8 Outsourcing Tips That can Save Your Startup
March 24, 2016 – Mihai Popa
8 Outsourcing Tips That can Save Your Startup
March 24, 2016 – Mihai Popa
Rapidly growing startups are applying outsourcing techniques as a strategy to venture into technology in a major way. There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding outsourcing for software development which as a result has led to many potential startups wasting both time and resources that they honestly can’t afford. Fast paced startups as well as mid-sized businesses can benefit from software development outsourcing which helps them exploit their full potential through the development of powerful web platforms along with mobile apps that are intuitive. In this article, we share eight of the best tips startups should observe to make software development outsourcing work for them.
1. Shop Around
There are lots of software developers out there, which means that whether the difference is in size or background, choosing the one that’s right for you, can be difficult.
Always ask your peers for recommendations, and find out about their past experiences. Find out if the potential software development supplier has previously worked with companies similar to yours, with the same requirements and if they are willing to provide references in confidence. Determine the strategic importance of your product or project and try choosing based on that.
2. Big Isn’t Always Better
Outsourcing a large consultancy for software development often equals a capacity to deliver certain types of projects on a timely basis and within set guidelines. However, this is not always the case for all kinds of projects, regardless of how big or small your company is.
Large vendors may sometimes offer very good or bad services. It is not surprising to see such companies encounter similar issues that would normally be associated with outsourcing to a smaller supplier. Some of the common problems include an inadequate level of skills, difficulty in the temporary replacement of a key resource, loss of staff which results in insufficient knowledge, and so on. These types of issues are not inherent to large or small consultancies, this is normally the nature of the industry, which means size shouldn’t be your main focus for outsourcing.
Mobile Development with JavaScript
JavaScript also works well on mobile devices. There are some powerful frameworks which you should consider if you want to develop mobile apps in HTML5 and JavaScript and still access native device functions – camera, accelerometer etc. 2 examples are Ionic and Titanium:
Ionic – https://ionicframework.com is a mobile development framework that enables developers to build ‘native-feeling’ apps purely with web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These apps run in the mobile device’s browser using the embedded JavaScript engine, so they can run on any mobile device with a browser. Ionic is based the Angular.JS web application development framework, so Angular.JS developers will become highly productive in a very short time with Ionic.
Titanium from Appcelerator – http://www.appcelerator.com Titanium takes a ‘hybrid’ approach to mobile development enabling developers to write reusable ‘business logic’ code in JavaScript, but also to compile JavaScript to native code to implement native features and native UI components for iOS, Android, and other mobile platforms.
Node.js
The Node.js server- http://nodejs.org is particularly awesome, so it’s worthy some further explanation.
Node.js is a server platform which enables highly scalable web services and applications to be developed in JavaScript. Node.js has a unique event-driven ‘non-blocking IO’ architecture which supports high concurrency in a very efficient way. No more multi-threading and eating up Gigabytes of memory across your web servers.
There is a vast range of ‘Node Package Modules’ (NPMs) to choose from, so you don’t actually have to write that much code.
Related frameworks
– Express.JS – http://expressjs.com , a minimal and flexible node.js web application framework for building single and multi-page web applications.
– Socket.io – http://socket.io , this is a JavaScript library for real time web applications. It has both a client-side library that runs in the browser, and a server-side library for Node.js. Both components have a nearly identical API and, of course it’s event-driven.
JavaScript – The ‘Full Stack’
The frameworks and libraries described above can be implemented separately as either client side or server side only technologies, however, when combined they provide an even more powerful JavaScript development environment across the whole technology stack. An example of this ‘full stack’ approach is ‘MEAN’ – http://mean.io, which combines the MongoDB NoSQL database, the Express framework and Node.js. This provides web services and data persistence, combined with Angular.JS for a rich client experience.
Conclusion
Adoption of the various JavaScript frameworks and platforms is growing at a phenomenal pace. Node.js and Angular.JS in particular are being adopted by major industry players including Microsoft and PayPal. Many Tech Start Ups are adopting the full stack JavaScript as their development technology of choice across the entire stack, and for both web and mobile applications. So whether you are a Start-Up aiming to rapidly build highly scalable web applications and services, an SME or Enterprise business requiring a rich user experience on the web, and cross platform mobile apps with a native user experience, then full stack JavaScript – Angular.JS and Node.js in particular, are seriously worth considering for your next development project.
About Us
dotNear blends technically excellent developers, nearshore proximity, clear communication and a collaborative approach to application development.
Our teams work out of Bucharest, Romania – the largest city in Eastern Europe within EU borders, and 6th largest overall in the EU, a city with a rich academic tradition in mathematics and applied sciences.
Software development team extension is our core business, and managing productive teams of nearshore developers (team extensions for your internal engineers) is what we are good at. With that in mind, we keep an open eye on the end result: software products and custom applications, which we develop most of the times in a joint effort with our customers – although we are known to deliver when we work on our own, as well.
