by Seye Kuyinu

Dear Joe,

I hear you need an app for your startup or a new website for your organization and you need a developer(or a team of developers)?

Here are the things you should know first.

1. Do you have money?

Building websites and apps are not cheap. Don’t let anyone, ANYONE, tell you otherwise. A really good web developer is in high demand. He’s probably really busy. Money will motivate him to do a good job with your project. Okay, okay, you don’t have enough money? Maybe you need to save up or…ask the developer if he’d take some equity in this new something you’re building. I doubt he’d take this option though. Always remember, quality is directly proportional to cost.

2. Oh, did you say you commissioned a developer without checking out a verifiable portfolio?

No, Joe! No, don’t do that Joe! A good developer will have a portfolio you can explore. He can also direct you to references and testimonials from his past and present clients. His portfolio does not have a project that remotely resembles some of the functionalities you want? Step back a little. There are other things to consider.

3. What project management tools is he planning to use?

Will this be Waterfall or Agile? Time matters.

4. Joe, you have the idea for the next biggest thing after Facebook.

You have an idea for the coolest website for your business. That’s great! I assume that’s why you need this developer. But have you finished drafting out your content? Is content almost ready for him to go? What’s the workflow for this app? Are you leaving it to him? Are you working on it with him? Oh, you want him to plot out the user journey himself?

5. What are your revision cycles like?

You’ve not thought about that? You’ve not thought about frequency of check-ins, payment milestones? You should!

6. I hear buses have been killing people lately.

If he gets hit by a bus, what happens to your project? There’s something called BitBucket, Kiln, Gitlab. Make sure he uses one of these and gives you access.

Your app idea really sounds amazing and lucrative too. I wish you success in the execution.

Regards,

Seye Kuyinu,
A Developer …
and a Client too.
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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Seye Kuyinu is the Head, Applications Development @ Nysteria, Partner at @Kwirkly, User Experience Engineer, PHP Developer and UI Designer

This article was first written here