How to Find an Application Development Company for Your Startup Idea

You have a fantastic idea that you feel can be the next unicorn. However, you don’t have development expertise or a technical cofounder. You need to hire an external software development company but don’t know where to begin? Don’t worry, this article will help you go about finding a dedicated team of professionals to implement your ideas and bring your vision to life.

It can rather be difficult to find an application development company that understands your concept and gives it shape. That is why it is advisable to always look for a reliable partner in the group of people (company) you’re aiming to hire for your venture.  

First and foremost, it is also very important to trust the development company. It is obvious for you to lay a plan and structure for them but it is also extremely important to give them their creative space and an environment that allows them to experiment for the best extraordinary outcomes. 

Now the question arises on how to find such a team. Following is a checklist to keep in mind while selecting an application development company:

What do you Need From the Application Development Company?

This question might easily be to answer at first but honestly, this is where the real work lies. You need to identify what the real purpose of your brand is and then start looking for companies who have an experienced hand at it. Different companies specialize in different sectors and you need to find the one that fits yours. 

These are three fundamental questions you need to ask yourself before investing –

1. Who is your target audience?
2. What problems are you solving with your startup?
3. Is there a requirement or need for your product in the market?

About the application :

1. What should be the major or core functions of your application?
2. What should be the layout and design?
3. What is the approximate amount of money you can spend on it?
4. Which feature of your product gives you a competitive advantage and should be highlighted?

Where to Look for the Right People?

Now you can narrow down the best available options. To save time go through some directories and aggregators where detailed information about development companies is provided. Some of them are:

1. Upwork
2. Clutch
3. Appfutura
4. Extract.co
5. Goodfirms

Different filters like location, rates, technology stack, rating, etc can be used to simplify your search and find refined results.

Evaluate the company

The next step requires you to estimate the company’s accuracy, work, knowledge and field of proficiency. It can be a difficult task if you yourself aren’t a techie. You can simply go through their website and make some quality judgments by examining it. Is the website well-designed? Easy to use? Is it smooth? Does it look to highlight their key features? A website tells a lot about one’s business, about their efficiency and seriousness towards their business. An application development company must have both, a visually and technically great website to speak for their good work and reputation. 

Here are some key aspects to look for while choosing an application development company to outsource your development:

Technology Stack

Check what web programming languages and frameworks the company uses. If a particular company is really good in web development, you will surely find in its skill set at least several from these languages & frameworks.

Web Development Languages

Java, Python, JavaScript, CSS/HTML, PHP, Ruby, C, C++, SQL

Web Development Framework

Angular, React, Ruby on Rails, Laravel, Angular, Vue.js, Ember, Node.js

Team

Check if the company has different IT experts on board: back-end developers, front-end developers, mobile app developers, designers, QA testers, project managers, business architects, marketers, etc. It’s very important if you don’t want to find out (at the most inopportune moment, as usual) that external suppliers are needed for the project implementation.

Services Offering

To avoid any hassle and surprises in the future, find out if the application development company can provide you with key aspects of application development for your idea. 

• Web Application Development – Does the company offer a service to develop B2B applications or B2C applications? The expertise needed for each type is different and this must match what your startup is about.
• Mobile Development – Do you need robust expertise in developing a mobile (or tablet) app? Does the company have the ability to develop on both IOS as well as Android?
• Cloud Development / Infrastructure – Does the company have experience in building scalable cloud solutions? Are they able to develop on the most popular clouds like AWS, Azure or GCP?
• Post-Production Support – The company must provide you with code support post product launch or must have a way to train your developers once they hand over code to you.

The Development Process

You can never have certainty in your business. A lot of things can go out of hand. A startup is indirectly and directly connected with financial insecurity, constant change, failures and improvements. You need to make sure that the application development company provides you with agile and strong business methodologies to combat any type of uncertain situation. 

Pay attention to companies that use one or a combination of the below-listed methodologies-

1. Lean
2. Scrum
3. Kanban
4. Crystal
5. DSDM
6. Extreme Programming
7. XDD

Reliability

A reliable company must provide you with –

1. Secure Data Storage
2. Non-Disclosure Agreement
3. Client Agreement
4. Personal access to data about other employees who have access to your data for business purposes.

Pricing

Pricing is another very crucial point to be kept in mind while signing up with the company. To avoid future problems keep knowledge of the pricing model used by the company.

The pricing model determines how much, when and how much the supplier has to be paid for its IT services. Different models are –

• Fixed price, fixed scope
• FFF – Fixed time, Fix budget, Flex-scope
• Dedicated Team
• Milestone based model
• Hourly Billing

Company Blog

If the web application development company has its own blog, it’s a good sign for you as a client. The presence of expert articles on a company’s website demonstrates not only the level of its expertise in the technological field but also its desire to learn about the latest technology trends and share knowledge with the broader community.

Conclusion

It is definitely not easy to find an application development company but it is not impossible too. With a little bit of diligence and effort, you can totally find one that scores 100/100 on your checklist. We hope this article helped you find a great application development company for your business. We would love to hear your feedback in the comments sections below.