system became a maintenance drag; an AIML chatbot acquisition saves ~12 months vs building; one company even grew to $1B on a $2,000 off‑the‑shelf tool.
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chapters (6)
- 0:00Introduction and Background
- 1:08The Dilemma of Build vs Buy in Tech
- 2:14Introducing the 7C's Framework
- 9:04Applying the framework - Real World Examples
- 20:47Key Factors in Making Build vs Buy Decisions
- 22:13Q&A Session
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