For every startup, there comes a pivotal moment when progress depends on one fundamental decision: should you develop something yourself or should you acquire a solution that already exists? Whether it’s about technology, talent, market share or capability, choosing between building internally or purchasing externally shapes the speed, cost and direction of growth. It’s rarely a simple choice.
Founders must weigh focus, timing, competitive advantage and resources, all while navigating an environment where opportunities move quickly and pressure to scale is constant. Understanding how to make this decision with clarity is one of the most valuable skills a founder can develop.
When Developing Internally Makes Sense
Building internally allows startups to shape capabilities that sit at the centre of their competitive advantage. It keeps knowledge inside the organisation and helps teams create products or systems that express their unique strengths.
For some companies, anything tied to core IP, privacy, autonomy or culture falls into this category. Building can also be the right path when you have a strong technical team, time is on your side and the long-term value outweighs the upfront delay.
But, it requires discipline. Internal development should focus on areas that truly differentiate the business rather than becoming a default choice driven by pride or habit.
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When Acquiring Accelerates Growth
Buying a product, capability or company can dramatically shorten the path to progress. It can help founders move faster, enter markets earlier or gain expertise that would take years to build from scratch.
For many early-stage businesses, purchasing ready-made solutions is the best way to validate their model, get to market quickly and conserve resources. For later-stage companies, strategic acquisitions can fill capability gaps, bring in specialist teams or unlock new revenue channels.
The key. however, is ensuring strong alignment, both technically and culturally. When the timing is tight, the competition is fast or the market window is narrow, buying can be the decision that keeps a company ahead rather than struggling to catch up.
- Sanjay Aggarwal: Founder and Chief Spice Officer at Spice Kitchen
- Roy Shaby: Founder of Tradestars
- Greg Qualls: Director Product Marketing, Upsun
- Nishi Patel: Managing Director at N-Accounting
- Veena Giridhar Gopal: Investor Operator
- Chris Anderson: CEO of ByteNova AI
- David Tomasian: Founder and CEO of Curious
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Joris Van Der Gucht: Founder and CEO at Ravical
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Brian Aagaard: Founder of Cooperhawk Business Brokerage
- Karina Tymchenko: Founder at Brandualist
- Nikolay Kirpichnikov: Co-Founder at Pre-Seed to Succeed
Sanjay Aggarwal, Founder and Chief Spice Officer, Spice Kitchen
“Founders often get stuck on the ‘build vs buy’ dilemma, but the real question is: what helps you grow without losing your mind? At Spice Kitchen, we learned quickly that trying to build everything ourselves slowed us down. Moving to platforms like Shopify and Cin7 freed us to focus on what we actually do best: creating brilliant products and serving our customers.
“My rule of thumb is simple: build what makes you different, buy what keeps you efficient. If it’s core to your brand or your story, build it. If it’s operational and someone else has already perfected it, buy it and move on. Scaling isn’t about doing everything yourself; it’s about protecting your energy and doubling down on your strengths.”
Roy Shaby, Founder of Tradestars
“The best way to scale a company starts with doing the hard work at the beginning. You need to build something genuinely distinctive, backed by stronger unit economics than your competitors. Once that foundation is in place and you are ready to scale, the most effective route is usually a blend of building and buying.
“Use the expertise you have gained to continue developing core capabilities in house, as this keeps your operational engine sharp. At the same time, look for companies that complement your strengths and can be integrated as new divisions. When you acquire, keep the founders or key players on earn outs so they remain aligned with your goals. This brings motivated operators into your business whom you can trust to push growth further.”
Greg Qualls, Director Product Marketing at Upsun
“In 2026, enterprises will finally acknowledge a hard truth: building and maintaining their own internal platforms has become a strategic distraction, not an advantage.
“Enterprises have fallen into a competency trap where they believe that their ability to engineer a solution justifies the expense of building it. This is the “Mining Metal” problem. If your core business is selling software, building your own infrastructure platform is like mining your own ore to smelt steel, just to build a CPU to run your
code. The result leads to a massive cost centre by hiring expensive teams to build and maintain internal platforms, without delivering unique competitive results.
“In other industries, there is a clear line where DIY stops because it adds no value. Yet in tech, we cling to the vanity that owning the plumbing gives us an edge. By 2026, the winners will be the ones who treat infrastructure as a utility so they can focus 100% of their engineering power on the product customers buy.”
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Nishi Patel, Managing Director at N-Accounting
“In my opinion is always to buy it in at the start and get the entire business model working as soon as possible. A founder should then as a phase two objective, decide on whether to continue buying in or to then replace with a custom built solution. This way the business establishes it’s income stream and starts learning from customers at the earliest opportunity which is vital for cashflows and making improvements to the overall product or service.
“Once a business is established and it wants to scale further, the decisions about building or buying come down to the specific business case and the potential savings in the long term. But also understanding whether or not building features that aren’t available off the shelf will generate a return through pricing improvements or some other competitive advantage.
“There is a very good book about this called “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries, which talks about establishing the minimal viable product at the earliest opportunity, before further investment takes place.”
