Custom Software Development Companies for Startups: How to Make it Work

Finding the right technical stakeholder to help you build your startup is hard.

You’ve probably already heard, and read, lots of opinions on “the only way” to go about it.

Whether those opinions are from investors, advisors, friends, family, or a famous entrepreneur you look up to.

Some will tell you that “investors invest in teams” so you must get a technical co-founder and build in-house.

Others will tell you you’ll never be able to attract a decent tech cofounder with an idea on a napkin, and that the smart move would be to work with an agency to build an MVP, get some traction, and then look for the perfect cofounder to onboard.

And that’s before you get to the actual process itself.

It's something my co-founders André, Paolo & Daniel know a thing or two about. They built nearly a dozen startups between them before coming together to build Altar.

And they’re not alone.

The story I usually come back to when advising entrepreneurs on this topic is from a UK based entrepreneur I worked with recently, Dudley Gould.

He’s the Founder of Audapio, a platform that uses open banking to provide auditors with real-time bank statements securely.

Like many non-technical entrepreneurs, he had the idea and business vision for his startup. What he didn’t have was the technical expertise to build it.

So he did what most entrepreneurs do. He looked for a technical co-founder to help him turn his vision into a reality:

I went to meetups. Reached out to friends and friends of friends. Reached out to ex-colleagues. Joined online groups. You name it, I tried it.
The days quickly turned into weeks. The weeks started going by quicker and quicker and I felt like I was going nowhere.

With his time-to-market getting longer, and his budget getting smaller, he decided to change tactics.

He included custom software development companies in his search.

After multiple conversations with 15 agencies, he chose one and set out to build his product.

Fast forward to today, and Audapio has recently been acquired by accounting platform Circit. As for Dudley? He’s their new VP of Business Development.

Happy ending aside, this is a story we’re seeing happen over and over again.

So my co-founder Paolo decided to create a guide to help you navigate the entrepreneur-development agency relationship, based on his extensive experience.

It all starts with where to begin your search, continues on to the key skills to look out for, right through to navigating the all-important agreement.

Check out the full guide here.

Thanks for reading.