Building vs. Partnering: What Dexai Robotics Would Do Differently in Their Tech Stack Journey
The build versus buy decision haunts every technical founder. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, David Johnson shared a candid reflection on Dexai Robotics’ choice to build most of their technology in-house, offering valuable insights for founders facing similar decisions.
The Initial Approach
Like many technical founders, Dexai initially leaned heavily toward building in-house. With a background in physics and robotics, David brought deep technical expertise to the venture. As he explained, they were building “really a solution that was able to prepare meals for people using the same ingredients and the same utensils that they already know and loves.”
The Costly Reality of Building Everything
However, experience revealed the true cost of this approach. “One of the things I think we would do differently is do more partnerships and build less of our technology in house,” David reflected. “So we’ve built a lot of stuff ourselves, which has given us an incredible note, but it also is very expensive.”
The Service Challenge
The implications of building everything in-house became particularly apparent in their service model. “Currently, like, yes, if we have a failure, we do have to send one of our own technicians,” David explained. This approach created scaling challenges that they’re now working to address: “We are working to expand that so that we can use local technicians and even use the customer themselves.”
Balancing Control with Scale
The challenge wasn’t just about initial development – it extended to ongoing operations. As David described their scaling challenges: “Scaling production, because it’s a hybrid hardware software solution, involves not only effort on the operational side. So how do we ship and install many more units than we do today? How do we actually produce those units in order to be able to ship and install them? And then how do we manage this fleet of smart devices installed at our customer sites as we add more and more units to it?”
The Infrastructure Burden
Building everything in-house also meant managing all the supporting infrastructure. “Operationally, things like getting reliable Internet at your customer site, making sure that your customer knows how to handle a smart appliance and is able to use it, interfacing with IT departments, all of these things are challenging,” David noted.
The Evolution Toward Partnerships
Their experience has led to a more balanced approach to building versus partnering. This is particularly evident in their service strategy, where they’re “changing the system such that there are many more items which are replaceable by either the customer’s services department or even a skilled owner operator would be able to handle it.”
Key Lessons for Technical Founders
Dexai’s journey offers several crucial insights for founders making build versus partner decisions:
- Building in-house requires ongoing maintenance and support resources
- The true cost includes not just development but operations and service
- Infrastructure management can become a significant burden
- Partnerships can accelerate scaling while reducing operational complexity
- Customer self-service capabilities should be designed from the start
Looking Forward
The future of hardware startups may lie in finding the right balance between proprietary technology and strategic partnerships. As David emphasized, their focus is on “trying to pare down the tool to the minimum in order to make it be the most useful and nothing more.”
For technical founders, the message is clear: while building in-house can provide control and differentiation, it also creates operational complexity that can hinder scaling. The key is identifying which components truly need to be built in-house and where partnerships can accelerate growth without compromising core value propositions.
This lesson is particularly relevant as hardware startups face increasing pressure to scale efficiently. As David’s experience shows, sometimes the best path to innovation isn’t building everything yourself, but rather focusing your resources on the elements that truly differentiate your product while leveraging partnerships for the rest.