Custom Software Development

Why this may interest you

So, you have an idea for a new software solution. You know, that you need a development company to make this idea a reality. Probably, this is where your certainty ends. There are so many things you need to take care of to make development kick-off, and your final product’s quality will depend on everything you do when choosing the development company.

It’s natural that the scope of pre-development tasks may terrify you, especially if it’s your first rodeo. It is great to know about your choice. Well, fear not – we have prepared a comprehensive guide to custom software development. Keep reading, and you’ll find out how to make all the right choices.

Custom or Off-the-Shelf Software?

The first question you should ask yourself is: “Do I really need a custom solution?”. You can have an alternative to developing a custom solution – acquiring an off-the-shelf one. Besides, you can customize an off-the-shelf solution to tailor it to your needs.

Let’s make one thing clear. If you aim to develop a solution for the market and you want to profit from it (e.g., a game or a task manager app), a custom solution is your only choice. It is only when you need a corporate solution that you may consider an off-the-shelf solution.

So, why could an off-the-shelf solution be your best option? Here’s a list of reasons to opt for it:

• It is faster than custom development. Sometimes, you don’t have the luxury to wait, and you need a solution as soon as possible. So, evaluate your time constraints;
• Implementation up-front costs are lower. This can be a considerable factor for small and/or young businesses, so estimate your budget;
• Your requirements are average for the industry. If your business needs don’t include anything very specific and/or unique and can be considered regular, an off-the-shelf solution will be more cost-efficient for you.

Usually, an off-the-shelf solution is the best choice for small businesses that need budget software. However, there are some cons you should be aware of:

• Unnecessary features. You still have to pay for them, but you don’t use them, and they may even decrease the productivity of your employees;
• Scalability. Not all off-the-shelf solutions are scalable enough to be your help years after you install them – so, you may need to migrate to another solution in the future;
• Upgrades. If you are working or you want to work with cutting-edge technologies, off-the-shelf solutions will not provide you with this opportunity – you’ll need to wait for the provider to implement changes, and there’s no guarantee they will correspond with your needs;
• Integrations. If you already have an ecosystem of corporate solutions, fully integrating an off-the-shelf one with them can be hard or in some cases even impossible.

If these cons are something you can’t accept, a custom solution is going to be your choice. By its definition, a custom solution is tailored to your every need, so there will be no unnecessary features or scalability issues, upgrades will be done as soon as possible, and the solution will be integrated with your other software. As a result, a custom solution will be your competitive advantage.

On the other hand, getting a custom solution has its cons: higher development costs and longer waiting time. So, make sure you can afford these. For a more detailed overview of custom/tailor-made software pros and cons, make sure to read this article.

In-House Or Outsourced Software Development?

So, you’ve made sure custom software development is what you need and what you can afford. Now, it’s time for you to choose who to hire. Generally speaking, you have two options here as well: hiring an in-house development team or partnering up with an outsourcing company.

Hiring in-house developers have the following advantages:

• Faster feedback loop – changes to the product can be made on the same day;
• Developers focus only on your project and they are more engaged in the process;
• They acquire a deep understanding of your product’s specifics, and this allows them to be more efficient at maintenance and support.

However, there is a number of challenges you’ll need to overcome:

• Recruitment means more time is needed. You’ll need to find recruiters and then wait for them to interview and select the candidates;
• It is more expensive. It’s not just about salaries, taxes and raises – you’ll also need to invest in the hiring process;
• Staff turnover may slow development down. Besides, you’ll need to invest in finding new team members and training them.

All in all, an in-house development team is the best option if your product keeps evolving and you need to be able to make changes immediately.

If this is not your case and you need a development team for a certain period of time, here’s how outsourcing can benefit you:

• Lower costs. You don’t need to invest in recruitment and staff turnover-related expenses;
• Faster start. As you don’t need to look for developers, development can start as soon as the requirements are clear and the documentation is ready;
• Richer talent pool. You are more likely to find developers with expertise in a particular field you need.

However, nothing is without a con, so you should pay attention to the following challenges (all of them can be avoided if you choose your development partner wisely and make everything clear):

• Software development agencies maybe not honest about their expertise and post-made-up profiles (so, you need to double-check the information’s authenticity);
• They may use your confidential data for other purposes (so, you need to protect your intellectual property and sign an NDA);
• You’ll still need someone to support your solution after it’s launched – this may make you dependent on the development company;
• You don’t know for sure whether your development partner assigns experts or beginning developers to your project.

