As I sit down to write this month’s CEO letter to you, I am basking in the glow of our very successful user conference, REBA Insights, held April 13-15 at The Hythe in beautiful Vail, Colorado.
One of the highlights (I think) for attendees each year is our (no longer such a) surprise afternoon treat of my very own homemade cheesecake. At the dine around small group I hosted, the casual conversation turned to how many cakes I had to bake and various other comments I may receive about the cheesecake...it really is good even if I say so myself 😊
I told the story of how last year, someone asked me what my secret was for the graham cracker crust since they particularly loved that. I told them it was simply one word…paused for effect while they were surely waiting for some answer like “extra butter” or “love”…and then I told them, “Keebler.”
Anyone who has ever tried making a pie crust from scratch knows it’s really hard work and often doesn’t come out so well. So why would I put in a bunch of extra effort to make my own crust when it’s so easy to just purchase the pre-made Keebler crusts?
Bill Kiesel, who heads up revenue management for MAA, was sitting next to me, and he immediately exclaimed, “well that’s exactly the message you’ve had for us this entire conference!” A bit puzzled, I asked him to explain as I wasn’t quite connecting the dots.
He said, “You bought the foundation, and you built your advantage on top of it.” I quickly told him I was going to use that in my closing presentation the next day.
That’s the thesis. And it is the most important thing we communicated at REBA Insights this year.
For those who weren’t able to join us: the old “buy vs. build” debate is over. It’s been replaced by something better—the opportunity to buy and build in ways that simply weren’t possible before. Buy the foundation. Build your advantage.
REBA is that foundation. Every property’s data— cleansed, governed and structured across 1,600+ metrics and 1,600+ dimensions— sits in a semantic model your team doesn’t have to build. Gartner, McKinsey and Harvard Business Review all point to data cleansing and governance as the unglamorous work that separates successful AI initiatives from failed ones. We’ve done that work. With the move to Microsoft Fabric in REBA 4.0, that foundation is now open—ready for your team to build next to, and on top of, it.
What does “building your advantage” look like in practice? Custom dashboards tailored to how your team actually thinks. DIY AI agents that automate decisions specific to your portfolio. Analytical workflows no off-the-shelf product will ever build for you—because they’re yours. Tools like Claude Code make this more accessible than ever, even for teams without deep technical resources.
There’s no more reason to replicate REBA’s data foundation than there was for me to make my own graham cracker crust. I bought Keebler’s foundation and built my advantage in the cheesecake itself. You buy REBA’s foundation and build your advantage in how your team uses it.
If you’re curious what it looks like for your team to start building on the REBA foundation, let’s set up a working session. We’d love to show you what’s possible.