Why CTOs Are Choosing 'Build' Over 'Buy' in 2025 (Even When It's Harder)
The Paradox Every CTO Is Whispering About
There's a quiet rebellion happening in engineering departments across Silicon Valley, Austin, and every tech hub in between.
CTOs are making a decision that seems completely backwards. They're choosing to build custom software, spending months and millions, when they could buy a solution and ship in weeks.
It doesn't make sense. Until you see what they see.
Something fundamental has shifted in how winning companies think about their technology. The "buy fast, ship faster" playbook that dominated the 2010s is being rewritten. And the companies making this counterintuitive move? They're the ones pulling ahead.
The Great Unbundling: Why "Build" Is Having Its Moment
Walk into any board meeting in 2025, and you'll hear a new anxiety creeping into conversations.
"We're running on the same stack as our competitors."
This wasn't a problem five years ago. Back then, speed was everything. Grab Stripe for payments, Auth0 for authentication, Twilio for communications, Segment for analytics. Stitch together best-of-breed SaaS tools and move fast.
But here's what's changed: everyone moved fast in the exact same direction.
Now, every fintech startup has the same checkout flow. Every B2B platform has the same onboarding experience. Every marketplace looks and feels identical under the hood.
The invisible cost of convenience became visible: commoditization.
Meanwhile, something else was happening. The companies that broke out, that became household names and category leaders, they all had one thing in common.
They built their own tools.
Not because it was easy. Because it gave them something no vendor could sell them: a competitive moat built from code.
The Old Playbook vs. The New Reality
The decision used to be simple. Now it's strategic.
| The "Buy" Era (2015-2023) | The "Build" Era (2024+) |
|---|---|
| Speed is the only metric that matters | Control is the competitive advantage |
| Best-of-breed SaaS = best strategy | Unique stack = unique product |
| Engineering time is too expensive to build | Vendor lock-in is too expensive to ignore |
| "Not our core competency" | "This IS our core competency" |
| Focus on GTM, outsource tech | Tech differentiation drives GTM |
| Pay monthly, scale infinitely | Pay once, own forever |
| Integration hell is someone else's problem | Seamless experience is our unfair advantage |
The rhetoric around "build vs. buy" used to center on time to market.
The new conversation is about time to differentiation.
Because here's the truth nobody wants to say out loud: if you're using the same tools as everyone else, you're building the same product as everyone else.
The Real Reason Stripe Built Atlas, Notion Built Their Editor, and Figma Built Multiplayer
Let's talk about what actually happens when you choose "buy."
You get 80% of what you need on day one. That's the promise. Fast, functional, feature-complete.
But you also get 20% of things you don't need. Bloat you can't remove. Workflows you can't change. A data model that's "close enough" but never quite right.
You adapt your product to fit the tool, instead of building the tool to fit your vision.
Then six months later, you want to add a feature your competitor doesn't have. Something unique. Something that could change the game.
And you hit the wall.
"Our payment provider doesn't support that flow."
"Our CRM can't handle that data structure."
"Our auth system won't let us customize that experience."
You're not moving fast anymore. You're moving at the speed of your slowest vendor's roadmap.
This is why the smartest CTOs are making a calculated bet: short-term pain for long-term control.
The Dirty Secret About Speed
Here's what the SaaS playbook got right: speed matters.
Here's what it got wrong: speed to launch isn't the same as speed to iterate.
When you buy, you launch fast. When you build, you iterate fast.
The first matters when you're validating an idea. The second matters when you're scaling a winner.
And here's the insight that's changing everything in 2025:
The companies winning today aren't the ones who shipped first. They're the ones who learned fastest.
Custom-built systems let you:
- A/B test things vendors would never let you touch
- Instrument data exactly how you need it
- Change the rules of your product without asking for permission
- Build features that are impossible with off-the-shelf tools
You're not just shipping features. You're shipping learning velocity.
And in a world where every product has access to the same AI models, the same cloud infrastructure, and the same open-source libraries, the speed at which you can learn and adapt is your only sustainable advantage.
When "Build" Stops Being Crazy and Starts Being Strategic
Smart CTOs aren't building everything. That would be insane.
They're selectively choosing what to own based on a simple question:
"Will this be a competitive differentiator, or just a cost center?"
Payments? Maybe buy (unless you're Stripe).
Email delivery? Definitely buy.
The core workflow that makes your product unique? Build. Every time.
The new framework isn't "build OR buy."
It's "buy for commodity, build for advantage."
And increasingly, that line is shifting. The things that used to be "someone else's problem" are becoming "our biggest opportunity."
Because here's what's happened: the cost of building has collapsed.
AI-assisted development. Open-source infrastructure. Cloud primitives that would've cost millions to build in-house five years ago, now available as APIs.
The question isn't "can we afford to build?" anymore.
It's "can we afford not to?"
How the Best Teams Are Building Without Burning Out
The companies making this shift aren't just throwing engineers at the problem.
They're strategic. They're focused. They're working with partners who understand that custom doesn't mean starting from zero.
At Teson LLP, we've seen this shift firsthand. The CTOs we work with aren't asking "should we build?" anymore. They're asking "how do we build smart?"
That means:
- Starting with core differentiators, not edge cases
- Building on battle-tested foundations, not reinventing wheels
- Owning the experience, not every line of code
- Creating systems that give them control without creating maintenance nightmares
The best custom builds don't feel custom. They feel inevitable. Like the product could only have been built this way.
Because it's true.
The New Competitive Landscape
Five years from now, we'll look back at 2025 as the turning point.
The moment when software stopped being about buying the best tools and started being about building the right moat.
The companies that see this now—that understand why "harder" can mean "better"—they're not just building products.
They're building unfair advantages.
They're creating experiences their competitors literally cannot copy, because their competitors are stuck in vendor contracts and SaaS limitations.
And they're not doing it alone.
The build vs. buy decision isn't just a technical choice. It's a bet on how you compete.
The CTOs choosing "build" in 2025 aren't being difficult. They're being deliberate.
What's your competitive moat? And who controls it: you, or your vendors?
If you're a CTO, founder, or engineering leader thinking about what to build vs. what to buy, we'd love to hear your story. The best insights come from the teams in the trenches making these decisions every day.