In which I finally get over the battle scars of using They-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named
The thing about trying to start your first company, the-most-difficult thing, that horribly-elusive-always-screw-up thing, the we-will-most-certainly-lose-money-on-this-thing thing, is finding the right people and the right service companies for your needs. God, did I screw up there.
We wanted to build an social, community oriented business right? It only really worked on smartphones right? Which means that if we set the “front end” i.e. an App for people to access the community aspect, then it really would be easy right? Hokay then, I’m Indian, India is the IT development capital of the world, I’ll just ask some mates who to use to build the App, build the App and we’ll be on our way. Simples.
Remember 15 years back when all of us just had that book in us and we’d write it if only we had the time. Well, these days everybody has an idea for an App and really, if only we had the time we’d get it done, sell it and make millions. Safe to say, I never believed that nonsense. Building a business is hard and I literally wanted the App because it’s a component (crucial component) of what I believe can be something great vis. a vis. a wider business. But… I knew folk who did think like that vis. Apps and technology and had thrown vast amounts of money at their vanity projects. So I called up a buddy who’d finally written his boo.. I mean built his App, asked him who he had used to build his App, asked him if they were alright (“sure they are, fantastic”), did a bit of background checking (“massive organisation, just awesome”), got some reviews (“they’re great”), called the dudes, spoke to the sales head, got a project manager allocated to me and hey ho, here we go.
Well, as it transpires I may be of Indian origin, but really I’m apparently not Indian enough to see through bulls***, India ain’t the IT development capital of the world, my mates didn’t know much about much (apart from spending copious amounts of money on vanity projects which never reeeeeaaally needed to work because it’s just money eh? Note to self — don’t take advice from people vis. a vis. which services to use if those people are in a different tax bracket altogether), the recommended company was not in fact, fantastic, awesome or great. There’s a lot more I could say — make sure you don’t outsource to a firm in a city prone to communal violence (“we can’t come to work this week Sir, the Hindu’s and Muslim’s are fighting”), or a city prone to cast violence (“we can’t come to work this week Sir, the upper class Patel’s are revolting because they haven’t got any quotas”), or a city which is just such a hick town that there is just no design aesthetic or any concept of finesse (“the product is fine Sir, only a few spelling mistakes, nobody will care”). Make sure you don’t engage with an IT firm who has a slick sales department (the product shouldn’t need nobody to speak for it see!), an IT firm whose employees don’t stalk you on social media and constantly call to ask for references before a job is done or an IT firm where the reviews on various “third-party” websites all have the same suspiciously bad grammar as though they were all written by the same dude logging in under different profiles…waitaminnit!
A bit too much money, stress and time later, this is what we had. Contrary to what you may think, that’s not a piece of poo. It was the original App. Or maybe, it was a piece of poo. I’m getting very confused. It was all a long time ago and lots of therapy has made sure that I’ve successfully buried most of those terrible memories.
Finally, it took Anshuman quitting his job, searching for another proper IT firm and actually moving to India for 7 months before we got back on track. Talk about a few steps back!
However, we’re almost there people. The new product/team hasn’t been without its fair share of issues (which IT project isn’t), but the team is generally good and the other stories will have to wait…
