Finding the Right Technical Partner for Your Startup

"As a non-technical person, it’s vital you don’t jump into bed with someone just because they say they’re a technical co-founder. Candidly, you’re not skilled enough to know whether or not that person can deliver.

For us, a technical partner in the form of a software development company was actually more valuable.

My founding team and I have close to 100 years of business experience between us. When we had the debate it was very much around recognising the complexity of what we were about to build. I think it's very important for people to be realistic about this.

It’s very easy to look up no-code solutions. Or to find somebody who’s come from an engineering background, built their fantastic “flappy bird” app and has seen success.

But the reality of it is that that person is either very highly skilled or the system they’ve built isn’t that complex.

When you start to get into a complex product – large volumes of data, a data cluster infrastructure, the right UX/UI interfacing for operational efficiency, etc. – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you have two choices. You either:

- Hire a team of five to ten people, hope you’ve got it right and try to manage them;
- Or you go to a team of people who do this kind of work every day.

So we said to ourselves, let’s go and find the best of breed software development companies who do this all the time.”

This quote comes from former HSBC Managing Director turned entrepreneur, Adil Kurt-Elli.

Last year, Adil decided to entrust our team to build the MVP for his startup, Synch.

Looking at the outcome we had together, I decided to ask him to share his experience both looking for and working with a software company.
Here’s why:

First, entrepreneurs often come to my fellow Altarions and me to ask about the “Founder/Agency” relationship, as well as the outsourcing process as a whole. I know this is a question that needs answering. And who better to answer it than a peer entrepreneur.

After all, like with anything, the best way to learn about the process is from someone who’s done it successfully.

Secondly, I wanted to give you a peek behind the curtain at how we operate at Altar.

And, again, who better to give you that than an entrepreneur we’ve worked with closely for nearly a year.

Fortunately, Adil was more than happy to share his story with you, which you can read in full here.

I hope it shines some light on the process to successfully partner with a software agency.

And, most all, it helps you find the right tech partner to help you succeed.

Good luck & thanks for reading