Advantages Of Outsourcing Startup Development

What is the difference between a startup and a «normal website»? A normal website always has clear functionality. For instance, an online store has to make it possible for a user to search and to order goods. There always has to be a catalogue of goods and an order cart. Of course all those things can be designed in many different ways — but the task remains the same. Both the client and the developer have the same understanding of the project.

A startup is a completely different thing. There are several main differences between a startup and a normal website:

– A startup continuously changes in the process of its development. And these changes can affect the very essence of the project.

– There are no «ready-made» decisions for a startup. If an online store can be set up in a day on a cloud platform, even if you don’t have any idea about web development at all, in order to create a startup you need flexibility, which you can acquire only by programming «by hand». Startup developers need to be not just highly qualified — they need to be flexible thinkers who can create their own solutions, instead of using ready-made ones. Just because there aren’t any ready-made solutions yet.

– A startup is a fully fledged project. If an online store or a corporate website serve only as a tool (and often one of many) to perform a company’s main function, a startup IS a company. It demands constant attention. It has to be developed and worked on just like you work on any other project offline.

Who will Develop the Startup?

Let us imagine a situation when everything worked out, and the startup raised investments. The investor has to make a decision: either to work with the existing startup team, or to outsource the development to a professional studio.

Development of the Startup by the Inhouse Team

This is the most popular option today. But in fact the competence of the project founders most probably won’t be enough. And even if it is sufficient, how much time will it take? Besides, the founders might have a deep understanding of a certain aspect of the project, but be incompetent when it comes to some other aspect. For instance, they can develop a website, but not the iOS app. Hiring an inhouse team of developers might be a good solution.

Outsourcing Startup Development

Outsourcing the development of an online project has several obvious advantages for the investor:

– No need to recruit employees. They are already established as a team and have everything they need.

– No need to take care of the technical side — every professional studio already has certain accomplishments and experience when it comes to various frameworks and can choose the most appropriate implementation option for each particular project.

– The development team already has a leader who the investors can communicate with in a language they understand, and that person will be able to set appropriate tasks for the developers, because s/he has the necessary experience.

– The members of the teams have already worked together for a certain period of time, and they won’t need to spend time on getting used to each other and resolving employment issues while the team is being formed.

– You only pay for the result, not the number of hours spent. So these are not continuous expenses, but variables which depend on the volume of work. The investor pays only for the work done, not for the presence of the employee at the office.

– Practice shows that even the development of a very complicated project seldom turns out to be more expensive than 10-20 thousand USD. Therefore, when investors outsource their projects to professional studios, they win both in terms on time (because the work starts immediately) and in terms of money.

LEZGRO pushes web based or tech related startups away from the ideology of their dot-com era predecessors in order to achieve cost-effective production by building a minimal product and gauging customer feedback.