All in all, outsourcing your software development is for you if:

• You don’t have time to hire and train developers;
• You have too tight of a budget to afford an in-house team;
• You don’t possess the necessary domain expertise;
• You would like to reduce operational costs;
• You need your staffing to be flexible;
• Your project won’t have to be changed drastically every now and then.

Read this article for more information on choosing between in-house and custom development.

Onshore, Offshore Or Nearshore Software Development Company?

So, you’ve determined that custom software development is a better fit for your needs. Now, you need to choose the company to work with. There are three outsourcing options based on the companies’ location you can choose from:

• Onshore development partner: in the same country, locally (you can drive there for a meeting) or non-locally (you’d have to take a flight);
• Offshore development partner: in another country several time zones apart from you;
• Nearshore development partner: in a neighboring country.

If this is the first time you outsource development, read this article for more tips you’ll find helpful in your particular situation.

Onshore Software Development

Onshore outsourcing has some considerable pros:

• Local developers have a better understanding of your end-users’ UX patterns;
• You can meet with the company’s representatives in person;
• Communication is not disrupted by language barriers, time zone, or cultural differences.

However, you should take into account that onshore development usually costs more than offshore or nearshore one. So, it’s a good option if your development budget allows for this. Surely, the development costs depend on the hourly rates of your country (e.g., they amount to $100-150 on average in the US), the developers’ level of expertise, and the company itself.

Should you choose a local or non-local development company? Well, this depends on your personal preferences. If you don’t mind taking a flight to meet with its representatives, a non-local company is a good enough choice. We strongly suggest you not choosing the company based solely on its location instead of focusing on its expertise. It’s better to work with the right team rather than a conveniently located one.

Offshore Software Development

Offshore software outsourcing means turning to a company operating quite far away from you. The most popular choices include Eastern European countries, China, and India. Although you may have heard that this option means getting a low-quality product, this is not always true. To avoid this outcome, you need to be thorough when choosing the company to partner up with.

There are three main benefits of opting for offshore software development outsourcing:

• Reduced costs. Offshore software development rates vary by the country, but you can expect them to be as low as $18-40 per hour;
• Larger talent pool. You can find incredible talents in particular fields at a lower cost – just pay attention to the countries’ specialization and offshore software development trends;
• Faster development. Typically, offshore software development firms are staffed with more employees than onshore ones, so you can expect your project to be ready faster.

Apart from the potentially low product quality, you should take into consideration the following challenges:

• Communication. Time zone differences can make effective communication difficult to achieve. Language barriers and cultural differences can also get in the way;
• Design and UX. Offshore software developers from a far-away country may encounter difficulties with creating the design and UX suitable for your target group due to a lack of experience and cultural differences.
• Detailed project requirements. Typically, offshore companies need you to provide all the specifications in detail, so your project scope must be well-defined beforehand.

All in all, offshore software development suits the companies with a tight budget and well-defined project specifications. Besides, you need to make sure you have an experienced project manager to facilitate the development process on your end.

Nearshore Software Development

Nearshore development combines the perks of onshore and offshore outsourcing. You get to hire developers at a lower cost than in your own country (although it will be higher than in the case with offshore development). Another perk is that you can integrate developers into the process more easily as you are in the same time zone and cultural differences, even if present, are insignificant.

On the other hand, you still need to account for design and UX challenges that are the same as in the case of offshore development. Besides, you’ll need to define your project scope in detail before starting the cooperation with a nearshore software development company.

All in all, nearshore development services are usually the best scenario if you need to expand your current development team with several developers and your budget is tight. Take into account that you can need a project manager on your end as well.

Choosing The Right Technology Stack

The technology stack includes all the programming languages, frameworks, and tools that are used during development to create your product. Defining them beforehand is crucial as you need to know what expertise your development partner should have.

Surely, if you are a non-technical founder yourself, this part is going to be tricky for you. So, if this is the case, we recommend you turn to experts for advice. Yet, be careful – don’t rely solely on your competitors’ tech stack or someone’s subjective opinions.

