You are not tech-savvy but want to have the greatest software solution for your business or want to found the next BIG startup? Most people in your case have no other solution but to outsource the development. It would be deadly to hire an in-house team at the beginning of your product development journey. Many before you have tried to move from an idea to a problem-solving software but failed on their way.
My name is Florian Lowe, I will tell you the KEY necessary to make non-tech-savvy entrepreneurs succeed in creating the greatest software solutions through outsourcing. But first, let me tell you a story of how my bad experiences in the outsourcing industry led me to create an agency that centered around the success of non-technical entrepreneurs.
I have seen both sides of outsourcing.
I have been an agency member and an agency client. While being an agency member, I saw many projects, led by skilled engineers, fail due to the product being far below expectations.
“You are crooks. I have thrown all my savings into this project because I believe in it. And you failed to meet the most basic requirements. How will I do now? I have got nothing left”
This is what Camila, one of our clients, shouted at the agency executives because we failed to meet the expectations after working on her project for MORE THAN A YEAR.
You can’t imagine how this haunted me at night. Camila’s case pushed me to carry out an investigation to uncover the reasons behind the projects’ failures. I discovered that more than 90% of the failing projects were associated with non-tech-savvy clients. The greatest source of failure was the critical lack of communication between the clients and the team working on their projects characterized by:
- Infrequent meetings.
- Preventing the client from communicating directly with those working on his project
- No effort to use simple terms to describe the status of the project.
All this was done to make it possible for the agency to reduce costs by working on many projects at the same time. The result was a visionless team, frequently re-implementing features because they were not properly explained what to do.
“It is not our fault. The client is asking for stuff she can not explain properly”
Putting all the fault on the clients is how agency executives always reacted in front of a failing project. This behavior coupled with the never-ending guilt I felt became unbearable. At some point, it became close to impossible for me to focus at work. Quitting was the only logical thing to do….
You won’t believe what happened next…
I have always wanted to start an e-commerce business and that’s what I planned to do next. I am tech-savvy but in back-end development and DevOps. So there was a need for me to contract an agency to build a website for my business. Afraid to end up in the same situation as Camila, before hiring an agency, I insisted on having frequent communication with the developers, not the manager only. Things started well, there was frequent communication with the designer until the end of the design phase.
When the development phase started, BLACKOUT! I could not communicate with any of the developers. The manager started to give me awkward reasons:
- They are in different time zones.
- They are busy working on your project.
Ironically, A few months and thousands of dollars later(Close to all my savings), the result was similar to Camila’s: a visionless team, frequently re-implementing features because they were not properly explained what to do. Obviously, I failed to kickstart my e-commerce business.
I felt like I needed to do something about this.
I was fed up with this system where non-tech-savvy people are exploited by agencies when the only thing they want to do is make their dream software product come to life. I decided to join forces with fellow freelancers and founded the Ethical Devs agency. Together, we aimed at demystifying custom software development and building products that will always meet our customer’s expectations.
Here is what I learned.
Through my experience as an Agency member and client, I understood that the lack of contact between the client and the team will drastically reduce the chances of the product’s success. That is why we make sure that this contact is as frequent as possible through:
- Milestone kick-off meetings,
- Easily understandable reports,
- Weekly Demos,
- Quality assessment meetings, etc.
This brings me to you
These meetings are not easy to coordinate but are necessary for the project’s success. Especially in the case of non-tech-savvy clients like you. We want to make our clients’ products so successful that they will be able to hire an in-house team if they want to. That is why we put in huge efforts to organize all these meetings. This exhaustive communication mindset made us attract and keep the most innovative startups of the likes of Bloxflip and Neero.
Make the first step towards the implementation of your greatest ideas. Let’s connect and discuss how to bring the greatest software products to life. Schedule a FREE consultation now.
