The last step in hiring an external application development team for your company is to sign the deal and get started. In other posts, I covered getting organized, finding vendors, interviewing vendors (and watching out for red flags), and what to expect in a proposal.
While signing a deal may seem self-explanatory, and for the most part, it is, here are a few last things to consider before officially embarking on a project with an outside firm.
Pick a Vendor and Sign a Deal
Once you've selected the firm that will help bring your product to reality, you'll need to deal with various administrative things like contracts, picking dates for meetings, etc. Most of this is straightforward and simply takes time.
It is standard operating procedure to use the vendor's Master Services Agreement and corresponding Statements of Work. The MSA and SOWs should reflect how the vendor works. If you, as a client, insist on coming with your own legal documents, then you are implicitly working to manage the process, which may have negative consequences down the line.
Don't Be a Micromanager
You're paying the vendor because they know what they're doing. Have faith in your decision by trusting them to do the best job for your company.
Thoughts on Hiring Development Firms for Equity
Don't do it.
Empirically I can say that it's only something less mature development firms do. It's a very complicated type of deal to work out given that development on custom products never really ends. Unless the firm is paying their employees with your equity, there will always be an imperative for them to work on billable client work, putting your company at a disadvantage.
If you still have questions about outsourcing software development or hiring a development team, come have lunch, on us, and SmartLogic will do our best to send you in the right direction.
