This year at Code Camp, I will be presenting the topic “When to Build and When to Buy”, which will explore the trade-offs associated with either buying software as a service or building an internal tool to meet your business’ needs. This is especially important for cash strapped startups that are trying to keep their burn rate down, or even for larger companies that are trying to cut costs during a recession.
Here are some of the key areas I will focus on:
1. Understand what business problem it is you are trying to solve and what your requirements are both from a feature standpoint and price, before getting sucked into a sales pitch that offers you very cool bells and whistles that you either don’t need or that are too sophisticated for the simple problem you are trying to solve.
2. The hidden costs associated with buying software as a service.
3. The hidden costs associated with building an internal tool and supporting it.
4. Some key questions to ask service providers before buying, and when and which services it makes sense to buy.
5. When it makes sense to build and how to speed up development to reduce the hidden costs.
I’ll also spend a little time talking about bringing in consultants and how you can benefit from their expertise.
