In this highly saturated market, choosing a team to work with is a crucial part of your business strategy. The question is, whether it is best to approach a startup team or an established organization? On the first look, bigger businesses may tend to seem more appealing however, you cannot write off the results that a tech startup can bring you. These dynamic teams of battle-tested individuals are known to deliver excellent results that can prove your initial doubts wrong.

The difference between these two organizations is the focus and dedication that they can bring to the table. Because startup teams are small, they can offer personalized solutions, custom and a direct approach that your business needs and not just a run-off the mill template that they used for a different project. Whereas larger companies tend to involve themselves in too many projects to reach the goals of their marketing and sales teams.

The first step you need to do is to find a person who has the technical knowledge to interview the teams you are considering to bring in as your Vendor. Non-tech people might struggle to try to converse when presented with technical jargon. The project itself may pose several questions that problematic to handle with a simple Google search. Field experience is the best but if you are lacking in personnel, then someone who is at least tech-savvy will be a good choice. Ensure that you are getting the most out of this venture by appointing someone qualified to do the job of finding the best fit team.

One factor you should consider when choosing a trusted partner for your development needs is location. Ideally, you should be working with a USA based company. The reason for that is America’s Seed Fund powered by the National Science Foundation better known as NSF. This program is also known as the NSF Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer Program (SBIR/STTR). This federal program supports R&D done by startups and small businesses to develop breakthrough technologies that can be commercialized and produce an impact on the market. This simply means that what you are getting from them is the latest cutting edge solutions that the market can offer.

Startups are often finding it hard to sustain their businesses. It is not uncommon to find a team closing down due to a lack of projects or conflicts. Nevertheless, you should not shy away from them. Talk to multiple vendors and discuss your project with them.

It would be good to consider the crew that has experience in marketing and scaling a business before. This aspect is quite advantageous for your business. A lot of inexperienced teams end up over-engineering the product at an early stage which wastes a lot of resources. Have someone who can deliver quick results  They might be able to offer you solutions that would boost your project exponentially. Approach this with an open mind and see what each of them has to offer you.

Consider communication. Rapid development requires fast and open communication.  A start-up team with closely knitted members usually shines in this aspect. However, there is always an obstacle to this which is the timezones. This is particularly true for remote teams. A good move to best this challenge is to have a fixed overlap time to ensure that everyone is up to date and a part of the discussion. During these overlap times, always make the best of it by having a meeting through video calls.

As the saying goes, people want to talk to people. Take a good look at your team and check whether they are focused, confident about the results they are delivering to you and if they are excited about the project. Otherwise, find out which parts are they having difficulties with and discuss it thoroughly during the meeting. It also helps to have team tools such as Slack, Jira or Asana. Whichever you choose, always check if everyone is up to date.

Let us say that you have found your dream team and you are in the process of pushing your mobile or web app through its stages. What would be needed during these stages? That would be feedback. Sounds fairly simple but this heavily affects your team and your project. In line with having open communications, feedback should always be a part of your discussions. A feedback loop might sound tiring but this is the key to align your priorities well and to nail down your KPI’s. Tech startups usually apply Agile development in their teams and if that is the case for your vendor, make it a point to be a part of their Sprint planning, review and retrospective. Although the Sprint review is the best time to produce feedback, you and your team could also apply this whenever it highly is needed.

Always be data-driven. Integrating analytics to your web or mobile software should be started at the early stages. The earlier the better. This gives you extensive data that will be playing a significant role in product development. Always do A/B testing and track how your users interact with your product software and adjust according to the data you have collected. It is highly recommended to use tools such as Google Analytics, Fullstory, Crashlytics in Firebase and Mixpanel.

Ensure that you are getting the most out of this venture by appointing someone qualified to do the job of finding the best fit team.