Here’s what you need to consider when choosing the tech stack for your project:

• Final product. The tech stack for a VR game won’t be the same as for a task management mobile app, obviously;
• Platforms. Is it going to be a web application? A mobile app? A desktop app? All of them? Your tech choice will depend on your answers;
• Maturity. The more mature a certain technology is, the more stable it is, the more developers you can find, and the more complimentary tools they can use to speed up development;
• Talent pool. It doesn’t make financial sense to choose a technology if you can barely find developers proficient in using it. Besides, such developers require higher rates.

Bonus tip: if you need a mobile app, make sure to think about multi-platform app development and decide whether you need a native, hybrid, or web app.

As the development itself consists of two main parts, front-end (or client-side) and back-end (or server-side) development, you will need to come up with the tech stacks for each of them.

Front-end Development Stack

The front-end part of your software is what your user sees and interacts with.

If you need a web application, your front-end tech stack will include HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and (optionally) JavaScript (AngularJS, ReactJS, etc.) and/or presentation (Bootstrap, etc.) frameworks.

If it’s a mobile app you’re after, you’ll have to use Swift for iOS and Java or Kotlin for Android.

Back-end Technology Stack

The back-end is invisible to your user. It powers the logic of the app, and it’s responsible for passing data from the user side to the server-side and vice versa.

The LAMP stack is considered to be the most popular one for web service development. It consists of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (sometimes, Python or Ruby replace PHP in this stack). The MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, and Node.js) is often used as well. Another popular choice is the Microsoft stack that includes the .NET framework, C#, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Azure, Visual Basic, win.js, ReactXP, etc. You can read our article on choosing the tech stack for web applications here to find out more.

Selecting The Right SDLC

SDLC stands for the software development life cycle, and it is the framework that a development company follows during the development process. Basically, it is a set of tasks that have to be fulfilled at every stage.

There are a variety of approaches a development company may be using, but we won’t cover all of them. Instead, we’ll focus on the two most common ones: the Waterfall model and the Agile software development cycle methodology.

The Waterfall Model

The Waterfall model is the oldest one, and it is often referred to as the ‘traditional’ model. Its underlying principle is simple – you finish one stage and only then you can start the next one because you rely on the previous stage results.

On the one hand, Waterfall has its benefits:

• It is simple to follow;
• It allows for predictability;
• It is quick to accomplish.

On the other hand, there are considerable cons you need to take into account:

• It is impossible to change the requirements during the development;
• It doesn’t suit the products requiring intense support and maintenance.

All in all, this approach suits the projects that have well-defined clear requirements and are not innovative one-of-a-kind solutions. If you opt for Waterfall, you need to be sure your requirements reflect the needs and wants of your end-users and your hypotheses are correct.

The Agile Methodology

Agile itself represents guidelines that are the basis of full-fledged development frameworks like Scrum, Lean, Kanban, etc. Its main distinctive feature is that the Agile development cycle is not linear – it is iterative. Each iteration results in a working product release.

Its main benefit is that it suits projects that don’t have clear requirements yet as you can introduce changes in-between iterations. Besides, this allows you to create an MVP and enhance it with incremental changes with each next sprint. This allows for earlier testing and fine-tuning the final products. Overall, the development process is less rigid than it is under Waterfall.

On the other hand, you should prepare yourself to be uncertain when it comes to launching dates and the final budget.

All in all, the Agile software development life cycle is a good choice if you are unsure about your project requirements and you aim for a revolutionary solution using advanced technologies.

Determining The Development Budget

There are tons of articles dedicated to calculating software development costs, and they may even contradict one another. So, we’d like to give you a general idea of what factors impact potential development costs. Basically, they are roughly calculated as the number of working hours needed to develop a solution multiplied by the hourly rate.

Bonus tip: add a buffer of 30% to your custom software development cost for unforeseen circumstances.

Hourly rates vary depending on:

• The location of your development partner. The average rates are $100-150 in the US, $60-95 in Western European countries, $25-45 in Eastern European countries, $18-40 in China and India;
• The kind of developers you need. iOS developers’ hourly rates are $10-15 higher than those of Android developers, for instance.

