Building vs. Buying software (for non-technical business owners)
Code is a liability. Like a car, its usefulness may offset the cost of purchase and maintenance. But it will require maintenance. The more critical the function of the software, the more important it is that regular maintenance keeps it from interrupting your business. For this reason, I usually recommend that non-technical business owners rely on off-the-shelf software solutions until the pain from the gaps in the solution is larger than the pain of long-term maintenance.
In some cases, the long-term cost of building your own custom software can be justified. Owners in the situations below might consider custom software.
🔨 Situation 1: Software is core to your product/service
Believe it or not, you can be a non-technical business owner who delivers software as a core part of your business. In this particular case, the long-term liability of custom development can be offset by the value of the product or service you are providing. Still, it is always prudent to compare whether a piecemeal system can provide the same benefits.
🔨 Situation 2: You have a very specific problem that you can spell out in 2-3 sentences, which does not already have a sufficient solution on the market
It is rare, though not impossible, that you might have a well-defined problem that has no existing solution on the market that quite suits your needs. In such a case, it can be worthwhile to explore a custom solution. Understand, however, that you may be paying up to 10-20x the cost of what a bought solution would cost.
🔨 Situation 3: You want to risk a more expensive build-out in order to lay a foundation for future work.
This is the riskiest of the 3 situations here. Many times it makes sense to have a bullet-proof understanding of what your ideal system would look like before you build it. In certain circumstances, however, there is a well-understood need that a general build-out can precede more specific implementations. (Example: A server is built that will handle several automation and data pipelines, but the exact automation and pipelines aren't known yet. In this case, it may make sense to build the server. But again, it might make sense to wait as well).
There are situations outside of these that justify custom development. These are the most common situations where a custom-developed solution can make sense over a bought solution.
Many common business needs can be handled with off-the-shelf solutions that won't break the bank and don't require long-term development support.