Building Apps
The Pleasures and Pains of Outsourcing
We’re all building apps. There are 19,000 apps released into the just the iOS app store a month, which is almost 641 new apps a DAY.
You hear about how mobile is here to stay and will soon become the platform that controls our life. Think of it as a control centre for everything else you want to do — shopping, turning off your lights, opening your garage door, playing music on your car and even monitoring your kids.
Today, having an app is a pre-requisite and not a necessity. But there are not nearly enough app developers to go around. Hiring a solid app developer is impossibly hard and ranks somewhere up there with data scientists and good nannies.
Thankfully , there are tons of companies that work on solving this problem for you by building apps for each and every one of us! I’ve spoken with many app developers of different shapes and sizes and I will present a brief overview of the landscape and what kind of developers work for what kind of clients.
1. The Vendor
Who They Are : The vendors are small 5-10 member teams that take on 2-5 projects at any given time. They have only a few apps in their kitty and like to use APIs as far as possible. Examples include Smarana Solutions and
The founders usually deal directly with all the clients, their project management is done in an ad-hoc manner and they end up working very closely with the clients. They often don’t have experience in many typical modules so they end up spending time doing research and finding hacky solutions. They won’t have a sound UI team and often will contract others to do this part, which can add another layer of complexity to the mix.
Who They Are Ideal For: These vendors are ideal for people who have a lot of time but little money. You will have to work very closely with the developers, you will spend a lot of time on back-and-forth and project management. If you are building a prototype and not a scalable solution, vendors are ideal for you. You should also have a high-level wireframe ready and be able to tell the developers exactly what you want. You also bear the cost of all licenses and tools you might use during this process, in addition to the service cost.
Verdict : Time — High , Budget — Low, Readiness — High
2. The Aggregator
Who They Are : Companies that have a network of app development vendors across the world with different levels and areas of expertise. They might have a few app experts cum project managers on their payroll who work with clients to ensure that the whole process is efficiently handled. In effect, they are a project management front that work with both parties. They usually can also do UI and UX work because their network includes freelancers of all kinds.
They typically charge more than vendors but less than factories. They can get lower rates from vendors because they are a constant source of work for the vendors. However, they do end up charging more because of how convenient the whole process becomes by going through them. They also end up bearing some cost of licenses and tools that are used during this process. They are open to being flexible with different clients on timelines, cost and more. Examples include ThinkApps.
Who They Are Ideal For: Anybody who has enough funds to be able to afford more than a vendor. Also, there will be a lot of back and forth required but this often follows a healthy process. Regular use of BaseCamp and Invision make the whole process a lot simpler. So — intermediate funds, intermediate time — and they will guarantee a quality that a vendor typically wont. They might help out with the UI , but it helps if you have some amount of it well-structured and know what components you want and how you want it to look. You’re a smaller company or a start-up with seed funding. You might also be a larger organization just loking to create some app presence or app for internal use. They usually build scalable products in the short-medium term but aren’t the ideal replacement for an in-house app development team.
Verdict : Time — Intermediate, Budget — Intermediate, Readiness — Intermediate
3 . The Boutiques
Who They Are : These companies typically have anything between 100 -500 app developers employed full-time with them. They crank out 10-50 apps each month and are the model of efficiency with their process.
They have done this so many times that they understand a mobile development pipeline extremely well. They distribute work like a large tech company and follow processes similar to a Google or Facbeook. They have UI teams in-house that can take products from idea stage to completion through their own resources. They use extremely current tools to manage their process. Examples include SourceBits and ClickLabs.
Who They Are Ideal For: You’re a larger company or a very well-funded startup with very little time and lots of funds and just want somebody to build your app. You might have a web-version already up and running so the developers have something to draw from which helps them just translate your vision well. The tech is almost always scalable and you will be offered a long warranty period. You could also get them on retainer to do all app-related servicing.
Verdict : Time — Low, Budget — High, Readiness — Low.
All in all, nothing is good or bad, it all depends on what you need. I’ve worked with all three categories of app developers and had good and bad experiences with all categories. That said, the boutique developers have always been the smoothest to work with. If I can afford it, I would always pick the boutiques.