The number of working hours for your project is determined by the complexity of your solution. It, in turn, depends on:

• Functionality. The more product features you want, the more time it’ll take to develop your solution. Besides, depending on the feature, developers can use an API to implement it (which is faster) or they may need to develop it from square one;
• Design. You can ask to use a ready-made user interface or develop a completely new unique one – in the latter case, the development will take more time;
• Platforms. The platforms you choose impact the timeline, especially if you need a solution for multiple platforms. For instance, if you want mobile apps for both iOS and Android, native development will take more time (developers basically create two apps from scratch) than hybrid or web apps.

Bonus tip: some technologies and APIs are proprietary, and you’ll need to pay for using them in your solution (usually, it is a monthly or annual bill).

There is no universal answer to the question “How much does custom software cost?”. So, we recommend you to either get a professional estimation for the software development budget or request a quote from a potential development partner.

Choosing The Right Pricing Model

The final amount of money you’ll pay for development will also depend on the pricing model. Software development agencies typically offer you to use one of two pricing models today: Time & Material or Fixed Price.

Time & Material

According to this pricing model, you are charged based on the number of hours developers spent on your project plus the costs of materials (technologies fees, for instance). This means that you will pay for the actual work done by the development team.

The main perk of the Time & Material model is flexibility. This is why it suits projects that don’t have a precisely defined project scope beforehand and/or long-term ambitious ones where the idea is tested with end-users and evolves based on their feedback.

On the other hand, you need to brace yourself for an unclear development budget – the costs may change throughout the development process. Besides, take into account that you’ll need to be more involved in the whole process to be in control of expenses.

Fixed Price

This model is simpler and more straightforward: your development partner gives you the price list, you negotiate it, and agree upon a fixed cost you’ll pay for development.

On the one hand, this means no surprises – the development cost will not change halfway through.

Typically, such certainty comes at a price, and development costs are higher than when using the Time & Material model. Besides, as you need to determine the full project timeline to calculate the costs, this will take more time before the development start.

The fixed price model works well combined with the Waterfall methodology as you need to define the project scope beforehand. All in all, you should choose this pricing model if you have a fixed project scope, a budget you can’t exceed, and time limits, your project duration is small up, usually up to 3 months.

Custom Software Risks And How To Address Them

Any business endeavor implies taking risks, and custom software development is no exception. There is a number of things that could go wrong, so you need to make sure your risk management is on top to avoid the worst-case scenario. So, how do you ensure quality in the software you create? There are six risks you need to be aware of.

Source Code Ownership

It seems obvious that you own every part of your solution, right? Well, it’s not always the case. Depending on the company and its policies, it may turn out that it owns your source code, not you. Besides, sometimes, software development agencies include the source code in the pricing but don’t provide you with everything you might need to hire another development company afterward (for support and maintenance, for instance).

How can you avoid this scenario? Negotiate these peculiarities and make sure the agreement includes the transfer of ownership of the source code to you.

Missed Deadlines

So, your development partner says they can finish your solution in five months. This may mean one of four things:

• It will be ready for launch in exactly five months;
• They say what you want to hear, but there’s no guarantee the deadline will be met;
• They’ll try to meet this deadline even though their experience says more time is needed;
• They have never worked on a project like yours and have no idea whether the deadline can be met.

Surely, the first option is the most desirable ones. To avoid the other three ones, we suggest you get a third-party timeline estimate and make sure the development partner has experience in your type of projects. Besides, always account for potential unforeseen circumstances that may slow development down.

What is more important, you should check the ongoing development progress regularly. Most companies offer you access to a shared task management system where you’ll be able to see whether tasks are completed on time.

Exceeded Budget

Just like the deadlines, the cost you are promised isn’t always the amount of money you’ll have to pay eventually, especially if you opt for the Time & Material model. As frustrating as it is, you will have to deal with this with the 99% probability.

First of all, you’ll need to come to terms with the fact that it’s a very rare case when you can estimate the cost up to a dollar. So, make sure your budget has room for unforeseen expenses.

If your budget is tight, prioritizing certain features will help you stay within it – during the development, you’ll be able to refuse the not-so-important functionality to save your budget.

Failed Expectations

So, you get your final product, but you are frustrated with how it turned out. This is a quite plausible scenario, yet it’s easily avoidable.

To make sure this is not going to be your case scenario, you need to do three things:

• Pinpoint your own expectations and present them as the objectives and outcomes you’re after;
• Make sure your requirements are clear to the development partner;
• Keep your hand on the pulse of development and check the work in progress to make changes if needed and possible.

