Build / Buy / Bend
Do you need to own this capability, or just have it?
- Build vs. buy
- Differentiation
- Ownership
- Speed to value
- Optionality
Interactive prototype
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The situation
A venture firm wants institutional memory: every founder meeting, CRM record, diligence doc, and past investment, searchable and trustworthy.
They have a small technical team, an existing document stack, and a partner who wants it working before the next fund close.
The obvious answer
Build a custom retrieval platform. It's the firm's proprietary knowledge, so it should be proprietary software.
The question underneath it
The real question is where differentiation actually lives. Storage, search, and permissions are commodity. Judgment about what a good answer looks like is not.
What I'm paying attention to
Differentiation
Build only where the capability is the moat.
Time to value
A bent stack shipping in three weeks teaches more than a build shipping in nine months.
Ownership cost
Custom software is a permanent staffing decision, not a one-time project.
Switching cost
Buying is fine until the data model belongs to the vendor.
Optionality
Bending keeps the decision reversible while you're still learning the problem.
My take
Bending is the option that gets skipped, and it's usually the right first move. Extending tools you already run gets you a working answer, real usage data, and a much sharper spec for whatever you build later.
Build where you differentiate. Rent the commodity layer. Bend the stack while you're still learning.
Related writing
Build vs. Buy Is Missing a Third Option
Substack essay — Coming Soon
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