RS066: Build vs. Buy and How to Effectively Copy Success

Today Dave and I are catching up after he had what looked like a really fantastic acquisition fell through.  The SaaS market is bustling these days and offers above asking price are becoming the norm for high quality, recurring revenue software products.

To break down what happened, and what the next steps are for Dave (and potentially myself) we examine what the high demand of SaaS products means to the Buy vs. Build mentality, and how finding offline deals may be a good option. This is a pure numbers game but can work for some people.

I’m learning to program (potentially looking at the Build side of things) and have explored in depth Ruby on Rails, Python and Django, and PHP/Laravel.  After building a few small apps in each I’ve settled on Laravel as a good place for me to further my development knowledge.  I’m planning to spend the rest of 2016 (3 months or so) to learn how to cobble together an MVP in the event that I may want to put together my own SaaS product in the future.

Dave and I are also both putting on Big Snow Tiny Conf events this year.  I’ll be putting one on with Brad Touesnard in Chamonix, France from January 16-19, and Dave will be putting on the Big Snow Tiny Conf West again in Beaver Creek, CO February 6-9.  If you’re interested in getting tickets get on the early access email list.

Resources Mentioned

James Fend article on learning Rails to build Freelancify

Laravel tutorial by JA Curtis

Laracasts

CodeTree Article on Choosing a Business Idea

Rhodium Weekend