The best time to get your app to market is yesterday. Great advice. Not very actionable. More actionable: get your app into the market as fast as you can. If you know you’re already working at your limits, we’ll show you how to get your app to market faster with one phone call. It’s not a secret – a big part of it is an extended development team.
Prioritise the right features of your app to launch sooner
The first step to getting your app to market faster is focusing on the Minimal Viable Product (MVP). The MVP has the smallest set of features that will deliver value to your customers and start generating revenue for your business.
This means at launch maybe they won’t be able to set a profile picture in the MVP, but they can login, view items and order. That’s what they really want to do with your app. And that’s what you need them to be able to do.
After launch you continue to iterate on your MVP, adding new features and improving existing functionality based on user feedback. Done right, this leads to increasing revenue and uptake of your app, making its ongoing development self-supporting.
Use an extended development team to get your app to market faster
There is a piece of folk wisdom in software engineering that says throwing more programmers at a problem will only make things take longer. This originates in Fred Brooks’ book The Mythical Man Month. Don’t worry about it. It’s true(ish) under certain circumstances. But developing a new app is not one of them.
As an app can be divided into a front end (the user interface) and a back end (that manages databases, authentication, integration with other services, etc), as well as processes like QA, devOps and provisioning infrastructure, there are multiple focus points where specific expertise, or simply more devs, can move your app forward.
It takes deep pockets and months of interviews to build a team that can hit all these areas at the same time. This is out of reach for most SMBs unless they make use of an extended development team.
The lack of in-house talent results in a long, slow path to launch, often delayed due to missing expertise. Most programmers can learn most programming related skills – languages, frameworks, algorithms, tools – but it takes time and it takes even longer to become an expert.
So, yes, your React programmer could optimise your database queries, but it would be faster and less error prone to hire a developer who already knows exactly what to do.
This is where the extended team comes in. Also known as a team extension, dedicated team or staff augmentation. An extended development team is a lot like remote workers but with better management, lower risk, and reduced costs.
One of the biggest benefits of an extended team is how quickly they can be put in place and start being productive. If you’re trying to get your app to market fast, this can save you months. This quick set up is made possible by the vendor you will work with.
How do you hire an extended development team?
Hiring an extended team requires a vendor like SoftwareSeni. In SoftwareSeni’s case, we use a hybrid onshore/near-shore model: your consultant is based in Australia, and our talent pool is located in Indonesia’s tech hub, Yogyakarta.
To hire your team you supply us with details on the skills and headcount that you need and SoftwareSeni provides candidates for you to interview. What can take two or three months (including negotiating salaries and paying fees to recruiters) is completed within a couple of weeks. And before you begin interviewing you already know what your costs will be.
How is an extended development team different from a remote team or outsourcing?
In this post-Covid era of Work From Home, an extended team is no different to a remote team. They show up (online). You manage them. They do the assigned work. They attend virtual stand-ups and meetings. Just like the rest of your team.
However, unlike normal remote employees, they work out of the vendor’s premises. This provides a secondary level of management at no extra cost to you. The vendor wants the developers in your extended team to deliver exactly what you need. They also provide your extended team members with technical and human resource support functions you don’t need to fund or deal with.
Unlike a typical outsourcing arrangement, you are in complete control and have complete insight into the work your extended development team members are doing for you.
Move faster and do more with an extended team
An extended team lets you increase your headcount, and development pace, without increasing your budget. The extended team also provides you with a level of flexibility a normal team cannot.
You can drop team members when their skills are no longer needed. You can add staff to areas that need more attention. All while having complete control over your budget.
Reduce your time-to-market with a phone call
The first step in getting your app into the market faster is to speak to your vendor. At SoftwareSeni we can help you to quickly finalise team composition and skill sets based on your product goals so you can start building faster. At every step you’ll be in complete control of costs and be able to scale your team up and down to match your budget.
Contact SoftwareSeni to start building your extended team and getting your app to market sooner.
