If you're in the business of wheels, or if it is a hobby, make wheels.
If you are in the business of carts, buy wheels.
If you are in the business of transportation, buy carts.
If you are in the business of carts, buy wheels.
If you are in the business of transportation, buy carts.
I just don't agree with that logic. If you make your own carts, innovating your own wheels will yield cheaper costs in the long run. You have a new design and it could be something better. In conjunction you can than produce your own cart to that better design.
Sure your not a wheel business, so you don't sell your wheels as that's not your specialty but you can now provide your own wheels for your own carts.
Otherwise your vendor-locked to that manufacturer. And what then if they decide to stop selling the wheels or carts that you rely on, or increase the prices?
You don't have Amazon (Cart) selling Google's Infrastructure (Wheels).
It's fairly good logic.
This era of mobile phones is a good example, when providers created their own device before selling out to Android, it was a fantastical place. Now when choosing a phone all you have is a different same rectangle with the same OS.
If you hire the expertise, you add that in to cost factor of your company. Or you set a budget and in creating your own variant while you sell your first.
I open a cookie shop. I sell pre-made cookies that taste amazing and make customers happy.
You hire the kitchen staff to make your own cookies, not as good and they don't sell as well.
You keep going and keep growing the quality as you slow down selling the amazing cookies.
Because as an scenario, say the company who's providing you with amazing cookie changes their recipe for budget cuts and now they're now not selling as good as before, bland and sickly. You lose sales and by not reinventing the cookie you lose quality, rep and profits.
I'm just amazed no one can give me a good case to why not. Innovation is what's missing from this world.
By milling the raw grain, you can then make your own machine. With that machine reduces the production costs. It's not a task that can happen overnight.
But to own a piece of land and to make raw produce from that isn't trivial.
Running a business is not about innovating at all costs at all times, it's about using what time and money you have on hand to optimize customer satisfaction. Whether it's off-the-shelf wheels for carts or grinding your own flour, you have to draw the line somewhere otherwise you are just optimizing for some theoretical optimum. Maybe when you have some more slack in the budget it's time to think about reinventing the wheel, but doing so at the get-go is already losing sight of the customer.
You sell Queen Guinevere cookies within the same line, sure it's not selling as much. The means isn't making the worth but you still invest. Suddenly King Arthur flour quality drops, they implement a cheaper method of milling which produces a less superior product. This then causes an decrease in customer happiness too. What then?
You've already made optimization on the cost of that King Arthur is always going to produce the same quality. The cost to optimize another product is going to be a far wide expenditure and nor do you know if it's quality is viable.
If you've already planned as a disaster scenario that if this was to occur; you'll use another product. However, during the period to disaster some new cookie store has come in to the light and is now using your backup: King Louie flour.
So now, not only are you flogging your product, you have someone else using your backup brand where by using it could cause some sort of turmoil. Meanwhile, if you had continued to invest in your own flour you still have your own product and can now instead, decide to use it to produce something else like crumpets.
Sure, as a cookie grain, may not be as best-seller, nor best the same quality, nor make the same sales but you still have a product that you can sell and improve. Your own product, a new product, crumpets.
I'd agree that this comes to moot, but does demonstrate the scenario of both degrees. Overall, agree to disagree that it comes down to: You started a business for a reason.
Dependent on that reason, and is it because:
A: Yourself, wanting to be a business, wanting to innovate, construct, produce for yourself, to provide to others maybe, Spare time on hands, self-Happiness? Your not trying to compete.
Or B: To compete, make money, to become the next top dog. Capitalize.
If it's B, then yeah. Your not interested in quality and will always rash-produce and regurgitate the same as every one else. Construct and push as fast as you can because you've got to compete; while it makes you the next top dog, it doesn't create anything new.
And this is the point I'm making. If the business still invested in their own product, their own wheel they could still become the next-top-dog as such and not only that; have a product that's shiny and shines above the rest. That's what's lost in this world. Reinventing the wheel does exactly that.
I guess this comes as the consumer, a script kddie, seasoned SysAdmin, rookie programmer, who stands in the world and looks at all the next-top dogs but all holding the same rehashed shite, where once I've seen, experienced and witnessed different companies, developers, things where made different products with their own different wheels.
I'm just tired and depressed of the dystopian A or B because of.
I think your analogy is flawed.
If I sold, or even manufactured carts, I would not be eager to enter the enormous, competitive, highly commoditized, and mature wheel market. It sounds like a real battle to get production costs even on par with wholesale, lacking all the economies of scale, experience, and supply chain agreements the major manufacturers have.
Where many had the opportunity to take the risk, didn't. So now we live in the world where it's either A or B.
And I'm fed up to the point where my business, self-funded is re-inventing the wheel regardless of the risks.
Besides the point, innovation has been stifled because of no reinvention.
Yes, because the advice is meant to improve business survival, not societal innovation.
If optimizing for survival isn’t your primary goal, it just doesn’t apply to you. It’s still great advice.
The 100x-or-nothing game has different rules.