It’s time to go shopping. No, it isn’t groceries or school supplies this time; you need the right developer for your precious software program. Your first instinct might be to load up a ton of potential developers from a Google search and start firing off a static email to them.
This sounds efficient enough, but what do you do then? How do you know if they have the abilities you require? What are the responses that would clue you in to someone being the right fit? Watch this video to gain a perspective from the developer’s point of view, so you can be armed with a better approach to making the right team connection.
Working with the IT industry
The better the requirements, the better the price that you’ll get
The activities we did upfront, you generally get better pricing when you give people requirements because you’re putting in less risk margin.
Don’t send blind emails
Do not send out an email to twenty software development companies with a request for a quote. You will be shocked how bad the response will be. Instead have a look at their website and ring a bunch of them up. Go and see three or four of them and find people.
If I get a blind email, I have no idea how many people it went to. Your motivation to respond is typically pretty low. You want to talk to someone and you’ll get a better response.
Pick your provider based on their focus
Alliance Software has twenty staff of which over half are engineers. Clearly we’re a software engineering firm. There are firms that I know of that will say they do software development but when you look at it, they might have fifteen graphic designers. They’re clearly going to be good at graphic design because they’ve got a lot of graphic designers. You want to pick firms that have the primary focus of what you’re using them for.
Be pragmatic. Refine over time
I think this is one where people get stuck. The beauty of custom software is we can evolve. We want to get incremental things out and are prepared to work up over time.
Early price guesses
I like giving people early guesses to prices on projects as long as they don’t hold me to them. I say that quite seriously. You’ll often have a conversation and after two hours they’ll say, what do you think it costs? I’ll say, somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000. That’s a really good number to get because if they have in their mind that I’m probably going to spend $150,000 on this thing, we’re fine. If they had in their mind that they were going to spend $15,000, we’ve got a problem. So the early guess is good, but it’s a guess. It takes time to pull things apart and get numbers.
Custom software needs upkeep
You’re going to pay for some custom software upkeep. The reason you’re going to pay is not that the industry is trying to gouge you, but things change. What worked with a small set of data might have challenges with large sets of data. Browsers change, server operating systems change, the industry moves, then there will be a degree of maintenance in what you do. Read More…
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