Miscommunication

Miscommunication will happen; it’s inevitable. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t mitigate this risk and its consequences.

First of all, don’t expect to lean back and just wait after the development kicks off. This is not like you to order a ready-made item online. You need to be communicating with the development company regularly to make sure you get what you want.

Secondly, make sure you voice your expectations and needs precisely. It’s not enough to say “I want a mobile game like Angry Birds”. You should discuss every detail of your vision and the cooperation process itself beforehand and make sure they are clear by putting them in the product requirements document. Besides, you should learn to give feedback to make changes efficiently.

Finally, write instead of calling. What’s said during calls is forgettable. Your messages are what developers will refer to when reacting to your feedback. Make sure you phrase your thoughts accurately and in detail so that they are easy to understand.

Want to know more about making your requirements clear for any development company? Make sure to check this article out.

We suggest you make communication with the development of the company regular and consistent. This way, you’ll be able to keep your hand on the pulse.

Solution Overloaded with Features

You may want to squeeze every potentially helpful feature in your app. (This is common among both developers and clients.) So, you may end up paying extra money for features that end-users will find useless.

To avoid this, make sure you understand what core functionality you absolutely need. If you need a custom solution for the market, think about that one or two features that will make your solution stand out among countless others. If you need a business solution, analyze your working processes thoroughly to identify which features will optimize them.

Your Journey From A Feature List To the Final Product

You shouldn’t feel lost during this journey – if you do, you won’t be efficient enough to make it stress-free and predictable enough. The basic outline of any software development process consists of six main stages. Let’s take a quick look at each of them.

Software Strategy

Don’t jump into outlining your requirements just yet. You need to understand why you need this particular product or, in other words, what end-users’ needs it will meet – this will be the core of your strategy.

To get a comprehensive software strategy, you should determine:

• The solution’s purpose;
• The target group(s) (the answer “everyone” is not good enough; we also suggest you create user personas to describe them);
• How it will help end-users (i.e. what pain points and needs it will address);
• Competitors (direct and indirect);
• The mediums you’ll use to reach your end-users (this depends on their preferences).

Prioritized Feature List

Now you need to pinpoint what exactly your solution will do. To do this, think about how your end users’ will interact with your app. We suggest you follow the user persona formula to make sure this list will be clear to developers: As a [user type], I want to [achieve a certain goal] in order to [the reason]. You can learn more about user stories here.

Bonus tip: interviewing your potential end users can help you determine relevant user stories, especially if you gather their feedback on competitor solutions and watch them interact with such solutions.

Once you’ve created the list of features, you need to prioritize them (we’ve already mentioned why prioritization matters). There are many prioritization techniques you can use. The bucket method is among the most popular ones: basically, you put every user story in one of the buckets. The number of buckets may vary depending on the solution’s complexity, but the one with the highest priority should include features that you can’t launch the solution without.

Technical Requirements

This is the stage where the UX designer views your feature list and creates the solution’s architecture and its flow. As a result of this stage, the following items will be created:

• Information architecture. It reflects the solution’s flow and what data gets passed from where to where and how;
• User flow diagram. This is a screen-by-screen navigation process the user may follow;
• Wireframes. These are the mockups of the solution’s design – they visualize what it’ll look like.

Development Plan

Also known as the sprint plan or development schedule, it reflects the timeline of the development process. It is created by the development team, but your involvement is necessary as well.

In order to plan the development, you need to estimate how long the whole process will take by evaluating the number of hours required for each feature and any extra tasks (daily meetings, etc.). Based on the number of hours, development is divided into iterations, and you determine which features get developed during each iteration. Iterations are usually one or two weeks long.

Development Itself

This is the domain of your development partner, true, but it doesn’t mean you can lean back and relax. You should keep your hand on the pulse – review the progress in the task management system and communicate with the company if necessary.

At the end of every iteration (if developers work according to Agile), you will get a working product. You should be able to give feedback on whether it meets your expectations and introduce changes in-between iterations if necessary.

Launch

There are several things you need to make sure of before launching the release you’ve got:

• Load testing to make sure your product will handle the number of users;
• Technical maintenance to ensure you have someone to fix bugs and errors as soon as possible;
• Customer support to be able to process and analyze users’ feedback.

