Automating Business Flows: Build, Buy, or Orchestrate

Every startup hits the same crossroads: a business process needs automation, and the team debates whether to code it, buy a SaaS tool, or wire something together. The wrong choice costs months. Companies that ship fast make this call deliberately-not by default.

Build It (Custom Code)

Write custom code when the logic is your competitive edge. Think: custom pricing engines, proprietary matching algorithms, workflows tied to strict compliance. SaaS won't bend to your rules here.

What "build" actually means:

• Typed domain models and API contracts
• Idempotent handlers-so retries don't corrupt state
• Domain events for audit trails and downstream triggers
• Tests that catch regressions before users do

Companies often underestimate this path. "We'll just add a few if-statements" turns into spaghetti when edge cases pile up. If you build, build properly-or you'll rebuild later.

Buy It (SaaS)

For commodity tasks, SaaS wins: payments, email delivery, authentication, file storage. These companies have teams dedicated to problems you shouldn't solve twice.

The trap: tight coupling. Startups hardcode vendor-specific code everywhere, then spend weeks migrating when pricing changes. The fix is simple-wrap third-party calls behind an adapter. One interface, swappable implementation. Takes an hour upfront, saves days later.

Before signing up, check: API rate limits, webhook reliability, data export options, and what happens when you outgrow the free tier.

Orchestrate It (Workflow Engines)

Multi-step processes with human approvals, external API calls, and retry logic? That's orchestration territory. Workflow engines turn implicit flows into explicit, observable state machines.

Why this matters:

• Debugging: see exactly where a flow failed and why
• Resilience: built-in retries, timeouts, and compensations
• Visibility: product managers track orders without asking engineers

Companies often skip this and hack together cron jobs plus database flags. It works-until the first outage reveals no one knows the system state.

The Non-Negotiables

Regardless of path, every automated flow needs:

• Structured logs with correlation IDs
• Metrics and alerts on stuck or slow work
• Runbooks: when to retry, when to escalate, when to rollback
• Clear data ownership-who's the source of truth?

The Real Decision

The framework isn't about technology preference. It's about asking: where does this process sit on the spectrum from "everyone does this" to "this is our secret sauce"?

Commodity → buy. Differentiator → build. Complex coordination → orchestrate.

Get this wrong, and you're either reinventing wheels or locked into tools that don't fit. Get it right, and you ship faster than competitors who are still debating.