280: The Build-vs-Buy Framework: When Off-the-Shelf Wins — and When Custom Tech Is Worth It

A popular debate is “build vs buy.”

Sadly, that’s the wrong question.

Here’s the thing: shiny features and clever dashboards don’t matter if you’re solving the wrong problem. And picking the wrong path—custom tech when you don’t need it, or off-the-shelf when it can’t support your ambitions—can cost you six figures and months of lost momentum.

In this episode of Tech for Non-Techies, Sophia walks you through a simple four-question scorecard to cut through the noise and make the right choice for your business.

No jargon. No hype. Just a clear decision-making framework grounded in real founder behavior, operational limits, and what actually differentiates a tech venture today.

In this episode, you will hear:

• The hidden trap founders fall into when they start with the solution instead of the problem
• When “good enough” off-the-shelf tools beat custom builds hands-down
• The scorecard Sophia uses to judge whether tech can become your competitive moat
• How to avoid blowing six figures on custom software you never needed

Resources from this Episode

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Get free access here: techfornontechies.co/aiclass

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Sophia Matveeva  00:00

Should you build your own custom tech product, or should you just use something that already exists? Because sometimes the best thing for your venture is to use Squarespace or Shopify or whatever tool is relevant for your sector. But sometimes that's exactly the wrong decision, and in this short episode, I'll share my scorecard for how to decide whether you should build or buy.

