This document discusses considerations for whether to build or partner for new product capabilities. It provides a framework to assess the risks of building vs buying, including factors like resource availability, ability to disrupt competition, ongoing effort needs, and alignment with business strategy. The framework rates these factors as low, medium, or high risk and assigns importance weights to calculate a total score. A score between 0-20 suggests building, 21-40 suggests a combination approach, and 41-60 suggests buying or partnering. The document emphasizes making good informed decisions based on available information and being willing to revisit decisions as new information emerges.

1. www.productschool.com
Build vs Partner - How to Choose
by fmr PayPal Product Leader

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6. Srividya Sunderamurthy
S P E A K E R I N F O
1994 2018
1995 1997 2002 2013 2016 2020
Srividya has over 20 years of product management experience. She has led end-to-end product strategy and launch of both fraud &
compliance solutions in small to medium-sized fast-paced startups and large technology companies. Her products have been used at
banks, fintechs, and ecommerce companies. She currently heads product strategy at Vesta Payment Solutions, overseeing their account
and payment fraud products and payment processing solutions. Her previous roles have been at Feedzai where she helped set the
strategy and launched their AML solution, Wepay (now Chase) where she setup their payment operations team and strategy, Guardian
Analytics (now Actimize) where she managed their ACH and Wire solutions for credit unions and banks. The early years of her career were
spent in ebay and Paypal as a product manager to automate several of the fraud operations tools that helped bridge the gaps between risk
management and fraud operations. She started her career with KPMG as a consultant. She is a featured speaker at Product school and a
member of US Faster Payments Council thru Vesta. She has an Engineering degree in Computer Science.

7. The Product Manager is the person responsible for defining the why, when, and what of the product
that the engineering team builds. This means they lead cross-functional teams from a product's
conception all the way through to its launch.
Product managers provide deep product expertise needed to lead the organization and make
strategic product decisions. They often analyze market and competitive conditions, laying out a
product vision that is differentiated and delivers unique value based on customer demands. The
role spans many activities from strategic to tactical and provides important cross-functional
leadership — most notably between engineering, marketing, sales, and support teams.

8. Session Goals
Discuss Key Considerations, Pros & Cons,
of a “Build vs Buy” decision
Decision Framework that can help
Inspired from https://www.slideshare.net/birster/birst-webinar-build-vs-buy-making-the-right-choice-for-a-great-data-product
Additional resources:
https://clevertap.com/blog/build-vs-buy/
https://www.syberry.com/blog/build-vs-buy
https://blog.fusebill.com/build-vs-buy-the-saas-solution-debate

9. Triggers

10. ● Customers are asking for a feature/ capability which complements your
existing product(s)
○ Typically you see that in the RFPs, prospect calls
● Deal-breakers - customer won’t sign a deal if you cannot provide “x”
● Competition has decided to add it in their product portfolio and you don’t
have it
● Revenue Goals need to be met
● Skills/Competancy does not exist, steep learning curve

11. Key Considerations

12. ● Speed to build
○ How much coverage can the build option provide and how soon? Are you willing to continue to invest? Could the resources be
better utilized?
○ Will it take you longer to just build the “table stakes” than the potential integration with a partner solution which already may have
all the “delighters”? By the time you catch up some of the delighters may already be “table stakes”
● Vendor Evaluation/Selection
○ What vendors provide the maximum coverage but at affordable prices? How many vendors are out there? Who are the leaders?
How financially viable is the vendor?
● Integration Costs
○ How complex is the integration process? How quickly can the system be up and running?
○ Does it introduce any additional steps for your customers?
● Technology Compatibility
○ Can the integration be supported inhouse or do you need vendor support?
● Value vs Cost
○ Is the cost to integrate an ongoing or one-time cost? Will your customers be willing to pay a price point that not only covers but
allows you to make a profit?

