Startup Resources: Working with a software development agency

Software development is a hugely important part of any startup business, but from the outside, it can seem a hugely complicated and technical process. While a lot of the terminology and technology involved can indeed be very specialized, having a basic understanding of what software development agencies do will help you get what you want from the agency you work with, and give you a better understanding of what’s possible.

After all, software technology develops extremely rapidly, and keeping up-to-date with developments and trends is key to making your company stand out in a crowded market.

There isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution

The first thing to keep in mind is that, no matter your field, it will be specialized to find one solution that does everything. Having a realistic outcome to your software concept is hugely important: trying to cram in too much will result in longer development times, less reliability with more to go wrong, operating costs and less chance of getting everything right. Once you’ve narrowed down what you want to create a reasonable goal, the next step is to think about delivery. There’s no point hiring a company specializing in purely in web design if what you’re really after is an app, so spend time considering what route to your customers is the most viable.

Asking the right questions

Many of the big technical questions are best answered early on, as it can be hard to switch to a whole new programing language after applications are built – often, to do that will require a complete rebuild, with the associated costs and development times involved in that. Many software applications are built in several languages for different aspects of the application. For example, an application that relies heavily on server-side processing (the back end) might use one specializing for running the application on the server, and another for presenting that information to their users (the front end).

PHP is a popular server-side language, used for CMS (content management systems), and Javascript is a widely-used front-end language, but there are many others, and also variations of them designed for specific uses. While you won’t be expected to have an in-depth knowledge of different programming languages, it can be very helpful to know what they’re used for.

Do your homework

Knowing what a software suite can do lets you know what sort of design environment you can be expecting to work within, and what sort of overheads you’re likely to incur. If your product requires significant amounts of server-side processing, you may be specializing to have someone in-house capable of maintaining and supporting that process – or alternatively, you’ll want to find a software development agency who can support that service. A good way to get started is to find software applications or websites similar to what you hope to produce, and find out how they’ve been written. It’s often easily available knowledge, and will give you a good indication of what’s possible with that system.

Of course, finding the right software development agency is about more than the technology they’ll use. Finding an agency that you can build a good relationship with can be as important as anything else; inevitably, when things go wrong, those lines of communication will be tested, and that’s when you’ll need them most.