Sophia Matveeva  00:29

Hello and welcome to the tech phone and techie podcast. I'm your host. Sophia mattreva, if you're a non technical founder, building a tech product or adding AI to your business. You're in the right place. Each week, you'll get practical strategies, step by step, playbooks and real world case studies to help you launch and scale a tech business without learning to code. And this is not another startup show full of jargon venture capital theater or tech bro bravado. Here we focus on building useful products that make money without hype and without code. I've written for the Harvard Business Review and lectured at Oxford, London Business School and Chicago Booth, so you are in safe hands. I've also helped hundreds of founders go from concept to scalable product, and now it's your turn. So let's dive in. Hello, smart people. How are you today? You know, when I was making this episode for you, I was thinking this episode is going to put me out of a job, but you know, I love you. I would rather that you had the right information and you were able to make the right decisions, then you basically bought courses or info products that are not going to be right for you. So for those of you who know what tech for non tech East does is we help business owners or we help non technical founders create tech ventures, and so that means that we help them create custom tech products like apps and sites and platforms and so on. But there are a lot of founders. There are a lot of businesses who actually don't need custom technology, who would be much better off using Shopify, you know, for e commerce or SquareSpace for a simple website, or maybe if they are a learning solution provider, like an online course provider, Kajabi is a really, really good option. And this episode is really about, which camp should you be on? Should you be buying an off the shelf product, or should you be creating your own because if you should be buying your own product, then definitely don't do that. Because creating a custom tech product. It's really, I think, intellectually stimulating. I think it's really interesting work, but it's also expensive, it's also stressful. And, you know, with Shopify or Kajabi, you could be paying like 100 200 bucks a month, and you don't have any developer issues. So here's a thing that I often see happen. So perhaps you're running a successful business. So maybe you're running an accounting practice and doing 3 million a year, or maybe you've got a dental a set of dental clinics with multiple locations, or maybe you've got a wealth management firm with 200 clients. So basically, things are going well and you want to expand, but you're hitting operational limit. This is quite normal, and so your team is drowning in manual work. And maybe you see opportunities for how to improve it. Maybe you see an opportunity to improve Client Onboarding or client communications. And maybe you even lost a deal because a proposal process was basically slower. So you're thinking, Okay, I need some sort of tech solution to fix this. And essentially there are two camps. I wonder, which one you're in. So one camp starts thinking, my firm is different. What we're doing is so unique. Our clients have really, really specific needs. We have to build something exactly how we operate, and I have this idea exactly in my head, this is what we're going to do. So you talk to developers, the developers get excited. They tell you they can automate your entire workflow and basically make your vision come to life. And you're thinking about dashboards and integrations and client portals, and you're like, imagine yourself as JP Morgan, and you're imagining your operations basically, kind of like you're running a tech company, and you maybe have even forgotten what your original business was. And also you're paying for this, and this is like a six figure check just to begin with. So that's camp one. Then there's camp two, which is the opposite direction, which is somebody, you know, you might be thinking software development is risky and it's expensive, and I'm just going to use whatever everybody else in my industry uses. You know, there must be some sort of off the shelf solution. So basically, you buy the same practice management software as every other accounting firm. Maybe you're using the same schedule. System as everybody else. You've got the same CRM and so on. And what might end up happening is that you're going to end up fighting the software and working around its limitations and basically telling yourself that, yeah, well, one day we'll figure it out. One day we'll maybe build some sort of custom solution, but you're basically kind of, you've got the thing that you're paying for, maybe I don't know, Salesforce, and you'll also have, like, a Frankenstein solution with a bunch of Google Sheets and a bunch of spreadsheets. So both camps are basically looking at it the wrong way, because here's what both camps get wrong. They're starting with the solution rather than the problem. So one founder is excited to get into tech, and they want to be a tech founder, and they're like, Yeah, I've got an opportunity. I think I see an idea, let's go to developers in what I just told you is the founder actually thinking about, what problem am I solving, and for whom, like, the problem the founder is solving is that I want to do something cool and exciting. That's not necessarily the best way to start a tech venture, right? And the other camp is basically the founder thinking, No, this is too difficult. I'm not doing this. I can't be bothered. And that's also not actually focusing on who is experiencing this problem? What problem are you solving? So the question is, never, should I build custom or buy of the shelf? The question is, what specific operational advantage Am I trying to create, and can existing software deliver it? That's basically it. And so here is the scorecard that I suggest you use. So the scorecard consists of four questions, and at the end, I'll tell you how to account your scores. Also, if you want to go, you know, if you're listening to this when you're on the go, there's actually a transcript on our website. So you could literally take this, take all of the questions, and take the scorecard, and basically just do it yourself. And if you're finding this line of inquiry useful, we can create more content on the build or buy thing. So just tell me what kind of scratching the surface here. Okay, so here's your first question in our full question scorecard Question one is the tech itself, the reason that customers are going to buy from you, and this is a one to five score, so one is absolutely not five is completely Yes. So for example, in my business, we use Calendly as a scheduling software. So why are we paying for Calendly? Because of the technology, basically because the tech is the product. I don't think I've ever spoken to anybody from the Calendly team, and I don't really want to, you know, no disrespect, but I I'm busy. The product works. I pay them. You can book a time on my calendar. Everybody's happy. So that's a five I'm paying for the tech. Now let's think of maybe a coach, like a business coach. Why would people pay a business coach because of the person? Or maybe a therapist? Why would they pay a coach or a therapist? Why would you because of that person, because of that expertise, because of their frameworks, because of how they deal, how they help you deal with challenges, and so you actually don't care. Are they speaking to you on Zoom? Are they speaking to you on Microsoft Teams? You just care about the results. So the platform that delivers that coach to you, that's just the vehicle, so that's definitely a one, maybe a two. I don't, not sure it would be to keep it at a one. So basically, here's the test, if I stripped away your technology and delivered your product in person or via zoom or via Google Doc, would customers still pay you? If yes, then your tech is a one or a two for this question, and if no, you're closer to the Calendly score, which is a four or five. So now let's get to question two. Do you need features that don't exist anywhere else? Again, this is a one to five score, where one is no this already exists. And five is no, yes, I'm building something completely novel. And again, let's think about e commerce. Maybe you need to sell sweaters, so Shopify is a really, really good way to do that. So that already exists, and millions of people and lots and lots of retailers already using it, and not just small retailers, but really big retailers. So that's going to be a one, or maybe if you need a booking system for appointments, as I mentioned, Calendly acuity and so on, so that's going to be a one. But let's say that you are building a platform that you. Is AI to match freelance designers with clients based on an algorithm that analyzes portfolios past project success rates and communication, style and location, and basically that, you know, the two get matched the clients and the designers, and automatically that platform handles contracts and payments and intellectual property transfers globally.

