I would say at least 50% of the Founders I talk to have wasted a significant amount of time and money working with a low-quality software team or company.
Usually making this mistake once is enough to learn your lesson and be more diligent when trying to find a software partner.
Here are six tips to make sure you choose the right partner.
1. Have They Ever Build Successful Software of Their Own
This world is filled with plenty of Wantrepreneurs trying to offer services and make money off of those trying to build real products and businesses.
Ask them what they have built themselves. I’d feel a lot more comfortable working with a partner who has been through the struggle themselves and knows what it takes to build commercially viable software.
Its one thing to build a project in school, it’s another thing to build it for paying customers. Those who have built a real product of their own will understand that iterative process, communication, and clarity are pre-requisites for success.
Talk is cheap. Don’t work with a pretender.
Things will get hard at some point and platitudes won’t comfort you.
2. Ask About Their Knowledge of Customer Onboarding
This can be a great question to weed out Wantrepreneurs and pretenders.
If they are not familiar with the concepts of customer onboarding, activation and the purpose of user analytics at an early stage then don’t work with them.
Building and testing various onboarding and activation flows is as much an engineering question as a design one and you can’t afford to work with anyone whose understanding of this is “if we build it, they will come”.
3. Fixed Price Proposals are a Red Flag
If you talk with a software development company and they quickly make a fixed price proposal, you should be very weary.
I’ve never seen a startup software project that doesn’t have a million scope changes (ok, maybe a million is an exaggeration) and lots of little tweaks along the way.
This makes estimating costs very difficult and aligns incentives of the Founder and software company against each other. This format is simply not healthy for a long term partnership or success.
It signals that the software company is more focused on selling you a bill of goods because of its superficial appeal. This can work for a more mature company with a very finite and clear scope of work, but as a startup its a bad idea because of all the unknowns.
4. Say No to Proxy Product Managers
If their method of working involves a proxy product manager who sits in between you and direct communication with the lead developer and software team, this is a red flag.
This is often coupled with getting product updates on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. You should insist on working directly with the developers, acting as the product manager and communicating DAILY.
If you want to build a software product, you should be willing to invest in becoming a proficient product manager (or someone on your core team should).
5. Use Your Own Designer for UI/UX
It’s like building a house. Even if you have the best carpenters in the world, but the architect and designer create an ugly exterior and floor plan, no one will ever get to see the great craftsmanship because no one will want to go in the house.
Great UI/UX requires proximity, empathy, and understanding of the end user. While there are great software developers all over the world, they may not understand the specific context of the problems facing your neighbor. That part is on you.
6. See Examples of Their Work
This should be obvious. Do it. Don’t just buy into a low-cost proposal. It will end up costing you more in the long run.
There are a growing number of great software development companies in the world today. If you adhere to the steps above, you should be able to avoid the bad ones and build the COMPANY (not just the product) that you want.