Buy, Build, or Partner?

June 19, 2023

Happy Monday everyone! Lots going on in the Cleveland Product community, so let’s get to it!

Article of the Week

As organizations scale their Product offerings, they can encounter scenarios where they have to decide whether to continue their existing ways of building products, or do things differently. And that typically involves decisions to create Products in three different ways:

  1. Buy - Purchase a product off-the-shelf product

  2. Build - Create your own solution with your own tech team

  3. Partner - Find a third party service provider that you can partner with

Each of these have advantages and disadvantages. Your organization may have always been a build-first organization, and that may have worked out well for you in the past, but is that always the right way to do things? Your organization may be a scrappy startup that had to partner with an organization to expose your products and features to clients, but now you are scaling and entering new markets, should you continue that?

I like this article from Pragmatic Institute that explores these three options for building Products, the advantages of each approach, and when to utilize which.

Product Jobs of the Week

The Product roles at Cleveland companies keep rolling in!

Upcoming Events

  • Product Lean Coffee - July 12th (in-person)

About the Author

My name is Shawn Leitner. I started the Cleveland Product networking group in 2017, which helps to connect Product professionals around Cleveland, providing them with a forum to network, learn, and share stories. For my day job, I'm a Product Consultant & Coach for Pathfinder Product and help clients implement strong Product practices so they can create products that their teams love building and their customers love using. Connect with me on LinkedIn or feel free to attend one of my events either virtually or in-person. Always up for meeting for a cup of coffee also!