Why Hiring Is Exactly Like Buying a Computer

There's a fundamental split in how successful businesses approach hiring, and it maps perfectly to how people buy computers:

1. Do you go to the store and buy something that has everything installed and preconfigured? This is the BUY method. Hire someone who has the experience you need.
   

2. Do you get all the hardware, including a blank hard drive, and install the operating system and software you need? This is the BUILD method. Hire someone with little or no experience that you can train.

Both approaches work—but they optimize for completely different outcomes.

With the BUY Method, you hire experienced people who already have the insight, solutions, and expertise pre-loaded. This has clear advantages:

• Immediate productivity and impact

• Proven track record in similar situations

• Faster time to value

• Reduced training costs and time investment

• Opportunity to gain when you don’t know

It has a few disadvantages:

• Higher upfront cash for salary

• Risk of conflicts if their old ways don't fit your systems

With the BUILD Method, you hire for potential, character, and cultural fit, then develop the expertise you need. This some advantages:

• Perfect alignment with your specific processes and culture

• Higher loyalty, depending on the person (you invested in their development)

• Less cash output initially

It has distinct disadvantages:

• Replicating your own limited knowledge

• Longer time to productivity

• Higher training investment and ongoing development costs

• Risk that they leave after you've invested in their training

• Uncertainty about whether they'll successfully develop the needed expertise

How do you decide which path to go? You decide the same way you decide whether to BUILD or BUY your next computer.

You should BUILD if you:

• are willing to spend extra time and money on the hire

• have the expertise to put all the pieces together

• can’t get what you need from a retail location

You should BUY if you:

• can provide more value to the business elsewhere

• can get what you need from a retail solution

The problem I faced as a software engineer was this: I’d fall in love with tinkering with software, not in providing solutions to real business problems.

And this is the same challenge I find with purpose-driven entrepreneurs. Sometimes they hire or keep team members who don’t deserve to stay because it scratches the owner’s itch to help people—not because it’s actually beneficial to the business.

Yes, you should help people. However, you should set boundaries of how you do that in business. And you should do it very intentionally.

In 98% of situations, you should hire for TALENT NOW, not TALENT TOMORROW.

Whenever you possibly can, you should hire someone who knows more about their job than you. The only exceptions are when the labor market prohibits it—but even then, you should double-check your assumptions. You might be overlooking labor pools who have significant skills that you’re hiring for.

Remember this: You’re running a business not a school. There’s a reason that:

• education is subsidized by tax dollars

• school debt isn’t forgivable

• universities always need money

• wealthy people go to university to meet wealthy people

Education is expensive. Especially when information is abundant.

If you absolutely must do it, pay extra for an exceptional manager. You’re going to need it to make sure your team members actually end up being profitable.

P.S. A few additional notes:

• If you must have a nuanced view on this, you should evaluate the cash investment, cost (immediate and opportunity), return, and probability of success between BUILD vs. BUY. If you can demonstrably prove that BUILD is the better path for you, I want to hear.

• I know a situation where the BUILD decision cost the owner of a small business an easy $50,000/year in net profit.

• If you are an employee, you absolutely find a place where someone is willing to pay for your education. Learning on the job can be an exceptional academy.