The challenges and solutions of scaling software development for startups
When you’re running a successful software startup, the time will come when you need to scale your team. You might have started out as a one or two-person outfit, but now you need to build out your business.
You could be at the stage where you have a minimum viable product (MVP) or you’ve received your first round of funding and there’s a growing backlog of work to be done. Taking no action is not an option if you want to stay ahead of the game, hit your development deadlines, and meet your business goals.
Whether you’re racing to get a product to market or you need to offer investors some reassurance that you can reach your business goals, the need to build out reliable capacity for software development can be a prohibitive challenge. Especially when you’re working with the confines of an early-stage startup.
So what are your options? Let’s start by looking at the challenges you might be facing.
The challenges of scaling software development
There are three main challenges faced by software companies in the early-stages of their development. Firstly, as the business naturally grows, the backlog steadily increases. When you start out small, at some stage you’re going to need to make that leap into recruitment, and all the associated costs and time implications. HR becomes another aspect of your business that you may not have the capacity to manage at this early stage.
To get team members who function in the right way, and can deliver your product on time and at the expected quality – you’re going to need effective onboarding. Get that wrong, and you can expect problems down the line. With your company brand in the early stages and limited brand exposure, it can be difficult to attract the best talent for your business. New employees might also need training, especially if you’re unable to find candidates with exactly the right experience – this is the second challenge.
Thirdly, not only do you need skilled developers who understand your business and its objectives, you also need them to work at pace in order to meet your development deadlines. The development process can be difficult to master, and even with the best onboarding and training, things can and will go wrong.
Resources are finite, and software development is only one aspect of the overall functionality associated with your growing business. So it might seem like an impossible challenge – to increase capacity and fulfil your wider responsibility to investors, customers, and employees – whilst maintaining the edge in a competitive and rapidly changing market.
Finding a reliable partner for scaling software
If you’re a more technically-minded business owner who’s been involved with your product’s development from the start, it can feel uncomfortable to hand over the reins to others. You probably have a clear understanding of how you want your product to evolve, the standards you expect, as well as ambitious goals – but the last thing you want to do is end up micromanaging a development team.
At the same time, if you’re less technical and more business orientated, it can be difficult to trust in others to get the job done on time, and deliver code of a shippable standard. You might have a launch date looming, customers awaiting key updates, and an ever-growing backlog. Any glaring errors in quality could be hugely detrimental for your business. You might be able to temporarily plug the gaps with freelancers, but will they stick around long enough to see the next round of iterations?
With teams as a service, you don’t have to worry about any of that. Why?
Firstly, the recruitment is done for you. With an existing pool of thousands of ready-to-code developers – you can cut out the costly and time-consuming search for talent. Giving you complete confidence in your code, a team as a service helps you quickly and effectively conquer the backlog in line with your critical milestones.
Secondly, with a team tailored to your specific business needs, you can tap into on demand help from experts to accelerate and scale your development. Remote, full-stack, English-speaking teams can be self-managed, freeing you up to focus on your core business.
Thirdly, because developers are selected based on their skills and suitability for your needs, onboarding time is dramatically reduced. You get a tech fit and a cultural one in a single hit, and by applying Agile methodology, regular communication means both parties are kept in the loop.
At Proshore, we don’t just offer software development outsourcing, we’re a reliable partner who can provide you with an extended team fully invested in your business success. Book a discovery call and let us help you find a development team that understands your challenges.
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