As a start-up business, you understand the challenges of being an entrepreneur. Start-up businesses are typically short-staffed. Team members must play numerous roles, and days are long and filled with more tasks than the team can accomplish. Start-ups survive with great ideas, innovation and vision. But to achieve their goals, they must be able to execute on those visions.

According to TechReport, 90% of start-ups will fail after the first year of operation. 35% of start-up failures are attributed to the inability to meet a market need.

By engaging expert application and software product consulting resources, your team can achieve its goals without investing in expensive in-house resources, expanding facilities to accommodate IT staff, or managing training for technical staff members.

When a start-up has a great idea for a software application to satisfy a consumer or business-to-business need, it is wise to engage an IT consulting firm to plan and execute the project. Typically, a start-up does not have the skilled resources to design and develop a software product on its own. Beyond these skills, the engagement of expert application development resources can benefit the start-up business in numerous ways.

Delivery Models – Choose a delivery model that is right for your needs (onsite, offshore or hybrid) with a team that can work with your staff to produce the best results, and function as part of your team with tools, techniques and communication methods that are suitable for your business.

Market Research and Requirements Planning – Test your concept with market research to avoid risk and ensure appropriate focus on your target audience. Map requirements for the app to include all relevant features and functionality and assure customer satisfaction.

MVP Design and Development – Your start-up may choose to approach design using a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to include critical features and test the user experience and functionality against user expectations. Design concepts are incorporated into the final product to optimize the development cycle and costs and produce a seamless product on schedule and on budget. The MVP process can be crucial to product and app creation and, by assessing the viability of concepts and better understanding user requirements in advance of final design, the business can save time and costly mistakes.

Quality and Testing – Assure the quality and compliance of your project with expert resources to mitigate risk, protect data and privacy and assure appropriate user access and security.

Roll-Out and Deployment – Work with your expert application development team to plan roll-out and deployment for optimal impact, and a controlled implementation that will protect the reputation of the business and achieve success.

User Training and Support – Ensure appropriate user adoption and training with expert assistance and skilled support.

Support and Maintenance – Ensure dependable, timely support and application maintenance to provide dependable function, performance and scalability.

Planning for Upgrades – Look to the future and plan for expansion, additional features, and the use of new and advanced technology to assure that your software application or software product will remain relevant and competitive.

When a start-up has a great idea for a software application to satisfy a consumer or business-to-business need, it is wise to engage an IT consulting firm to plan and execute the project.

By engaging expert application and software product consulting resources, your team can achieve its goals without investing in expensive in-house resources, expanding facilities to accommodate IT staff, or managing training for technical staff members.

If you are a start-up business owner or manager, and you wish to explore the opportunities inherent in a software application, mobile application or any other technology initiative, including augmented analytics, contact us to find out more about our partnerships and Build Your Software Team. Explore this case study, describing our decades-long partnership with Organized Feedback, and Case Studies highlighting Minimum Viable Product (MVP:.AI-enabled MVP for a recruitment sourcing platform, and AI-integrated MVP for a holistic healthcare business. Read our educational article, ‘MVP Software Development: Everything You Need to Know.’