Veena Giridhar Gopal, Investor Operator
“Founders often think this is a capability question. In practice, it is a time question. Building gives you control and keeps the work close to your culture, but it almost always takes longer than planned. While you build, the market shifts and competitors keep moving.
“Buying collapses the time curve. You step into a product, capability or channel that is already validated, already generating revenue and already supported by a team that knows how to run it. When the window is narrow or when speed determines the outcome, buying is usually the smarter route.
“The simplest way to decide is to ask what the next two years look like. If waiting to build puts you behind, buy. If time is on your side and the capability is core to how you win, build.”
Chris Anderson, CEO of ByteNova AI
“Every founder encounters the build-vs-buy fork in the road at some point, and it’s messier than people often like to admit. I usually start by asking myself, is this actually core to what we do, or am I just being stubborn because I want to build stuff? If it’s mission-critical and you’ve got the team, sure, build away. But if someone out there already solved the problem better than you can in the next year, buying starts to make way more sense.
“Internal development makes sense when you’re protecting IP or speed isn’t life-or-death. Acquisition makes sense when time is killing you, or when the talent you’d be acquiring is half the value anyway. The big mistake founders often make is assuming their team can magically stretch into new domains, or that integrations are always easier than they look.”
David Tomasian, Founder and CEO of Curious
“You need to build when the capability in question defines what only your company can do. However, you buy when speed is important or when someone has already solved a non-core problem better than you ever need to.
“The biggest mistake founders make is assuming everything needs to be built in-house. This can slow teams down and disrupt focus. The counter to this is that founders believe acquisitions will simplify things, though this is only true if the cultural and product fit is very, very strong.”
“Build what shapes your future and buy what accelerates the present. At Curious, anything touching privacy or autonomy is built internally, because it’s the foundation our product stands on.”
Joris Van Der Gucht, Founder and CEO at Ravical
“Founders often frame build versus buy as a strategic decision, but in practice, it comes down to timing, capability and
people.
“Both paths can succeed. But both can also fail.
“In my previous company, we acquired an AI start-up because they were already far ahead of what we could have built within
our timelines, and the alignment with the founders was particularly strong. That experience reinforced the important fact that while the product matters, people and integration matter just as much.
“So, it’s not a case or build or buy. The real question is whether your organisation can make the chosen path a success. Building tests your team’s capacity, buying tests your ability to integrate; the best decision is the one that aligns with the strengths and needs you have today,
not tomorrow.”
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Brian Aagaard, Founder of Cooperhawk Business Brokerage
“Deciding on whether to build or buy comes down to whether or not you have your own vision and strategy that you feel gives you an advantage vs. if the goal and strategy is to have a business that you are simply looking to grow without much change or functionality. If you have time, your own vision, working capital, business plan, market knowledge and objectives that separate you from the competition, then building can be the way to go.
“If you are looking to hit the ground running, creating immediate revenue and achieving a quicker ROI with everything in place, buying can be a smoother path. Problems that can arise when scaling includes cutting corners by avoiding processes and procedures, not communicating with the team and losing focus on the culture and on customers. No matter whether you pick, buy or acquire, remember these 4 steps: Goals, Plan, Execution, Consistency.”
Karina Tymchenko, Founder at Brandualist
“In my experience building Brandualist, in general, I make the build vs. buy decision based on how quickly I want to get something done, whether I need a specialized product, and what the long term costs will be for me. I build things when they are essential to the business (like creative strategy), or if they help create an efficient workflow for clients. I buy things when I need them faster than I would be able to have someone build it for me.
“A good way to determine if you should build something is by finding out where your competitive advantage lies. In addition, if there is a solution in the marketplace that has been developed by experts in the field and you just want to use their solution, then buying it will save you months of time and allow your team to conserve their energy.
“The most common mistake that I have seen founders make is forcing themselves to build something internally simply because of pride, when they could have bought it from someone else who had already built it. Forcing yourself to build something internally can slow your company’s growth and drain your team’s energy.
“For early stage companies, I recommend that they buy everything that can accelerate their momentum and keep their focus. Once a company reaches the growth stage, they can start building solutions to problems as soon as their revenue is steady and their processes are solid enough to support building these products internally.
“I use this rule to guide my purchasing decisions: “buy to move fast,” and “build to stay unique.” Using this balance has helped to keep Brandualist a lean organization while still allowing us to grow and maintain high quality.”
Nikolay Kirpichnikov, Co-Founder at Pre-Seed to Succeed
“Startup scaling and growth are not the same thing, and it’s important to understand the difference. Growth is part of the scaling process, which touches every aspect of the company: revenue, product, team, geography, users, and more.
“With so many integral parts, it’s vital for a startup founder not to spread energy across every aspect at once, but to laser-focus on a particular task. This means saying no to 99% of things that don’t really matter. Many startups have died simply from doing too much too early. The winners pick one thing they do exceptionally well, while other areas get prioritized and delegated when possible.
“Among the top priorities should be customers – not investors, press, or competitors. Founders who consistently talk to customers, actively listen to their feedback, and sometimes set aside their own ideas to focus on what customers actually need ultimately build better products. Period.”
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