Startup Killer Scene

As I work in software development company, it made me wonder: how much this “low-pressure” attitude does apply to product and service development? What if the young team are overestimating their capabilities? If the dev teams pay so much attention and deliver so many efforts while building their apps, then why 95% of them fail?

Cool beer in a cool fridge is not that cool anymore

Following Judi Dench's 'M', The Huffington Post advises startup freshman to "take your ego out of the equation". Wenee Yap points out quite clearly that even big players make mistakes. What about the rookies?

We’re living in the specific moment of history. Henry Ford built his first car in a garage, the Wright Brothers used bicycle parts to reach the sky (actually it lasted 7 seconds and covered about 30 meters). And now even graduates, living on both sides of Atlantic, have access to monstrous sources of funding and variety of institutions - both public and private, which sometimes are ready to push some funds as a matter of pitch followed by PowerPoint presentation.

Seems like everyone can be an entrepreneur? Not exactly. Easy access to funds means a huge amount of startups that require office space, manpower and… customers (or at least big player, who just like the knight in shining armour will come over and acquire early stage/seed enterprise believing in its potential). When you finally got your investor, you’re like a young fish swimming in the ocean of opportunities… and sharks.

U-Boat heyday

Why will a large percentage of startups never make a profit? People like to see themselves as evolutionists, thinking that evolution means nothing more than consequence in self-development. In fact, one of the rules of Darwinism is the extinction of the weakest. According to the statistics, the majority of applications will never be downloaded because the time limit that we can spend on them is being reached. On our planet are also species which survive despite the fact that major part of representatives will never reach puberty. Startups are one of them.

Ironically, lots of new businesses follow the path of those who already got their torpedo and now are adorning the bottom of startups’ ocean, like there would be no other way. As a result, until MVP will be released (or not), waggons of euros/pounds/dollars will be spent on everything besides two things you most needed: product and sales.

Bruises and hickeys, stitches and scars

Alright. So what do you need to build your MVP? Cash? Check - angel investor is found. Idea? I assume you got plenty of them. Manpower? No problem - jump on one of the pages and post your job offer. Of course, you should keep in mind standard salaries of developers in your region.

As a young entrepreneur, you need to be competitive - frontend ninjas aren’t usually interested in volunteering or charity. You have to create an inspirational environment, rent a good-looking office. The price of rent may vary from 400 to 1000 Euros per square foot according to the location. That means that renting a 60-square meter office (which is pretty much tiny) let’s say in London suburbs can cost you around 2,5k/month. Be advised that not every engineer is easy-going and happy to work. Some of them might not understand your business core. They’re just people so might also get sick. Actually, your future depends on 2-3 random peeps who live for your money. Oh, wait a second - what is your HR experience again?

Hiring remote dev team is usually associated with paying way to low hourly rates for poor quality services of a company located in “more ancient part of the world”, as Batman’s Alfred would describe it. If you still live this vision, then welcome to 2017. According to the statistics, Poland is outsourcing heaven. English speaking, skilled and (usually) with good experience on international projects, Polish dev teams provide the perfect balance between costs and quality at the outstanding level. I’m not trying to say that you should forget about building an in-house team. In fact, I encourage you to do so, but at the right moment. Each business has its scalability, which means that your spendings should be subject to your revenue.

Being agile, so much agile…

On the other hand, if you think that “guys will do all the work” - you’re wrong. Good recognition of the market, getting familiar with the environment, as well as the description of business goals are still on your side. It doesn’t mean that the dev team will leave all of the business-associated work to you. As a matter of best practices, projects proceeded following agile methodologies should be launched with scoping workshop sessions. Thanks to that software house will learn about the product which is about to be made, and the customer will know his team and have a better understanding of the processes.

Nowadays Scrum is a standard; therefore you have the ability to switch the path if the market conditions will change (believe it or not - it happens all the time). Re-design and implementing additional features is possible for most of the time while developing the project. However, it requires experience from the team and good production capacity in general. All these factors taken together must be taken into account while making a decision between building an in-house team and hiring experts.