What to Buy, When to Buy vs. Build

“Buy, build, or partner” has always been a dilemma for technology companies, because tech companies have all three options. They can build, they sometimes have the money to buy, and partnership is always on the table. But if you’re not a technology company, and your focus is healthcare, restaurants, or retail, building is the wrong way to go.

Let me step back and clarify. We’re entering a time of abundance, where almost anything is possible. You may not need a software engineer to build the first version of a product anymore. If you can clearly articulate your business requirements, you can probably put together a working solution yourself.

But that comes with real challenges:

• scalability of the solution
• supportability of the solution
• future opportunities, like how easily the solution can be extended

And because AI runs entirely on data, you need a reliable, highly available, scalable pipeline underneath it. Yes, you may have built something that produces an amazing report. But should you spend your time carrying it forward? My answer is no. Partner with a technology company, or buy a solution that takes you to the next level. A good partner can build alongside you. And if a solution already exists in the market (and I know one does), buy it and work with that team directly.

So how do you tell whether a solution is really AI? At this point, AI-powered is the only kind worth buying. Watch for two warning signs:

• Free trials: traditional software can offer a free trial because there’s no workforce behind it, just the same code running over and over. A real AI solution deploys a workforce on your behalf, and that costs money.
• Plug-and-play: most plug-and-play tools are point solutions for one particular problem. What you want is an integration partner: forward-deployed engineers who come on board, connect their platform and use cases directly into your pipeline, and build alongside your cash-cow business to take it 100x forward.

In summary, should you buy, build, or partner?

• Buy: absolutely.
• Partner: most definitely.
• Build: great for tinkerers and people who enjoy it as a hobby, but not a path to a sustainable, scalable, repeatable business.

We’ve seen this play out in technology again and again. Someone might argue this time is different, and they’re right: agents will change a lot. What they won’t change is that scale and focus matter.