{"id":1087,"date":"2016-07-05T15:29:39","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T14:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flinca.com\/blog\/?p=1087"},"modified":"2021-03-26T12:15:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T12:15:37","slug":"5-reasons-to-avoid-outsourcing-your-product-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flinca.com\/blog\/5-reasons-to-avoid-outsourcing-your-product-development\/","title":{"rendered":"5 reasons to avoid outsourcing your product development"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"I'm
I’m not just a programmer – I am a machine!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A familiar problem that I frequently encounter when engaging with very early stage startups is the lack of a product, and a lack of a technical co-founder who can also build that product. Faced with such a showstopper, the budding entrepreneur will frequently consider outsourcing or offshoring to overcome this hurdle. While this approach can work in theory, more often than not it will prove to be a costly mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are 5 reasons why you shouldn’t consider outsourcing the build of your minimum viable product (MVP):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. You don’t know what your customers want<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You have a good idea, your friends and family have told it’s good, some of them have even offered to put some money up front to help pay for the outsourced development. It’s tempting to think then that the only thing holding you back is having that product built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is, you are a first year student of lean startup principles. You are well aware that the purpose of an MVP is to test your assumptions about what your customers want. You also know that despite your extreme confidence in your product, that you probably haven’t quite hit on a winning formula. You know that you will have to run multiple experiments, test, refine and shape your product to produce the ultimate solution. You soon begin to realise that the initial $2000 quote you had from that development house the other side of the world is going to begin to bloom and then explode. Worse than that, you have to fit your spending into their available schedule. Not only is it becoming very expensive, it is taking forever to get results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole point of an MVP is to be able to iterate many times until you reach something that works well with your customers. The only way of doing this in a fast and cost-effective manner is to do it in-house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my experience, fledgling startups that go down the outsourcing route end up spending many times more than they originally predicted, and end up with a product that is considerably different from their dream, and that no-one is interested in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. If you build it, they will come?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We can’t really blame Kevin Costner for this one – it was a made up story involving ghostly baseball stars, hardly something you are likely to emulate in your business plan. Despite that, the myth persists that the only thing stopping the budding entrepreneur from becoming wealthy is a working product. Unfortunately, the truth is anything but that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"If
If you build it, they might come<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There are virtual graveyards full of dead tech startups who had some fairly smart products backed by teams of technical geniuses, who failed to secure enough customers to take their idea and turn it into a successful business. They failed to achieve sufficient traction.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building a business is hard, building a product isn’t anywhere near as difficult, as all outsourcing companies know. From day 1, you need a coherent plan about how you are going to attract interest in what you do, and turn those early interests into paying customers. Don’t be thinking you can do this by working social media channels and attracting enough traffic that you’ll get rich from selling advertising space. You won’t – those days where that approach worked are long gone and there’s already too many other companies out there doing something similar to you. If you think there isn’t, you haven’t looked hard enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A coherent strategy that starts to be implemented from day 1 about how to attract customers is essential, and should attract as much time, effort and money as the product build. I examine the need to do this in The Lean Startup Myth<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. You will only get what you ask for (if you are lucky)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As with any line of work or trade, there are good companies out there and bad ones. Let’s assume you’ve done your research, checked references and located a company that is reputable and will do a good job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best you can hope for is that they do what you ask for – nothing more and nothing less. This might sound like a good thing, and it is, if, and only if, you have experience in writing software specifications. Even simple apps and websites have a great degree of complexity. For example, what does a valid telephone number look like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n