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HOW TO FIND WEB DEVELOPERS FOR STARTUP

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09
Jun 2018

Once you come up with a distinct concept for a web technology-based project, don’t take too long to implement it. Start looking to hire developers for your startup right away if possible. Urgency is crucial because your product can and will lose its relevance with time. Additionally, the developers’ rates also grow with each passing year. If today your startup would cost N thousand dollars, you may as well expect the numbers to increase by about N*1.5 thousand bucks in only a year.

The “urgency tip” is one of the many recommendations we would like to give you in this article. We will also tell you how to find a web developer for your startup while experiencing budget limitations or otherwise.

Suppose you have found an unoccupied market niche, formed your assumptions in the concept and believe that it’s time to turn your idea into a product. The first thing you need to do is to structure your thoughts on this, to understand which specialist is needed. Ask yourself these questions:

  • Do you really need a developer (while there are countless online templates and constructors, they often don’t correspond to the project needs)?
  • What is my budget and time frame?
  • What programming language will be used?
  • What skills should the developer have?
  • How complex is the design, do you need an interface designer?
  • Do you need to hire one developer or a company (team)?
  • Do you need to hire an in-house developer or go outsourcing instead?

If you do not have answers to many of these questions, you should consult technical specialists. The idea is to clearly articulate which specialist you need and where you can find them.

Wherever you are looking for a candidate, remember: do not completely reveal your idea, only the necessary moments or better sign NDA to protect your idea. Check if the candidate has the necessary skills, ask for recommendations or a story about the previous working experience.

How to find developers for a startup: six incredibly useful tips

Check out the six main recommendations to help you answer the question “How and where do I find developers for my startup?” below.

Know what you’re doing – study the technical part of your startup plan

For instance, many web solutions (especially, if we are talking about websites and not web applications) can be built with free engines like Wix or WordPress. Good, free templates can be found on Pixeden and on Freepik. All in all, before looking for a team of web developers, think – maybe you can handle some stages of the startup building process single-handedly, especially if you already have experience in creating commercial web projects.

Simply ask

Don’t be too shy to ask your friends. Ask like-minded people who work in your sphere, as well as investors and clients you have worked with before, to share the contacts of professionals they may know who are looking for work. You may come across some great experts. You can also look on forums, pulblic pages, blogs, and websites online where a number of web development enthusiasts gather.

Think about an MVP

If your software or other ideas are mostly original, and you are unable to follow the road paved by other developers, think about creating a Minimum Viable Product. By using a Minimum Viable Product, you won’t have to gather a solid team; a couple of freelancers may be enough for you. One freelancer can do the coding, while the other works on design – simple as that! By using an MVP, you enable your customers to get the most out of your concept. It is also an excellent way to attract new potential investors for the next stages of the software development process, organization, and, in particular, for enriching the existing project with new features.

Employ the services of IT companies abroad

If you are living in the USA, Australia, or in Western Europe, you know very well how expensive the services of local web developers can be. The prices for these services can be quite high. This fact is one of the many reasons why many startup companies must delay the plan of complete functionality in favor of an MVP. In order to be able to take a shortcut on this route and begin fulfilling all of the initial concepts, we’d recommend viewing the offers of foreign IT companies and freelancers. For instance, Eastern Europe is a good place to look for IT companies and freelancers. In particular, Ukrainian developers offer much lower rates per hour without sacrificing quality of work in any way. As a matter of fact, it is much cheaper to live in Ukraine than in most of Western Europe and the USA, so Ukrainian IT workers can ask for a more reasonable payment from the client’s perspective while still being able to earn a livable income for themselves.

Moreover, by looking for IT specialists in Eastern Europe, you won’t have to pay rent for an office or for expensive hardware and software. The field of IT is highly developed in Ukraine. The country was estimated to be home to over 90,000 IT specialists in 2016, and the number has been increasing ever since. The owners of outsourcing companies always accommodate their employees with a focus on productiveness.

Involve freelancers

You may come to the conclusion that you don’t really need a whole team of web developers to work on your project, but a couple of people will do just fine, even if they aren’t all in one location. If this is true for you, try to find a developer for your startup in a freelance market. The most popular resources to look at are Smashing JobsUpworkDamongo, and iFreelance. In order to protect yourself from the lack of skill in your workers, you can turn to third-party services like escrow. The main thing here is to make sure that a remote employee is capable of accomplishing the set task single-handedly, and they will do just fine without a team or any other additional support.

Turn to an outstaffing agency

If the idea of looking for developers for your startup abroad seems like too much unnecessary work for you, you can turn to the services of special outstaffing agencies that would gladly find web developers for you. If you have never looked for workers abroad, if you have had previous bad experiences with remote workers, or if you do not have the time to interview, an outstaffing agency may be a good fit for you. Traditionally, these agencies not only provide you with the contact info of the candidates, they also accommodate the contractors with offices, necessary hardware, and even handle the official employment. As you can see, the performance of such an advanced remote team is unlikely to be inferior to that of a hired team working next door. You can conveniently track, monitor, and manage everything via Skype or any other remote connection service.

Post job offerings on social networks or on a personal website

Do you have your own well-promoted internet resource like a blog, social network page, or website? If you do, having this online resource can be a great place to announce that you are looking to hire someone for your startup. Use your creativity to the fullest in order to grab the attention of as many people as possible to make them repost and share your announcement with people they may know who would be interested in the position. If your online resource is visited daily by thousands of unique users, you will surely find candidates during your first week of search, but be prepared to hold many long, tiring interviews.

How to hire developers for a startup: conclusion

To summarize everything we have said, we can see that in order to get an optimal price to quality ratio for the end product, it’s worth trying to find developers for your startup in the Eastern European countries. There, you can find highly-qualified programmers that can completely implement your web technology-based startup with the highest quality.You can even make us responsible for giving you this idea! The team of web developers for startups from the Webcase studio has been grinding in the Ukrainian IT market since 2010. It has come to employ more than 30 qualified experts that successfully work on the projects for clients from the USA, Germany, the UK, France, Norway, Japan, Canada, and others. Turn to us and you will get a firm guarantee that your future product will be executed according to the best practices of web development used by world-renowned IT companies.

Ilya Smyrnov

Author: Ilya Smyrnov

Position: CEO, Business analyst

Biography: Более 8 лет занимаюсь анализом бизнесов клиентов и повышаю их эффективность с помощью внедрения IT-решений.

Thank you for your interest!

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