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Getting Out: When Your Core Product Is Trapped in Someone Else’s Software

Most companies don't set out to make a vendor part of their core product. It happens gradually. A platform solves an immediate problem, the business grows around it, and eventually changing the customer experience means working around someone else's roadmap.

  • Tuesday, November 10, 2026
  • 12:30–1:30 PM ET
  • Virtual · Live

Speakers

Save your seat

Reserve your spot for the live session.

What you'll get

  • The full one-hour session, live, with time for your questions.
  • The 2027 Build, Buy & Own Guide: a practical framework for deciding what software your business should build, buy, and own.
  • The complete session recording, sent to every registrant.
  • A calendar hold with your join link.

Can't join live? Register anyway: the recording and guide go to everyone who signs up.

Rangle is the engineering consultancy trusted by organizations like Nike, Hims & Hers, Sanofi, Google, Staples, and The North Face.

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The software that helped you grow can eventually become the software that keeps you from changing.

Getting out doesn't mean rebuilding everything. It starts with understanding where a vendor is constraining your differentiation, what capabilities you actually need, and where ownership creates meaningful business value.

Buying software is often the right decision. The problem begins when a vendor becomes deeply embedded in the part of your business that differentiates you, and you no longer have the freedom to change it. This session is about what to do when that dependency turns into vendor lock-in.

The economics of software development are changing. Businesses now have more options than accepting the limitations of SaaS or funding a massive custom software project. AI-assisted development makes certain forms of ownership significantly more viable, and modern infrastructure approaches give companies greater control over their applications, data and deployment. That doesn't make building the default answer. The question becomes what to buy, what to build, what to own, and where dependency has become a strategic constraint.

Nick Van Weerdenburg and Ben Hofferber will break down how to evaluate what you're really dependent on, what is worth owning, and how to build your way out without recreating everything from scratch.

Post-SaaS application architecture
  1. 01

    Applications + Agents

  2. 02

    Harnesses + Operating Layer

  3. 03

    Infrastructure

    Identity · Data · Workflows · Observability · Security

  4. 04

    Kubernetes

Each layer runs on the one beneath it.

What you'll learn

  • How to tell when a vendor has gone from enabling your business to constraining it
  • How to separate what you actually need from everything bundled into the platform
  • Where ownership matters most: the software behind your customer experience and differentiation
  • Why capabilities that were once too costly to build yourself are now realistic
  • How to plan a gradual way out instead of a risky rip-and-replace

This session is for you if…

  • You have a core product or customer experience constrained by a third-party platform.
  • You keep running into limitations, workarounds or vendor roadmap dependencies.
  • You've considered replacing part of your stack but aren't sure where to begin.
  • You want more control without unnecessarily rebuilding commodity software.