Software Development for Startups: Building Strong Solutions from Day One
Great startup ideas are just the spark—what really fuels success is a powerful software development strategy that turns your vision into reality!
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More chaptersAs a start-up, there is a mountain of tasks to take care of. In order to survive and thrive in the coming years, you’ll need to identify exactly what a business should prioritize.
In a world of fast tech and innovations, technology has undoubtedly become one of the top priorities. Due to its importance, it can quickly become an overwhelming task, not to mention extremely expensive. Worry not, as this guide will have you covered. Here is how you tackle software development as a startup efficiently and confidently.
Key Takeaways:
In today’s tech-driven world, startups that master software development set themselves up for success.
- Before the actual software development process, businesses need to determine whether they want to go with an MVP or full-scale build and which Agile software development approach (Kanban, lean, Scrum, etc.) fits their business model and project requirements best.
- Regarding resources, businesses can build their own in-house team or outsource professionals for the project. It comes down to their long-term vision and business goals.
- Quality should be a top priority for every startup. First impression matters. A solid product is what grabs the attention of users and investors.
- It doesn’t matter what development stage you are in, it’s vital to keep things simple, organized, and under control and take quality management seriously.
- Last but not least, always keep the customer’s needs on top of your mind when building the product!
Why Startups Need Software Development
The answer to the question of “Why startups need software development” seems almost intuitive – almost every business and service we rely on operates digitally in some aspect. For example, almost every business can benefit from online marketplaces, especially in today’s e-commerce landscape. Other businesses’ digital operations are more straightforward; for example, banks rely on robust systems to process transactions, automation, and perform analytics; hospitals and patients benefit greatly from telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, and the list goes on.
However, the ubiquity of technology isn’t the sole reason a startup should invest seriously in software development.
- Validate Business Idea. Every product starts somewhere, and a minimum viable product is one such great place to start. It’s rare for startups to go all out on their first product, and oftentimes, they’re advised against it. Hence, an MVP, or a product with the most basic, essential features, is a great way to test the water, gather feedback from early customers, and validate the initial business ideas. This step is crucial, as 35% of startups fail due to a shortage of market demand.
- Operational Efficiency and Cost Reduction. Most technologies are born to speed up and automate manual tasks. When used correctly, they will optimize your operations and reduce costs in the long term, no matter the field you’re operating in.
- Data-Driven Decision Making. Every software serves multiple purposes for both the client and businesses. One such purpose or benefit of apps is data collection and analysis. Analyzing this raw data correctly, you can use it to make confident and informed decisions regarding marketing trends, buyer preferences, or insightful forecasts. Do be transparent with your clients about the data policy.
- Scaling for Growth: Every business will eventually need to handle growth in its customer base. With the help of cloud services or micorservices, scaling the app is convenient and sustainable.
Laying the Groundwork for Your Startup’s Software Development
Before we get down to the nitty gritty of selecting a suitable tech stack, in-house or outsourcing, or other technical strategies, let’s nail down some of the basics first.
MVP vs. Full-Scale Product
A Quick Recap
A minimum viable product is a great way to test market demand, gather feedback, and shorten time to market. For this reason, it’s a very simplified version of your intended final product. In a survey conducted by GoodFirm, 91.3% of the businesses confirmed that they had released a product using an MVP strategy when asked if they had introduced a product using MVP. Still, an MVP’s limited features may deter users or even cause negative feedback. Another thing is that an MVP comes with an iterative process with frequent updates based on user feedback. This process can be time and resource-consuming.
A full-scale build, on the other hand, is a comprehensive product with all its intended features and refined designs. It is built with scalability in mind and aims to provide users with a satisfying and complete experience and establish a brand presence. However, a full-scale product requires more time and money, comes with higher risks if it fails market expectations, and requires more commitment as it’s harder to change the product per feedback.
So, how should a startup go about this? It’s important to stress that the suitable strategy varies from business to business, but here are some general tips.
MVP or Full-Scale Product: Which Way to Go?
Go with an MVP if:
- You have limited resources and want to focus on the most crucial features first.
- Time to market is crucial, and launching the product early allows you to capture early adopters.
- You have a new business idea or are sure of market demand and want to test the waters.
A full-scale build is a better choice when:
- The market is saturated, and you need a comprehensive product to stand out.
- You’ve verified market demand with an MVP or a prototype or via other types of research.
- You have adequate resources and risk tolerance.
