How to Choose a Software Development Company
Choosing a software development company is not that easy even though their number is growing every year. That’s the paradox: the more options we have, the more difficult it’s to make the right choice. This is precisely known to those who have already been burned and faced with badly-written code, lack of documentation, poor English level, lack of experience of the development team, and complex development process. How to avoid this situation and choose the right software development partner? How not to waste time and money? Follow this simple algorithm and pay attention to important indicators at each stage.
So, let’s imagine you have a great tech idea and you decided to find an excellent outsourcing development team to bring it to life. Where to start? Most people will google, and this is not entirely wrong. You can find a good software development company on the Internet. The main thing is to know where to look. Let’s figure it out!
Where to Look for a Software Development Partner
At the request of “software development services” or “software development company” Google will produce hundreds of results. There you will find companies’ websites, various ratings, and special catalogs with examples of projects and reviews. You can simply sort out the links and bookmark the sites you like, but it’s much easier and more effective to immediately go to credible sites and search there. Among such resources:
- Clutch. This resource provides ratings and reviews of IT and business services companies. Customers leave feedback in person. Usually, reviews are very detailed and contain a lot of interesting information.
- Upwork. Despite the fact that the site specializes in freelancers and independent experts, here you can find IT companies that provide outsourcing services. It’s much more convenient to hire a ready-made team than to assemble it from individual specialists.
- GoodFirms. This is one of the most trusted B2B research platforms. You can search for a company by service, and software categories. The site also provides ratings and customer reviews.
- CrunchBase. This is a business information platform for private and public companies. Crunchbase information includes a lot of data. Some tools even help you research analytics of market trends, industries, people, companies, and investors.
- LinkedIn. Are you surprised? LinkedIn is a great place to find a development company. Use search navigation to find companies by region, specialization, and technology.
- Quora. This is a popular question and answer service. According to Quora's research, technology is the most followed topic on Quora with 36.2 million followers. You can register, ask your question, and dozens of company representatives will accurately track it and offer you their services.
As you can see, finding a company is not difficult, it’s much harder to understand what selection criteria you should pay attention to. We will consider the main indicators, but remember that you need to choose the ones that are most important for you. Comfort in working with the company should come first.
Read our new article 7 Reasons Why Outsourcing Software Development
Key Criteria for Choosing Software Development Company
You can start with what is most important for you. For example, if you know that you need to create a product with blockchain, put this criterion first, and select companies according to their specialization. If you are not very tech-savvy, try searching the Internet for similar examples of projects in advance to understand which development team you need.
Many choose companies based on regional characteristics. It’s well known that developers in America and Western Europe are much more expensive than others. Therefore, specialists from Eastern Europe, who are not inferior in their professionalism to their Western colleagues, are in great demand. According to the Skill Value report, based on +550 technical assessments, the top 5 countries with the best developers of the world includes specialists from Slovakia, Mexico, Poland, Hungary, and Ukraine. These countries win regarding price and quality.
After that, go to company sites and study them. Good companies will provide you with all the necessary information for analysis. What you should look at:
- Company size. Experienced entrepreneurs advice to choose a software development partner according to the size of your company. So, you will have similar work approaches and you can better understand each other. Large companies are mainly focused on long-term relationships, they have more customers and you may not get enough attention. On the other hand, if you have a large corporation, a small company may not have a sufficient level of expertise to work with such a client. The best option is to judge by yourself. If you run a startup, it will be more comfortable to work with a small but well-organized company. It will also be cheaper.
- Approach and team. Each company has its own approaches to work. Some attract third-party developers or provide a limited number of services. For example, a company will write code, but they don’t have a business analyst to pre-examine the domain and tell you some solutions. A company with a full development cycle, which includes the stages of analysis, testing, and sometimes promotion, can give you much more.
In-house developers also have their advantages. You will feel more confident when an experienced team works on your product. They are already used to each other and can quickly solve problems and deliver the best results.
- Projects. Carefully study the company’s projects, often they are presented in the case studies format with a description of the client’s problem and a solution from the company. Pay attention to the technologies used in the work, and the variety of projects. Maybe you find a project similar to yours, then you can be sure that the company already has experience in this area. If you know that you need development using a specific technology, for example, blockchain, look for companies that have enough examples of such work. The newer the technology, the fewer good specialists on the market. Give preference to experience.
- Blog and social media. Professionals always strive to share their expertise. A constantly updated blog and social networks are a signal that the company cares about its reputation. Look through the blog, read the articles to assess the knowledge of experts with who you are going to work.
- Testimonials. Feedback is a great way to get an assessment of the work with the company. It’s clear that the best reviews are selected for the site, so look also for testimonials on other resources on the Internet. You can even write to the company’s clients and ask them about their experience with the company. For example, you can find these people by name and company name on LinkedIn.
- Openness and communication. Evaluate how comfortable it will be for you to work with the company. Usually, you can realize this during the first communication. On the site, you will most likely find a feedback form or online chat. Start communication, request a presentation. Why guess and invent the missing information if you can find out everything from the company representatives themselves. Professionals understand the importance of choosing a software development company and will try to help you with a decision. These consultations will be free for you (at least it should be so, don’t pay for a basic assessment of the project).
When someone is looking for a software development partner, he has a lot of options, and a lot of information. We try to help potential customers realize their true need and form the right request. We communicate with some for several months before moving on to development. Our goal is to help people, not to impose our services on them.
Viktor Legetsky, Managing Partner at IdeaSoft
- Process and intellectual property rights. The process is important, especially in software development. Immediately specify what services the company can perform for you (code, testing, business analysis, support) and how often you will receive progress reports. Most software companies work on the Agile approach.
Make sure that the company values the security of your data used in the development process. Ask about data storage and transfer.
Intellectual property rights to the product are also a very important topic. Be sure to find out about the legal side of cooperation, and that you are the owner of everything that will be produced during the outsourcing process.
Next Steps
Then the choice is yours. You have all the necessary information. Highlight those criteria that are especially important to you and compare several options. Choose a software development partner not only based on personal feelings, but also on specific data: the security of your sensitive data, guarantees, and confirmation of expertise.
Let’s fix everything in the short software development company selection checklist:
1. Look for software development companies on credible sites like Clutch, Upwork, CrunchBase, LinkedIn.
2. Decide how important the geographical location of the company is for you and build your research on this.
3. Go to the websites of companies and study their structure, team, and approaches.
4. Be sure to study examples of completed projects and evaluate their results.
5. Read the reviews and try to personally contact the company’s customers to verify the feedback.
6. Start communication with companies, let them provide you with the maximum information for making a decision.
7. Clarify the issues of the cooperation process, intellectual property rights to products, and data security.
Now you know what criteria to look for when choosing a software development partner. Take your time, carefully study the data, don’t hesitate to start communication with companies. Remember that choosing a reliable partner with good expertise is the key to the success of your business. Take this with all responsibility.
IdeaSoft has expertise in software development, proven by 250+ successful projects. We specialize in developing software solutions of various levels of complexity, we work with blockchain, mobile development, UI/UX solutions and more. Check out our website and contact our specialists to discuss your project!
