Mobile App Development
When venturing into the question of how to build a new mobile application,
companies have to decide how to make it.
Mobile App Development Companies and Costs
When venturing into the question of how to build a new mobile application, companies have to decide how to make it. Organizations today are faced with several options, however the most prevalent are one of the following:
- Professional application development service provider
- Freelance programming team
- In-house development team
Each option has its various pros and cons. The biggest question to ask yourself as your company makes this very critical decision is, are our founders remotely technical? Answering this question will help you in making this decision.
If the Organization is Not Technical
If you find yourself in this bucket, this is where TechCXO can greatly assist you in making this decision and ensuring that through the lifecycle of the project you have a well trained and capable translator to sit between you and your development team, regardless of its structure.
The Highest Cost
The greatest cost to an organization in the application development process is not about the programmers, database designers, or front end UX/UI engineers, it is in miscommunicated and misunderstood requirements from visionaries coupled with unaligned expectations.
One thing is for certain when embarking on the creation of a new app for your organization, key visionaries must be involved heavily. In addition to that, it is recommended that the project management role be internal to the organization, regardless of structure.
When creating a new app, key visionaries must be involved heavily
This is one of the biggest risks of hiring a professional application development service provider. Many times, a project manager will be baked into the cost, but the project manager belongs to the firm, not to the organization.
More often than not, when a vision team is non-technical, this creates the sense that it can be a few simple meetings to do design and gather vision, and then it ‘s just a hand-off to the hired organization and the company can simply sit back and wait for the final deliverable in 3-6 months.
We have seen more often than not that organizations see some screen shots now and then during monthly or even weekly status meetings, see some screen interactions, a few reports, and everything looks good. Visionaries are typically in the C-Level suite. These are very busy individuals already, and they start to look at this development project as something that is more bothersome than valuable, because right now it is R&D, not making money, and a huge red line in Accounting.
It is not until the end when people really start paying attention. About the time the professional services team wants to get their invoices finalized and paid, and the visionaries are looking hard at the finished product. We have seen so many times where what the build team heard and what the visionary team said were vastly different. This is when friction is at its greatest. There are threats of non-payment, not delivering the code, and removal from app stores. More often than not, what caused this to happen in the first place was the visionary did not know how to speak their vision in a technical way.
Again, this is what we do at TechCXO in our Product and Technology practice. We provide that bridge, and that project management. Each partner has decades of experience and combined we have centuries of experience ensuring proper product delivery. Making sure that the vision is understood and communicated properly and turning around to visionaries and ensuring that you understand the expectations as well as the final deliverable is what we do best.
Professional Application Service Provider
One of the great benefits of hiring a professional team is that they have references. You can see their portfolio and talk to other organizations that have worked with them. When looking for one, rely on your network of other professionals that have done this, or allow us to introduce you to some that we have worked with. Different dev shops have different specialties. There are also questions about the technology stack you should use, which is also something TechCXO can assist you in answering. There are considerations about your long-term goals that play heavily into questions that you may find irrelevant, since all you want is a working application. What programming language, what database, security first programming model, value of the data, are you looking to exit, or have organizations you are looking at to acquire you? All of these decision will have an impact, and TechCXO can help you answer those questions and get you connected with the right firm.
Professional Application Service Provider
One of the great benefits of hiring a professional team is that they have references. You can see their portfolio and talk to other organizations that have worked with them. When looking for one, rely on your network of other professionals that have done this, or allow us to introduce you to some that we have worked with. Different dev shops have different specialties. There are also questions about the technology stack you should use, which is also something TechCXO can assist you in answering. There are considerations about your long-term goals that play heavily into questions that you may find irrelevant, since all you want is a working application. What programming language, what database, security first programming model, value of the data, are you looking to exit, or have organizations you are looking at to acquire you? All of these decision will have an impact, and TechCXO can help you answer those questions and get you connected with the right firm.