To Build or Not to Build
Practical advice on deciding whether to add a feature to your product, based on experience as a Founder and Advisor building software-driven products.
For founders and technical leads at growth-stage companies: senior engineering judgement when the stakes are high and the path isn't clear.
Short-term lending, Nigeria
Pivoted a three-founder team from inventory lending into a regulated short-term lending business in Nigeria. Convinced them to buy mature platforms instead of building from scratch. Launched January 2026 after regulatory delays. Monthly sounding board calls continue.
Enterprise email processing, global banking
Founding engineer at a Techstars portfolio company. Built the platform processing 100,000+ transactional emails daily for global banking at 99.9% availability. Turnaround-time compliance went from 40% to 95%. Same-day close-out from 22% to 85%.
Strategic architecture consulting, India
Led serverless/MBaaS platform evaluation in 2015, years before it became mainstream. Architected an internal mobile platform enabling policyholders' families to request verified home care for elderly parents. Build-versus-buy at scale.
“Through a genuinely collaborative partnership with Vishal and the Inbotiqa team, we’ve been able to improve, refine and maximise YuDo’s potential. It’s supported our growth, enabled our teams and helped us deliver for our clients consistently. That longevity and value speak volumes about the people behind it. We’re genuinely grateful for the care, support and partnership you’ve shown us over such a long time.”
“Vishal helped us make the right build vs. buy decision under timeline pressure, set up our lending operations with professional SOPs, and continues to be our sounding board as we navigate the real market.”
“We had been looking into developing our tech and dev team. However, we needed advice on how to get started, who to hire, what kind of skills to target, and once we had a pipeline of candidates, how to evaluate their tech skills. Vishal was a phenomenal resource who guided us throughout the process, and then went above and beyond. He is one of the most knowledgeable technology resources that we have come across thus far and will definitely go back to him for further help.”
“Through a genuinely collaborative partnership with Vishal and the Inbotiqa team, we’ve been able to improve, refine and maximise YuDo’s potential. It’s supported our growth, enabled our teams and helped us deliver for our clients consistently. That longevity and value speak volumes about the people behind it. We’re genuinely grateful for the care, support and partnership you’ve shown us over such a long time.”
“Vishal helped us make the right build vs. buy decision under timeline pressure, set up our lending operations with professional SOPs, and continues to be our sounding board as we navigate the real market.”
“We had been looking into developing our tech and dev team. However, we needed advice on how to get started, who to hire, what kind of skills to target, and once we had a pipeline of candidates, how to evaluate their tech skills. Vishal was a phenomenal resource who guided us throughout the process, and then went above and beyond. He is one of the most knowledgeable technology resources that we have come across thus far and will definitely go back to him for further help.”
Practical advice on deciding whether to add a feature to your product, based on experience as a Founder and Advisor building software-driven products.
A set of guidelines for scaling deployment of Apache Solr and Zookeeper with consideration to high availability and disaster recovery.
A practical framework for making technology selection decisions, demonstrated through a real-world case study of choosing a mobile development platform.
Every project starts with a conversation. Let's talk about what you're building and how to get it across the line.