13. When to “Build” When to “Buy”
The cost of “buying” is 3x more than the cost of building (if
you did not have a time constraint)
The time-to-market is aggressive and the price of an
integrated solution is affordable and reasonable
The ongoing cost to maintain and integrate is growing and
you end up leaving a lot of money on the table because you
cannot charge your customers as much
Lot of the “tablestake” features are already “delighters” in the
vendor solutions that you have evaluated. The solution
differentiates from the get-go
You have most of the infrastructure already and/or the
know-how, by extending the platform you can provide big
benefits to your current and future customers
The complexity of the feature or product is way more than
what your engg teams can handle. The engg team is already
bogged down by several other priorities.
Minimize vendor risk - being prepared for situations when a
vendor company can go out of business or gets acquired and
their focus/priorities have shifted
Legacy infrastructure cannot really perform at the scale and
speed of the vendor cloud-based solution
It expands your product offering into other areas/ verticals that
are not necessarily core to your business but by providing the
services creates a one-stop solution for your customers

14. Decision Framework

15. Low Risk Medium Risk High Risk
Resource
Availability
Resources will be dedicated to this
effort for the initial build as well as
continued support and enhancements
Some resources available. Will need to
weighed with other competing
priorities
No resources are available
Disrupts
competition
High confidence and expertise in
building differentiators
Can add some table stakes but
delighters will take time
Low confidence in creating
differentiating functionality
Ongoing effort Low number of enhancements Will only be able to take on the highest
needs based on demand
High need for new features,
constant changes with new
regulations, compliance etc.
Alignment Aligned with the overall business
strategy
Somewhat aligned Not fully aligned

16. Low Risk
(rating = 1)
Medium Risk
(rating = 3)
High Risk
(rating = 5)
Risk Rating Importance
(1=low, 3-high)
Total
Speed to
Market
Resources will be
dedicated to this
effort for the initial
build as well as
continued support
and enhancements
Some resources
available. Will need
to weighed with
other competing
priorities
No resources are
available
5 3 15
Disrupts
competition
High confidence and
expertise in building
differentiators
Can add some table
stakes but delighters
will take time
Low confidence in
creating
differentiating
functionality
5 3 15
Ongoing effort Low number of
enhancements
Will only be able to
take on the highest
needs based on
demand
High need for new
features, constant
changes with new
regulations,
compliance etc.
3 3 9
Alignment Aligned with the
overall business
strategy
Somewhat aligned Not fully aligned 1 3 3
Score = 42 pts

17. Low Risk
(rating = 1)
Medium Risk
(rating = 3)
High Risk
(rating = 5)
Risk Rating Importance
(1=low, 3-high)
Total
Speed to
Market
Resources will be
dedicated to this
effort for the initial
build as well as
continued support
and enhancements
Some resources
available. Will need
to weighed with
other competing
priorities
No resources are
available
1 3 3
Disrupts
competition
High confidence and
expertise in building
differentiators
Can add some table
stakes but delighters
will take time
Low confidence in
creating
differentiating
functionality
1 3 3
Ongoing effort Low number of
enhancements
Will only be able to
take on the highest
needs based on
demand
High need for new
features, constant
changes with new
regulations,
compliance etc.
2 3 6
Alignment Aligned with the
overall business
strategy
Somewhat aligned Not fully aligned 1 2 2
Score = 14 pts

18. 0 - 20 pts
(Low risk)
BUILD
21 - 40 pts
(Medium risk)
COMBINATION
STRATEGY
41 - 60 pts
(High risk)
BUY/PARTNER
Based on the decision
framework there is low
risk and high confidence
at different levels
Based on the decision
framework there is
medium risk and mixed
confidence at some
levels
Based on the decision
framework there is high
risk and low confidence
at different levels

19. At the End..

20. ● Making build vs. buy decisions frequently can be a challenge.
● Often, we do not have enough information and things can change during the decision-making
process.
● However, it must be remembered that the aim should be to make a "good informed decision,"
not necessarily the "best decision."
● One should be willing to change a decision in terms of new information and changes in the
environment

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Thank you!

22. Some recommended reading

23. www.productschool.com
Part-time Product Management Training Courses
and
Corporate Training