When I founded my first startup 3 years ago and wanted to build a mobile app, I was confused by the huge difference in price quoted by various IT Vendors.
With such a huge collection of well-designed apps in the marketplace, users are spoilt for choice. If your app quality is just a bit lower, users have no reason to keep yours on their phones.
Having quality mobile apps is important. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if a particular vendor can deliver that.
The worst thing you can do is throw them a list of features you want and ask if they can deliver. Every vendor who are desperate for sales will tell agree to your requirements and launch schedule. It is extremely hard to determine if the vendor can produce the special “x” factor that makes or breaks your app, and by extension, your startup!
You are also not helped by the fact that there are all kinds of unscrupulous vendors out there: vendors who use interns to develop your app at the expense of future upgrades and scalability, vendors whose only local headcounts consist of Sales and Project Managers and all the development work are outsourced to countries like India, among others.
Fortunately, I’m technically trained, and I know the telltale signs when vendors are trying to pull a fast one on me. I was able to engage the right vendor then, but not all startup founders are so lucky.
Thought I would like to share the 8 most important signs to look out for when engaging a vendor:
1) Always check their past portfolio. Don’t take “our portfolio is not online yet” for an excuse.
2) If the vendor is small or young, are the founding partners technical?
3) Are the development work done locally are offshored? Is there are strong technical team behind this vendor to deliver the project?
4) What are the portfolios of the Project Managers and Technical Lead behind your project?
5) Are they building native or “HTML5” mobile apps?
6) Is there a solid UX/UI Designer placed on your project?
7) Ask for contact of their past clients. Check if the vendor is habitual in missing deadlines and breaking promises.
8) Do you have to work through many layers between you and the development team? E.g. You -> Account Manager -> Project Manager -> Technical Lead -> Developers. This will impact how fast you can make changes and updates to your mobile apps.
That said, I after my previous company failed, I decided to start my own Mobile App Development House that brings our clients the best possible value.
Let’s cut out the middle man. No more Consultants, Sales and Project Managers who don’t know what they are talking about.
Imagine working with a company where their entire team, including Consultants, Project Managers and Designers, also have at least a year of programming experience.
No more fluff and bullshit from your vendor just because they want to close a sales.
This is Originally.US.
Originally US Singapore – No Bullshit Mobile App Development
http://www.originally.us
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