Hello r/startups community!
I’m currently exploring the decision-making process that founders go through when selecting a development shop for their software projects. As someone involved in the software development industry, understanding your perspectives and criteria is invaluable to me and, I believe, to others in our community.
If you’re a founder who has faced this decision, I’d love to hear from you:
Expertise and Specialization: What specific skills or areas of expertise do you look for in a dev shop? Does specialization in a particular field or technology stack influence your decision?
Portfolio and Past Work: How much does a dev shop’s previous work and the success of their past projects weigh into your decision?
Cost vs. Quality: How do you balance the cost of development with the quality of the output? What’s your strategy for finding the best value?
Communication and Collaboration: How important is the ease of communication and the ability to collaborate with the dev shop? Do you prefer local teams, or are you comfortable working with remote shops?
Recommendations and Referrals: Do personal recommendations or referrals play a significant role in your choice?
Support and Maintenance: How do you evaluate a dev shop’s capability for ongoing support and maintenance post-development?
Any Red Flags: Are there specific red flags or deal-breakers you look out for?
Your insights would not only help me but also provide valuable information for other founders and development shops in this subreddit. Feel free to share your experiences, thoughts, and any advice you have on this topic.
Thanks in advance for your contributions!

  • maga_ot_oz@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    From the PoV of someone who runs an offshore dev shop- people tend to overlook communication. I’d say 90% of the technical challenges/results can be sorted out by this. Also another thing is that the person who you’re talking to from the dev shop understands your vision and can communicate it well so the devs under their management bring it to life. These are the qualities that make it or break it in my opinion. Dev talent can be found anywhere otherwise.

  • cameralover1@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Is your product software? Shouldn’t you be building a team that can improve your mvp once launched? Your product as soon as it hits the market will need improvements etc. The answer is you don’t, you build a tech team.

  • Comfortable-Visual-5@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I would recommend you to first think about it in a crystal clear manner and write down bullet points on a rough paper. Once you have that piece of paper, hire someone whose technical and writes documentation. He would write the tech stack, features and the feasibility of these features in the document and on top of that, he would guide you about the costing, hours for the project and provide you a 30-40 page document with each and everything written in a formal manner.

    Once you have the document, you take estimates from a small team or someone else and then start off the project with the document involved in the contract.

    Having a consultant by your side can save you a lot of time, extra hours billing, technicalities and you would always have someone who would be independent/third party who could save you! It’s the best way for ppl not to get robbed because some ppl exploit a lot and are always on the look around to charge way too many hours because the other person lacks tech knowledge.

    I found this technique quite useful and I came across this from one of my client who asked me if I could provide consultancy for his idea in the form of documentation which could serve as a guide as well as a contract for the shop, so we collaborated and I ended up writing the doc.

  • BouRock@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Referances and past projects are the only thing to decide correctly, all other just gibberish