Remember to consider your long-term vision, too. Carefully evaluate whether an MVP or full-scale product is a better fit. If you are still unsure, reach out to a team of professionals to help you analyze the current situation and make confident decisions!
Choosing the Right Software Development Approach
A software development approach, also known as a software development methodology, is a systematic framework that guides the planning, execution, and management of software projects. This approach aims to handle the changing client demands, communication systems, expectations, and budget constraints.
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact number of approaches in the software development world. The most popular ones you’ve probably heard of are Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Spiral Model, lean software development methodology, and so on.
Agile Principles and Frameworks
It is recommended for startups to follow Agile core principles:
- Customer-Centric & Adaptive: Prioritizes early and continuous delivery of valuable software while embracing changing requirements for competitive advantage.
- Frequent & Efficient Delivery: Prefers short development cycles (weeks to months) and measures progress based on working software.
- Collaboration & Empowerment: Encourages close teamwork, trust, and face-to-face communication between developers, business stakeholders, and users.
- Simplicity & Continuous Improvement: Focuses on technical excellence, sustainable development, self-organizing teams, and regular reflection for ongoing enhancement.
This principle is evident in Lean, Kanban, Scrum, and Feature-driven development.
- Lean: This approach focuses on features that provide real value and eliminate waste. Developers are tasked to identify any bottlenecks and establish systems that work smoothly. This approach is suitable for startups with limited budgets in the early stages.
- Kanban: Kanban uses a Kanban board – a visual project management tool that helps visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and increase efficiency (or flow). A clear view of the state of work and timeline ensures teams are not overworked to ensure teams are productive and minimize unwanted delays.
- Scrum: Arguably one of the most flexible development approaches, this Agile development framework gives members the space to self-organize. Through short development periods known as sprints, the team constantly addresses feedback to improve the product and reach the final, common goal.
- Feature-driven development (FDD): FDD is focused on breaking down the complex software development process into a structured feature list to minimize confusion and rework. Developers work on these features in short cycles to plan, design and implement features. This approach aims to improve efficiency and team coordination.
In-house Team or Outsourcing?
Often facing numerous resource constraints, startups face the question of whether to build an in-house team or outsource a development team for the project.
There is no perfect, one-size-fits-all development approach for every startup. This decision is made after putting numerous factors into consideration, for example:
- Idea validation and investment attraction. As we’ve mentioned earlier, if you are in need of an MVP to gain funding, outsourcing might be a better choice.
- Budget. Whether startups choose to build an in-house team or outsource, the decision needs to align with the financial plans.
- Technical expertise. Building an in-house team takes time and effort. Depending on the specific technical skills, businesses might need more time sourcing niche talent or even seek assistance from third parties.
Another factor that helps with the decision process is understanding the benefits and trade-offs of in-house and outsourced development teams.
Pros and Cons of In-house Teams
While we won’t go into detail for each strong point and drawback of in-house teams, here are the most notable pros and cons to remember.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Stronger control and oversight of the project and decision-making process. | Higher costs with expenses of facility, salary, software licenses, etc. |
| The cultural fit allows teams to understand and strive for the company’s goal. | Longer and more costly hiring process |
| Direct communication leads to faster processes and more transparency in the development process. | A limited talent pool, especially in specialized skills |
| Better and more controlled security, as there is less worry about leaking data. |
Pros and Cons of Outsourcing
Outsourcing is a popular practice for startups, but it’s crucial to keep in mind its advantages and disadvantages.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Cost-effective due to cheaper labor costs, not spending on benefits and hiring process. | Security risks, since involving another party in the project increases the risk of information leaks. |
| A wide talent pool with specialized skills available | Communication barrier due to time zone differences or language barriers. |
| Scalability, as you can easily expand or shrink the team | Quality concerns arise as vendors might cut corners or have too many projects at once. |
| Quicker time-to-market thanks to less hiring and training time |
On a final note, organizations don’t always need to take a black-and-white approach. The best of both worlds is possible by using a hybrid approach! For example, you can build a core team but outsource specialized skills like machine learning or quality assurance.
Why You Should Always Prioritize Software Quality as A Startup
It seems like there is a new technical innovation or something. As a startup, you may feel the pressure to deliver quickly to make a strong market impression, but speed shouldn’t come at the cost of quality.
Even though it seems intuitive to prioritize quality, it’s easy to overlook it with the rapid developments in the tech world. This is why we would like to discuss this aspect in more depth.
