A framework for deciding whether to build a feature in-house or buy it from a vendor. Cost matters, but customization is the overlooked factor: minimal customization often makes no-code building cheaper than buying, while heavy customization justifies expensive third-party solutions like premium BI dashboards.
When do you build a feature for your, for your offering? And when do you buy that feature from like a third party? I find there are two main considerations. The one everyone else thinks about is going to be cost, right? Hey, is it cheaper for me to go buy this than to go build? But I think there's a second consideration too, which is how much customization is going to be desired by the client? What I have found, and it seems a little counterintuitive, but like the less customization they want, often it can be cheaper to build, especially building using no-code tools. If what they want is lots of customization on their end, giving them something that you bought from someone else that then is passing through that ability to customize can really add a lot more value. I see this, for example, in dashboards, right? You have a nice simple dashboard, simple reporting. You go, you build that yourself using some no-code, low-code tools. You can provide the same experience to your various customers and you can do that very cheaply. But when you're buying like a third-party business intelligence tool or what have you, that's going to be where you're offering more customization, asking for bigger ticket. That's where it adds value.
