Build vs buy: the stack decisions that haunt you

Build vs buy: the stack decisions that haunt you

Five reads on the tradeoff every martech lead gets wrong at least once.

1️⃣ Buy the commodity, build the differentiator — the framework for what deserves engineering time and what should be a checkout. Source: Reforge.
2️⃣ The total cost of a 'free' open-source tool — self-hosting trades license fees for on-call rotations. Via Modern Data Stack newsletter.
3️⃣ Switching costs you priced at zero — re-training, re-integration, and historical-data migration are the real lock-in. Source: CDP Institute.
4️⃣ When consolidation hurts — the all-in-one suite that wins on demos and loses on every individual feature. Via MarTech.org.
5️⃣ Reversible vs one-way-door choices — spend your diligence on the decisions you can't easily undo.

Essential before your next vendor evaluation.

That's the stack for this week. Forward to a teammate.