Consequences If You Ignore Quality
First impressions matter. No matter how well your marketing team does, if your product doesn’t live up to expectations, it is a failure. Redeeming yourself after this will be a long and arduous battle. In addition to a tarnished reputation, your business will also suffer from:
- No control over code. Ignoring proper quality control means you receive a product that you and your team don’t fully understand. Without a neat and maintainable codebase, it’s difficult to update, fix or scale. The only solution, then, unfortunately, is to start over, wasting valuable time and funds.
- Always busy fixing bugs. Not focusing on quality early on means you’ll be stuck in an endless bug-fixing cycle. Not only is this expensive and time-consuming, but you will also lose valuable market share to competitors that deliver a seamless user experience.
- Risk of losing investors due to poor execution. Nothing kills an investor’s confidence faster than a failed demo with slow performance, crashing midway, or a product missing key features. If investors don’t see the potential in the startup, they’ll walk away, taking crucial funds and valuable opportunities with them.
Tips to Keep Quality Under Control from Day One
Prioritizing quality is easier said than done. With so much on their plate, quality management can easily slip into an afterthought. However, if companies implement the following strategies, quality control wouldn’t be such a challenge anymore, whether they build in-house teams or utilize software development services.
- Set Quality Standards From Day One: Define what “quality” means in your organization. Spell out the standards that teams need to meet, automate testing to catch vulnerabilities early on in the development process, and create a clear checklist of when a product or phase is considered complete. For example, this list can entail integration tests, unit tests, code reviews, and documentation.
- Continuous Monitoring & Reporting: Use systems like Trello to track your team’s progress. You shouldn’t only focus on whether they meet delivery time but also if they meet the key quality metrics like test coverage. Have weekly meetings so the team can demo their progress.
- Enforce a Rigorous Testing Process: A structured and thorough testing strategy minimizes bugs, improves reliability, and prevents costly fixes later. You can achieve this by:
- Assigning a dedicated quality assurance (QA) leads to managing testing efforts.
- Implement a Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) to automate testing at every stage.
- Maintaining a staging environment that mirrors production for final testing.
- Keep Communication & Ownership in Your Hands: When you work with outsourcing teams, have regular check-ins with them. This might be random check-ins or scheduled ones. Even when your partner might have more expertise about the subject matter, don’t let them decide the roadmap. Keep control over the key features. Lastly, your own GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket are the best places to keep your code.
Best Strategies for Successful Software Development for Startups
Venturing into the unknown territory of software development is exciting but daunting. With so many tasks ahead to tackle, it’s easy for start-ups to be overwhelmed and not know where to begin. Here is a quick guide and practical strategies that every startup can apply.
Keep in mind that these are general strategies, and every startup is unique. Apply and adjust these strategies in a way that fits your business goals, resources, and team members.
Choosing the Right Tech Stack
No two systems are the same – it depends on your goals, the client’s requirements, and the team you’re working with. However, as a startup, it’s crucial to remember this rule: keep it simple. You don’t want to complicate things in the beginning. The easier it is for you to build and manage the system, the better.
By the same token, choose familiar programming languages – JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, Python, PHP, and/or Java. It’s not recommended that you choose “sexy,” but it’s harder to start with languages like Kotlin or Haskell. Try to stick with a language for the backend instead of choosing a new language for every new function – it will be messy and hard to manage.
Here is a note on the things you should avoid during the early stages:
- Avoid esoteric services: Esoteric services refer to specialized, niche, or obscure technologies that are often new, experimental, or not widely adopted. These services are either very new and untested or rapidly evolving. They add an extra layer of complex problems, hiring challenges, and scalability problems.
- Avoid microservices during the early stages. Still running with the idea of keeping things simple, build a monolith system first. Microservices are a better fit when the team expands, you have a product-market fit, and you have more complicated requirements.
- Offshore as part of your resource strategy: Startup companies often reach out to offshore development centers to save costs and time for development. Tech giants like Google and WhatsApp have successfully offshored á part of their strategy. Having a credible partner gives you the best tech stack and strategies to shorten the software development lifecycle. However, you must be the one in the driver’s seat, controlling the process and codebase. This will be discussed in more detail in the following section.
Development Best Practices
After the initial preparation, it’s time to get into the actual development process. Even though each development process is unique, there are general practices that will make this process much more efficient and hassle-free.
CI/CD & Automation
For startups, a streamlined Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery system is essential for fast, efficient software development. The goal is a one-click, centralized build and deployment system that ensures stability and accelerates scaling.