Sophia Matveeva  10:27

So that is going to have a lot of custom features in it. So that's going that doesn't basically exist. So that's going to be a five. So just think about really, what is it that you genuinely need? And yes, I know that we all want to customize everything. Like, you know, even if you buy some clothes, for example, you want, maybe sometimes you take them to the tail, like you buy a new jacket, you want to take it to the tailor so it looks perfectly nice in you you can't do that with tools like Shopify or acuity. And so there is a temptation, I think, in question two, this is really where I see founders basically waste money when they shouldn't. You know, sometimes Shopify, or whatever they of the shelf solution is it's good enough, it's fine. It is much better to take a solution that is good enough and maybe not have all of the features that you want, because actually, you don't really need those features. And custom development takes ages, and it's expensive, and it's like, basically, once you start doing custom your entire life and your entire business has to change. So be really honest with yourself, do you actually need new features? Like, are you actually building something completely new, or do you just want a slightly modified version of something that already exists? Now, let's get to question three, will the technology itself differentiate you from you, from your competitors? And this, again, is a scale of one to five, where my edge is elsewhere, so it's not technology. And five is the tech is my competitive mode. So if your competitive advantage is your content, for example, or your brand or your firm's expertise, so let's say your consultants or your accountants or your bankers, maybe your network, maybe you work in PR, for example, your community, your personal reputation, then technology is a one or a two, so most consultancies and services service businesses fall into this camp. But let's say you have been running your own asset management firm for a while, and you have decided that you've seen you've got some sort of insight, and you want to build a FinTech app based on that insight, where your matching algorithm is, let's say, 40% more accurate than competitors, and so you can say match lenders to banks really, really accurately as a result of your expertise. Okay, well, that's going to be a four or a five. So here's my favorite way to think about this. Could your biggest competitor copy your exact technology in six months and eliminate your advantage? If, yes, then tech is not your competitor, and then you're at a one or two. If no, if your tech would take years to replicate or requires proprietary data or unique technical expertise, then you're at a four or five. So kind of think about that algorithm. Example, to create a really good matching algorithm that basically is way better than what your competitors have. It requires, yes, unique technical expertise, but it requires your unique data and your unique insight. So it's not just something that you can copy, like you can't just copy the design of a website and just, you know, be able to completely compete. No, the algorithm is the technology that the IP if that's not the case for you, then we're at a one or two. And if you're at a one or two and you and you keep on being close to a one or two, then we are not at a place where you should be doing your own custom development. But first, before we confirm that, let's get to question four. Do you expect rapid iteration based on user behavior? And so this is the last question, again, one to five scoring. So one is my product is pretty stable, and five is, I need to ship new features very frequently based on new data. So for example, let's take the tech front on techies business. The Tech front and techies business is hosted on Kajabi, so we have bite sized videos in our tech front and technical founders, course, but we also, you also get one on one coaching with our expert instructors, which is usually done on Zoom. So the core functionality is hosting videos, managing payments, managing the community, and managing and basically setting up zoom via Calendly. This is definitely one or two the. These needs are not changing weekly, because the thing that is changing frequently, it's the content. We're updating the content to reflect new tools, new tech trends and so on. But actually, the way they are served to you, like the actual screen where the videos are doesn't really need to change, but let's imagine that you're building a marketplace we need to constantly adjust your matching algorithm, test new user flows, AB, test pricing models respond to behavioral data in real time. That's a five and in fact, when I used to run a tech company, we would have new releases every two weeks. So we essentially would have two week sprints, and then we would have a new release based on data, and it would create new features based on how people were behaving and what was working on what wasn't. Now, the business that I'm running now, it's a different kind of business. So what I can see is that pre built tools like Shopify, like Kajabi, like Squarespace, they are really, really good if your main product is not the technology, and actually just want the tech to provide stability, because they're not great for rapid, unique iteration. But if you need to move fast and break things, if technology is actually at the core of your business, if that's your core IP, if essentially, it can't be copied without knowing the insider insights, then those things are very specific to your business model, and you're at a four or five. And so now that you have gone through these questions, it's time to add up your scores. I'll just quickly run through the questions for you again, but if you want to do the scorecard, I just really recommend go to our transcript and go through this for yourself. So question one is the tech itself, the reason customers buy from you. Question two, do you need features that don't exist anywhere else? Question three, will the technology itself differentiate you from your competitors? And Question four, do you expect rapid iteration based on user behavior? So when you're adding up your

Sophia Matveeva  17:06

score, if you scored in the low digit, so four to eight, use

Sophia Matveeva  17:13

off the shelf. That's not even a question. Shopify. Kajabi, Squarespace, Wix, whatever that is, where you need to go. Save your money. Move fast. Do not hire a developer. To not even speak to a developer. If you scored in the high numbers, like from 13 to 20, then you need to build a tech product. And basically you need to definitely take our course. You need to start with AI prototyping. We can totally help you to do that now. If you're in that middle zone between about nine and 12. This is where, essentially, I would recommend that you start prototyping with AI and no code tools, and you build some sort of Frankenstein product to just see. Is it worth going further and investing more or not? And if this Frankenstein product, which is a combination of existing tools, maybe with a bit of automation from Zapier and so on. If that works, then keep it as it is. If it's hitting its limits, then explore custom development. The point is, I want you to have a decision making framework for how you make this decision, because if you don't get this decision right, this could be a really expensive mistake. It could be a really expensive mistake building custom software when you don't need it. But equally, it could be a really expensive mistake trying to use software that is basically not fit for purpose, and trying to stick your business into a framework that somebody else has built for basically another use case. So hope you found this episode useful. I'm assuming that you did, because you're still listening. So if you did, then please leave this show a rating and a review, because it really, really does help me feel good about the work that I'm doing for you, and it helps my team for the same reasons, but it also helps other smart people discover this work and learn how to succeed in the digital age as a non technical founder. On that note, have a wonderful day, and I shall be back in your delightful smart years next week. Ciao.