Minimizing dependencies is probably close to the #1 thing you can do to improve the survivability of your product and business. In a prior role, I was responsi

Minimizing dependencies is probably close to the #1 thing you can do to improve the survivability of your product and business. In a prior role, I was responsible for figuring out the best way to deliver a docusign-style experience that integrated with our product. After having conversations with two of the biggest vendors (DocuSign/Adobe), we decided the constraints of their APIs were causing too much friction with how our product/customer wanted things to work. We went with a fully in-house solution. In most situations, trying to reinvent something like DocuSign is a terrible idea. In this case especially so since often you are using it simply because it is trusted (not because it is technically superior). In our case, the product was already installed and deeply trusted by the customers. They would have gone along with DocuSign, but they also had no problem with us doing it first-party. Ultimately, it was a lot of up front work to get this implemented, but the customer absolutely loves it. We had to make some minor tweaks to how it functioned and that really highlighted why this was a good path. If we had gone with DocuSign, Adobe, et. al., that minor tweak would have turned into a major refactor and hack around shitshow.