The Ultimate Guide for Finding an App Partner to Develop a Great Product
Let’s start right away with a real picture of the world. The negative attitude toward a partnership in business is completely understandable and justified. According to statistics, 70% of partner relations collapse. This is, of course, global statistics, which does not take into account the causes of failures and the business sector. But even in such an interpretation, this figure is significant enough to forever abandon the idea of inviting someone to the world of your ideas, plans, ambitions, and hopes.
However, there is still the remaining 30% who have achieved joint success. Want to know why this became possible? Because these companies have chosen the right and reliable partner for their business. In this article, we talk about what needs to be done to join them.
Three Dangerous Misconceptions About Application Development Partnerships
Below we have compiled several reasons that project initiators are guided by, justifying their decision to do without a partner.
Even One Man in the Field Is a Force
We do not doubt that you have enough professional skills and self-sufficiency to cope with all the tasks yourself. However, in most cases, it is wiser to delegate routine tasks or areas of activity that are not your strengths. Therefore, working at your limit of possibilities may make sense, but not in the case when you are responsible for everything at once.
Hiring a Freelancer Is Easy (Cheap/Fast/Efficient)
Yes, freelance is a fairly convenient way to work, but not in the case when you need to create a product from scratch. Since you have to assemble a whole team of specialists of different profiles, explain your expectations to everyone, keep in touch and constantly monitor all processes. Plus, freelance has its risks — these free birds tend to fly to another project if they find it more promising. What is more, without warning you about it.
Tame the Junior
It would seem that it is a good idea to hire a novice programmer. Young tech minds are ready to work for food just to get the first developments in the portfolio. However, you will have to teach them everything that you know from scratch. Therefore, if you want to teach someone how to live and work — you are welcome to become a university professor. And if you want to create a cool application, then read on.
Before You Start Looking for a Truly Worthy Partner
So, we have eliminated not the best ideas, and now let’s talk about how to act correctly to find and attract a partner that will grow your business, and not complicate your life. Here are the main steps.
Set Clear Goals
If you do not understand why you need a partner, then most likely at this stage you do not need it. Therefore, it is necessary to transform your understanding into clear and measurable goals. To do this, you need to answer the following questions:
- What tasks do you want to delegate?
- How do you see the result of this transaction?
- What kind of help do you need?
It is necessary to dwell on the last question in more detail since the circle of searches will vary significantly depending on your answer.
Application Development from Scratch
This is the most reasonable option — to find a partner who will support you at every stage of creating a project from a raw idea to launching on the market and promoting it. In this case, you get an all-inclusive service and can rely on flexibility at every stage of development.
Design and Creativity
If you feel that you can cope with the technical subtleties on your own, but the creative part is not about you, it makes sense to entrust this task to those who can think using images, rather than lines of code.
Testing and Quality
You need someone who can find mistakes, if any, and suggest ways to fix them before the product is launched on the market.
Maintenance and Customer Support
If your application is already running, it is necessary to keep it working and work with customer issues. And the most optimal option is to combine these two tasks and enable two teams to work on one goal — improving the quality of both the technical part and customer support.
Marketing and Brand Promotion
If you still managed to cope alone (or somehow else), then most likely, at this stage you can already begin to feel a lack of strength. Therefore, it makes sense to pay attention to companies that specialize in marketing and promotion, so that you finally begin to receive a return on your investment, both financial and labor.
Where to Start Your Search?
So, when you have decided on the goals, it’s time to start a direct search. Here are the easiest ways to get started.
- Analyze your network of contacts. You will likely be able to find the right person among those with whom you are personally acquainted.
- Recommendations This method is suitable if the previous one did not work. Ask your friends from the world of IT to give you recommendations.
- Events. If the recommendations did not help, then it is necessary to get to the place of concentration of people for whom partnership with you can be potentially interesting.
- The Internet. Usually, the first three approaches are enough, but you can also review your Linkedin profile one more time or post several test tasks on Upwork to make a list of candidates.
And How to Make a Final Decision?
Even if now it seems to you that you finally found a suitable partner, do not rush to make a final decision. It is necessary to thoroughly test a company that would seem to suit you at first glance. Clockwise wrote a cool article on how to choose a partner for application development, complementing it with practical experience on how not to make a mistake at the final stage. Read the full story and get a complete checklist of questions to ask before starting a partnership and the right approaches to assessing experience and compatibility.
