How to choose a development partner

Choosing the provider matters more than choosing the technology. A good provider understands your business, quotes honestly and leaves you free to walk away. A bad one leaves you dependent on code nobody else can take over. Here is the checklist I recommend, including for comparing me with others.

The six criteria that matter

Questions to ask at the first meeting

1. Who will actually build my app? The salesperson, an employee, a subcontractor?
2. Can you show me a comparable app in production?
3. How does scoping work, and what do you deliver at the end of it?
4. When will I be able to test something?
5. Who will own the source code and rights, and from when?
6. Where will the app be hosted, and in whose name?
7. What do maintenance and new features cost after delivery?
8. What happens if we stop working together?

A serious provider answers these questions without hesitation. Vague answers on points 5, 6 and 8 should worry you: they concern your independence. The legal details are in what to require in the contract on code ownership.

Red flags

• A quote delivered without a single question about your processes.
• A price far below the others with no explanation of the scope.
• No delivery before the end of the project.
• A proprietary platform owned by the provider, which you will not be able to leave.
• Hosting in the provider’s name, with access they keep.
• Promises about AI with no specific use case and no way to measure the value.

Comparing quotes without getting it wrong

Quotes are only comparable if they answer the same need. First write a document describing your goals, users and constraints: the guide writing an RFP for a business application suggests a structure.

Then, for each quote, check:

• the functional scope, screen by screen or batch by batch;
• what is excluded: hosting, third-party services, data migration, training;
• the number of review rounds planned for the mockups;
• how long support lasts after go-live;
• the payment schedule.

If two quotes differ by a factor of two, do not jump to the conclusion that one is too expensive or the other too cheap. Ask each provider to explain what they understood of the need and what they excluded. In most cases, the gap comes from a difference in scope or assumptions, not in margin: one has planned for data migration and testing, the other has not. This conversation also tells you a lot about how each provider works.

To put the amounts you receive into perspective, the estimator gives an order of magnitude based on your project’s features.

What I offer, so you can compare

For transparency, here are my answers to the questions above: 17 years of experience, more than 800 projects supported, including ten years running a digital agency. Projects you can look at: O’GYM, a complete web app for a fitness club (in progress), OptiRoad, a platform for mobile professionals (in progress), and Nooxup V2, a delivered SaaS platform. A public method: 1 to 2 weeks of scoping, clickable mockups, development in batches tested by you, three months of support included. Fixed prices published on the pricing page, and the source code and rights transferred once the project is paid in full.

When it is better not to hire anyone

Sometimes the right decision is not to start a development project. If an off-the-shelf product covers your needs, if your process is not yet stable, or if you cannot free up time for workshops and testing, it is better to wait. A provider who tells you so is often a good sign.

If you have an in-house technical team, it may also make more sense to bring in an expert for architecture or code review rather than outsourcing everything.

Where to start

1. Describe your need in one or two pages.
2. Shortlist two to four providers of the profile that suits your project’s size; see freelancer, agency or IT services firm.
3. Ask them the eight questions above and compare the answers as closely as the prices.

The 30-minute discovery call is free: it is a good opportunity to ask me these questions.