MVP: 5 Reasons Why Startup in Netherlands Should Outsource their Software Development

As a startup founder you need to know the best route to develop your MVP. Here are 5 reasons why you should consider outsourcing your MVP development: (1.) Expert Support (2.) Cost-Effective (3.) Faster Release (4.) Professional Project Management (5.) Proven Structured Process.
Author:
Munib Ali

Why Should You Outsource Your MVP Development?

So you have an amazing idea you want to execute for your new startup. You have identified the market gap and know your (potential) clients’ needs. You would like to start the development of your product but don’t have a technical partner or the background required. What do you do now?


You can consider finding a technical partner (perhaps a CTO?) who could save you money by taking equity instead of a salary. This, however, can take a long time if you don’t already have someone on your radar. The other option is to choose an outsourcing partner. Why? It can save you a significant amount of money, time and personnel resources, while you focus on the business development of your startup.


5 Reasons to Outsource Your MVP Development

Before we jump onto the reasons why you should outsource your MVP development, let’s first take a quick look at other tech giants who had similar approaches. From earlier days to now, there have been many big names, including Slack, Google and Alibaba, who outsourced their products to development agencies across the globe. Now let’s get to our list of reasons:

1. Expert Support

Outsourcing gives you the opportunity to outsource your software development to world-class experts in that domain. Hiring an expert and skilled team offers you the ability to work with full-time competent support on your project. Their work and skills have been developing rapidly as their core focus is software development. This ensures that you not only get the right people, but those right people will ask you the right questions to bring fruitful results.

Let’s take a quick example. As a founder, you may have a clear vision in your mind on how the required app should look, function and perform. However, translating that vision into technical requirements and then adopting the right practices to turn into a reality requires expert intervention. This is where a dedicated software development team really pays off!

2. Cost-Effective (Higher ROI)

We now know how advantageous it can be to bring an expert team onboard. Now you may think; expert = expensive! Although that’s true in most cases, it may not be that true here. Why, you ask? Well, let’s take the first reason as an example. When you lack technical knowledge, your vision may be too out of scope for an MVP. You may try to build all the “Nice-to-have” features, which don’t necessarily add much value to your MVP users. The entire idea of building an MVP is to keep your costs as low as possible, while validating your product hypothesis. Bringing an external team can allow you to see beyond your personal biases (let’s be honest, we the startup founders, fall in love with our ideas) and only focus on the “Must-Have” features. Last but not the least, an experienced software development agency has a much higher probability of getting your MVP right in the first attempt, saving you a significant amount in unnecessary revisions.


To learn more about what cost to build an MVP inhouse vs. outsource, read our extensive article on it here: What Does MVP Development Cost in 2021: Inhouse Vs. Outsourcing

3. Faster Release (Time-to-Market)

Instead of waiting to find the right CTO, or hire an in-house developer, it’s much faster to approach a software development team. A dedicated team of developers means your MVP will be live within the scope of time you both mutually agreed upon (usually between 8 to 12 weeks). More so, you will gain access to their whole team, where work gets divided efficiently and in a professional manner. Since all developers work in-house, they can communicate more efficiently, reducing the overall time of development.

For example, at Seanode Technologies, we aim to deliver all MVP projects within the time scope of 3 months. Although there are some unique cases that may require more or less time, we believe 3 months is a good benchmark for any kind of MVP development. Exceeding that scope can cost more money and result in building unnecessary features or functionalities.

4. Professional Project Management

You may be wondering how does professional  project management differs from “Expert Support”. There is a key difference that lies in the middle. An expert support can be in the form of a freelancer as well, where you hire one (hopefully skilled) professional to carry out the entire development. Now imagine you both agreed upon a fixed scope of time and budget, and the freelancer ends up taking much longer than what was initially agreed. You raise these concerns to the appointed freelancer, and he decides to just disappear and ghost on you. Now how do you hold liable and responsible for this? The true nightmare occurs when the freelancer hired is in another country. You will simply have to accept your fate in this scenario and start over.

If you work with a professional team, you won’t ever have to worry about meeting deadlines or passing on the technical requirements to actual developers. Almost every good software development agency offers a dedicated product/project manager that is assigned to every MVP. This ensures a high level of reliability and accountability when it comes to delivering project on-time and on-budget.

5. Proven Structured Process

Agile manifesto for software development requires a large emphasis on structured processes, where effective communication and iterative learning is the key. When working with an outsourced team, you can expect a well-organized and structured process of the entire software development. They will offer you a clear overview of the expected milestones and deliverables beforehand so you are aware of the entire timeline. More so, the key here is to keep YOU (the end client) involved in the entire process as your feedback is imperative to deliver a high-quality product.

Key Takeaways

Don’t compromise your extraordinary idea with an ordinary product. For any startup, building and launching their first MVP is the foundation of their journey. It allows you to validate your assumptions, pilot test its functionality with beta users, and pivot earlier on if need be. Selecting the right approach for MVP development is the key difference between high return on investment and zero-return-on-investment. If you already have a reliable tech partner in your close circle or professional network, perhaps it’s wiser to reach out to them first. However, if you don’t have that option, outsourcing MVP development to an external team can lead you to much better results as you gain access to top experts. It saves you a significant amount of time and money, where the end results are of high-quality.


Would you like to know what it costs to build an MVP in 2021? Read our other article here.


Are you looking for an experienced MVP development team to outsource your next big idea? Leave your email below and our team will contact you within 1 business day.

Published on:
August 24, 2021