Entrepreneurs: Stop Relying on Development Agencies to Build YOUR Startup!
Want to start a new project or app? Good, you’re not alone and sometimes your enthusiasm can kill you. Before starting the technical work on your idea (the product) you should consider answering these few questions:
– Are you passionate by what you’re getting into?
If you don’t like it enough, you’re going to give up faster than you think. The journey must be as appealing as the final goals.
– Do you have a competitive advantage in the industry you’re getting into?
It can be well established personal brand, engaged community you brought value to, rich network, or exceptional skills. Basically anything that can help you to be faster than the rest of the industry in reaching your goals.
– How would you execute if you had no money? Having the choice is not always good. When you don’t have the choice, you force things to happen, you tune yourself to the serendipity frequency. Spending the cash without considering any other option is the opposite. Solutions will reveal along your way, but you close a lot of doors by choosing the most direct a predictable way which is also the most crowded way.
Now my advice is to go out there and look for creative ways to execute your idea. The most direct way is often the less effective. I know you saved money to launch your startup and your enthusiasm makes you want to rush. But be a creative thinker and execute like no one else has ever done before. You don’t have a technical team of technical co-founder? Spread the word, network, and go convince someone to join you. It will be the first validation, and that will help you believe even more in your project. Getting new people on board, interested in having shares of your company and in being co-founders will reward your efforts and validate your vision. It will also allow you to take confidence in yourself and in your ability to inspire others to join you in your journey.
Development agencies will make it too expensive for you to do the iterations you need to find your positioning and product market fit. Why being a startup if you have the inertia of a large corporation? You need to be able to take risk, execute faster and iterate often to succeed, or you’ll burn your cash and you’ll cut your legs too early. It’s the same for design and branding, it’s the same for everything. Find innovative and creative ways to execute, stay in control, iterate and build up the expertise internally. It’s always better to use your time and your skills internally than your cash externally. Part of what you’re paying to an agency goes to the learning their team needs to develop your product. It’s like investing into other businesses brand equity.
Looking to raise money?
If you appear alone or with limited ability to execute fast, you will not be appealing to investors. They mostly invest on people more than ideas or products as they know the market is unpredictable and only a team with great execution skills is able to overcome these types of difficulties. Also, they will be scared to put money in a product-business if all the expertise is not internal.
Looking to get acquired at some point?
Keep in mind that big businesses looking to acquire products are mostly looking to acquire the team, the expertise and the intellectual property. It makes it even harder to sell your business if you don’t have any real technical expertise to bring to the table. Potential acquirers won’t accept to rely on a 3rd party.
Situations where an agency will burn your cash and kill your dream:
– Your business relies 100% on the technical part you’re outsourcing, the product.
– You’re at the idea stage and are too enthusiast, you don’t consider more creative options.
– You did not find any other alternatives to get your idea executed but are still too obsessed to be patient.
– You want to raise money.
– You want to have full control over your technology.
Situations where an agency MIGHT be able to help you:
– You have built a powerful community or group and you know what they want or need. You’re building a custom product for their needs.
– You are a business with substantial amount of cash to spend into a product (software or app), know exactly what you want and don’t want to hire and pay internal ressources to help you.
– Your startup idea needs a website or simple app to support the core business, but does not rely 100% on the technical aspect.
– You have another leverage that will allow you to get market shares quickly as long as you have a product to support your actions (big network in a specific industry, notoriety, etc.)
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