Continuous Integration (CI): CI automates code merging, building, and testing, ensuring developers address issues in real time. Best practices include:
- Frequent commits and merges (ideally daily).
- Standardized build tools (e.g., Maven, Gradle).
- Automated builds using GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or CircleCI.
- Containers & Code Quality help ensure consistency, security, and efficiency in software development and deployment.
- Docker Containers simplify development, deployment, and testing.
- Code Checks help detect security risks, formatting errors, and hardcoded credentials.
- Supply Chain Security ensures third-party libraries are safe and up to date.
Continuous Delivery & Deployment (CD): CD automates moving tested code into different environments (dev, QA, production). The goal is to deploy consistent versions across environments while minimizing deployment risks.
For startups, implementing CI/CD early fosters best practices improves efficiency, and enables rapid scaling.
Centralized Documentation
Documenting is an integral part of software development. Decide early on where you want to store the documents, e.g., Notion or Google Docs. It is ideal to set a format for the documents, but what matters is to document everything, from the requirements, system architecture, how the system works, workflow, user manuals, etc.
Security & Ownership Considerations
Security and ownership can be difficult to manage. Here are a few tips to help you navigate the ocean of documents and accounts.
Ensuring Control Over SaaS & Development Accounts
Having your outsourcing partner or part-time developer set up your subscriptions or SaaS is easy, but it also comes with a lot of risks. As we’ve mentioned, always stay in the driver’s seat since you want to ensure there are no payment disputes or unknown access. All in all, it’s not recommended that you use personal services.
If your partners require access to your tools or services, keep track of them by making a list of the accounts and users. If you have trouble with this step, have a team of trusted employees assist you.
Streamlining API Integration for Developers
Modern apps rely on databases and third-party APIs, but this might add complexity for developers. To streamline development, it’s a good idea to use dedicated dev accounts, keys, and environments to avoid exposing production data and ensure compliance with data privacy policies like GDPR. Not all APIs offer dev modes. Start with affordable, simple solutions and scale as needed.
Secure Local Development
Developers often run local databases in Docker containers. However, using production data comes with risks — it can lead to security breaches and compliance violations. Instead, utilize mock or anonymized datasets and automate database migrations to keep structures updated.
Managing Shared Development Environments
For complex systems, shared dev environments provide centralized databases and services that are accessible via VPNs or tools like Tailscale. When integrating third-party APIs, use dedicated dev or test accounts. Remember to restrict access to prevent production exposure. This is one way to keep your development setup secure and efficient.
Testing & Quality Assurance (QA)
Test your software unless you want your users to do it for you!
For early-stage startups with limited funds, however, owning good testing resources can be expensive. Automating the process is also costly, not to mention complicated.
The best-case scenario is having a QA team handling the testing process. Ideally, the team should test every feature, update, and fix, and provide feedback and testing status. You can use ticketing systems like Jira for this stage.
If you don’t have a QA team yet, don’t skip the testing. Try to test the product as thoroughly as you can, and always document the bugs! Have strict testing and QA standards, don’t delay fixing bugs, and don’t let users test the product for you.
Common Mistakes to Avoid for Early-Stage Startups
Did you know that within a year of launch, 10% of startups fail? With time, 70% of startups fail within the first five years. Only 10 to 20% of startups survive and succeed in the long run.
Being aware of the potential pitfalls doesn’t ensure a business’s success, but it brings you closer to success. Here are the top 3 pitfalls to avoid as a tech startup:
- Overengineering too early: It’s tempting to pack the MVP with as many “essential” features as possible. In many cases, trying to do too many things at once ruins a perfect, simple MVP.
- Failing to define the problem: Many startup founders have a vision but fail to truly understand their users. Even with the “perfect” product, without user interest, it’s unlikely that the product will be adopted. It’s crucial to perform proper market research and make adjustments based on market feedback.
- Using marketing shortcuts: The early stages of a startup require a lot of patience. However, many still choose to boost sales by looking for and taking marketing shortcuts. This might sound cliche, but there are no such shortcuts – the best thing you can do is focus on improving the product quality and building a strong reputation.
These are just a few common startup mistakes, but every journey comes with challenges, even with the best strategies in place. The good news? You don’t have to tackle them alone! Orient Software is here to support you from day one, helping you turn your ideas into reality. Let’s build something great together—reach out, and let’s make it happen!
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