Besides, you’ll need to review the development plan and determine whether you’ll follow it without changes or not.

Feature Improvement

So, you’ve got your product and launched it. It is not going to be perfect, and there will always be room for improvement. The iterative software development process presupposes that you’ll need to begin from the prioritized feature list again or, sometimes, even the strategy behind new features.

Keep in mind that you should take into account the feedback end users give you.

Do you want to make sure you’ve secured the quality of the web development process? Download our material to learn everything you will need to do this.

How To Find And Seal The Deal With A Custom Software Development Company

The quality of the final product relies on both you and the development company. So, even if you do everything by the book but choose the wrong (i.e. unreliable) partner, you can say goodbye to your return on investment.

So, how do you make the right choice? Here’s a guide on how to find software developers:

• Make the initial list of candidates. You can do it in two ways – ask those you trust for referrals (on social media, via email, in person, etc.) and/or just google the companies specializing in what you need;
• Assess them. Distribute certain points to each candidate after analyzing the following. (Bonus tip: never base your choice solely on the financial factor):
  • How they communicate with clients (tools and methodologies),
  • Their expertise (check out the portfolio),
  • Technology stacks they have experience with,
  • Referrals and recommendations (make sure they are real),
  • Location,
  • The pricing model, etc.

• Create the shortlist. Choose 3-5 most suitable companies and look for any red flags (fake reviews, lawsuits, scandals, etc.). Make sure your research is thorough;
• Contact them. Now it’s time to get in touch. There are three stages here:
  • Send the company your project summary with objectives and requirements, specify the time and budget constraints;
  • Talk to several representatives of the companies in person or via a video call to clarify how your potential cooperation can go (make sure the technical specialist is present as well and the company representatives got prepared for the call);
  • Ask for the project proposal with quotes (don’t hesitate to ask as many questions as you need to make everything clear).

Evaluating Proposals

Let’s take a closer look at the project proposals and quotes. You should ask every shortlisted company for one to compare them and make up your mind.

A quick side note. Be transparent about your decision-making process – there’s no need to give false hope and hide that you are considering multiple companies at the moment.

So, you’ve got your proposals. What’s next? Pinpoint the differences between them and how crucial they are. Neglect the proposals that seem vague (but remember that your project summary has to be detailed and precise for the proposal to be the same).

Selecting the Right Company

There are three main things you need to analyze based on your experience of contacting each company and discussing your project:

• Communication. Miscommunication can cost you a lot, and if you see red flags in the way the company representatives communicate with you, it’s better to be safe than sorry – don’t partner up with it;
• Tech expertise. Make sure it corresponds with your requirements and the company can actually deliver the product. You may need a third-party tech consultant to evaluate the proposals and ensure the company knows how to implement your idea in the best way;
• Current state. You should read between the lines to see whether there is something going on in the company that can harm the development process. This may include huge staff turnover, conflicts in the top management, cash flow disruptions, etc.

Sealing the Deal

There are three contracts that you’ll need to negotiate and sign to ensure the obligations are clear:

• NDA (a non-disclosure agreement);
• SOW (a statement of work);
• MSA (a master governing contract).

NDAs are usually mutual. This means that you take on an obligation not to disclose any confidential information about the development company and the way it operates. They are pretty standard for the industry but do make sure there are no obligations except for secrecy.

SOWs contain the pricing model that you’ve chosen. We’ve already covered the Time & Material and Fixed Price models above.

Now, the MSA is what you should pay the maximum amount of attention to. This contract determines the overall cooperation process, and there are four things you need to negotiate:

• Payment terms (how and when you pay for the development services);
• The non-compete clause (ensure that the development company won’t start working for your competitors several months after your cooperation ends);
• Portfolio use (whether the development company can use your solution for their portfolio);
• Intellectual property (make sure you own all of it at the end of development).

In Conclusion

Overwhelming? Well, it can be, and there’s no shame in this. Custom software development is hardly a piece of cake. So, you need to make sure you won’t get lost during this journey. We hope that our guide has made it clear what’s ahead of you.

In case you are looking for a development company, reach out to us to discuss your project. We’ll help you make all the right choices and avoid common pitfalls so that you can get your solution out there in the world in time.