Here's a common scenario: A business knows it needs a new system—could be inventory management, customer support, back-office operations, whatever. They have two options: build it themselves or outsource it.
Building it themselves is risky. They don't have the expertise, they'll make expensive mistakes, and it'll take forever. So they outsource.
But outsourcing has its own problems. The vendor doesn't really understand the business. The handoffs are messy. The business becomes dependent on someone else for a critical function. And when things go wrong, nobody's accountable.
There's a third option that solves most of these problems: Build-Operate-Transfer.
How BOT works
The model is simple:
- Build: We design and build the system together. We bring the technical and operational expertise. You bring the domain knowledge.
- Operate: We run the system until it's stable and the kinks are worked out. This is the part most people skip, and it's the most important.
- Transfer: Once it's working smoothly, we hand it over. You own it. We train your team, document everything, and step back.
The key insight is that operations phase. Most projects fail not because they're built wrong, but because nobody stuck around to fix the inevitable problems that emerge in real-world use.
Why it works better than traditional outsourcing
Aligned incentives. In traditional outsourcing, the vendor makes money by keeping you dependent. In BOT, we make money by successfully transferring a working system. We want you to not need us anymore.
Real-world testing. The operate phase means the system gets tested in production before you take ownership. You're not inheriting someone else's untested ideas—you're inheriting something proven.
Knowledge transfer is built in. The handover isn't an afterthought. It's the entire point. Everything we build, we build with documentation. Everything we run, we run with your team watching.
Risk is front-loaded. The expensive mistakes happen on our watch, not yours. By the time you take over, the hard problems are solved.
When BOT makes sense
BOT isn't right for everything. It makes sense when:
- You need a system but don't have the expertise to build it right
- The operation is too important to get wrong the first time
- You eventually want to own and control the function
- You're willing to invest upfront for long-term independence
It doesn't make sense when you need something fast and cheap, or when the function is genuinely commoditized and external ownership is fine.
What we've learned
We've done BOT engagements across different types of operations. A few patterns:
The operate phase always takes longer than expected. Budget for 1.5x whatever you initially think. Real-world operations surface problems that nobody anticipated.
Documentation is non-negotiable. If it's not documented, it's not transferable. We write everything down, even when it feels tedious, because the alternative is critical knowledge walking out the door.
The transfer is a process, not an event. You don't flip a switch and hand over. It's a gradual shift of responsibility over weeks or months, with plenty of overlap.
Success means we're not needed. The goal is a system that runs without us. If you're still calling us six months after transfer, something went wrong.
The bottom line
BOT works because it acknowledges a basic truth: building something and running something are different skills. Most projects fail in the gap between the two.
By explicitly bridging that gap—building, then operating until it works, then transferring—you get a system that's actually ready for real-world use. Not a prototype. Not a plan. A working operation.
It's more expensive upfront than just building something and hoping for the best. But it's far cheaper than building something wrong and having to fix it later—or worse, living with a broken system forever.