Build vs buy: How one solution delivered 70-80% functionality at a fraction of the cost

In one early call, a client team member characterized the ideal state of the platform they hoped to build as one that would let users “steal shamelessly and share seamlessly.”

With that as a guiding principle, we talked to several likely users of the platform to get a sense of their daily work, their pain points, and the capabilities they wished they had — i.e., what they’d want to share and what they’d want to steal. We also spoke with internal client stakeholders and leaders to understand where they saw the biggest opportunities.

The client’s team members were invaluable partners in our product innovation work: the early childhood space is a complicated domain rife with lingo, acronyms, and nuanced distinctions. We collaborated with them throughout the process to ensure we had adequate subject matter understanding to scope a viable solution.

The client team also had a large body of existing research and knowledge. Part of our work was to determine what in that body we should build upon and what we should reconsider.

As our research got underway, we recognized that one major challenge lay in the sheer variety of experiences among potential platform users: in addition to having vastly different roles, they had access to vastly different resources and services, depending on where they were located.

The team’s passion for driving change was critical to the success of the project. They worked cohesively, making aggressive strides to enhance the product’s experience for users. This required a consistent and deliberate effort to ensure the product was accessible and valuable to the community.