Far from a body-shop, not only do we provide 10X* nearshore software developers, but we can also assist with UI/UX design, Business Analysis, QA Engineers and Software Architecture to help you achieve those milestones on time. More on us at www.dotnear.com
Rapidly growing startups are applying outsourcing techniques as a strategy to venture into technology in a major way. There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding outsourcing for software development which as a result has led to many potential startups wasting both time and resources that they honestly can’t afford. Fast paced startups as well as mid-sized businesses can benefit from software development outsourcing which helps them exploit their full potential through the development of powerful web platforms along with mobile apps that are intuitive. In this article, we share eight of the best tips startups should observe to make software development outsourcing work for them.
1. Shop Around
There are lots of software developers out there, which means that whether the difference is in size or background, choosing the one that’s right for you, can be difficult.
Always ask your peers for recommendations, and find out about their past experiences. Find out if the potential software development supplier has previously worked with companies similar to yours, with the same requirements and if they are willing to provide references in confidence. Determine the strategic importance of your product or project and try choosing based on that.
2. Big Isn’t Always Better
Outsourcing a large consultancy for software development often equals a capacity to deliver certain types of projects on a timely basis and within set guidelines. However, this is not always the case for all kinds of projects, regardless of how big or small your company is.
Large vendors may sometimes offer very good or bad services. It is not surprising to see such companies encounter similar issues that would normally be associated with outsourcing to a smaller supplier. Some of the common problems include an inadequate level of skills, difficulty in the temporary replacement of a key resource, loss of staff which results in insufficient knowledge, and so on. These types of issues are not inherent to large or small consultancies, this is normally the nature of the industry, which means size shouldn’t be your main focus for outsourcing.
Mobile Development with JavaScript
JavaScript also works well on mobile devices. There are some powerful frameworks which you should consider if you want to develop mobile apps in HTML5 and JavaScript and still access native device functions – camera, accelerometer etc. 2 examples are Ionic and Titanium:
Ionic – https://ionicframework.com is a mobile development framework that enables developers to build ‘native-feeling’ apps purely with web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These apps run in the mobile device’s browser using the embedded JavaScript engine, so they can run on any mobile device with a browser. Ionic is based the Angular.JS web application development framework, so Angular.JS developers will become highly productive in a very short time with Ionic.
Titanium from Appcelerator – http://www.appcelerator.com Titanium takes a ‘hybrid’ approach to mobile development enabling developers to write reusable ‘business logic’ code in JavaScript, but also to compile JavaScript to native code to implement native features and native UI components for iOS, Android, and other mobile platforms.
Node.js
The Node.js server- http://nodejs.org is particularly awesome, so it’s worthy some further explanation.
Node.js is a server platform which enables highly scalable web services and applications to be developed in JavaScript. Node.js has a unique event-driven ‘non-blocking IO’ architecture which supports high concurrency in a very efficient way. No more multi-threading and eating up Gigabytes of memory across your web servers.
There is a vast range of ‘Node Package Modules’ (NPMs) to choose from, so you don’t actually have to write that much code.
Related frameworks
– Express.JS – http://expressjs.com , a minimal and flexible node.js web application framework for building single and multi-page web applications.
– Socket.io – http://socket.io , this is a JavaScript library for real time web applications. It has both a client-side library that runs in the browser, and a server-side library for Node.js. Both components have a nearly identical API and, of course it’s event-driven.
JavaScript – The ‘Full Stack’
The frameworks and libraries described above can be implemented separately as either client side or server side only technologies, however, when combined they provide an even more powerful JavaScript development environment across the whole technology stack. An example of this ‘full stack’ approach is ‘MEAN’ – http://mean.io, which combines the MongoDB NoSQL database, the Express framework and Node.js. This provides web services and data persistence, combined with Angular.JS for a rich client experience.
Conclusion
Adoption of the various JavaScript frameworks and platforms is growing at a phenomenal pace. Node.js and Angular.JS in particular are being adopted by major industry players including Microsoft and PayPal. Many Tech Start Ups are adopting the full stack JavaScript as their development technology of choice across the entire stack, and for both web and mobile applications. So whether you are a Start-Up aiming to rapidly build highly scalable web applications and services, an SME or Enterprise business requiring a rich user experience on the web, and cross platform mobile apps with a native user experience, then full stack JavaScript – Angular.JS and Node.js in particular, are seriously worth considering for your next development project.
About Us
dotNear blends technically excellent developers, nearshore proximity, clear communication and a collaborative approach to application development.
Our teams work out of Bucharest, Romania – the largest city in Eastern Europe within EU borders, and 6th largest overall in the EU, a city with a rich academic tradition in mathematics and applied sciences.
Software development team extension is our core business, and managing productive teams of nearshore developers (team extensions for your internal engineers) is what we are good at. With that in mind, we keep an open eye on the end result: software products and custom applications, which we develop most of the times in a joint effort with our customers – although we are known to deliver when we work on our own, as well.
Far from a body-shop, not only do we provide 10X* nearshore software developers, but we can also assist with UI/UX design, Business Analysis, QA Engineers and Software Architecture to help you achieve those milestones on time. More on us at www.dotnear.com