Why Non-Tech Founders Choose the Wrong Custom Development Vendor: Common Pitfalls

Non-tech founders often find themselves learning project management the hard way, with missed deadlines and the project at risk of failure or shutdown. Lack of technical knowledge creates ambiguity in every detail of the project management process, even with a clear vision of the product.

The founders often get misled by agencies. That is why dealing with a custom software development vendor turns into quite a costly challenge. In contrast, it should have been a product delivered on time and on a budget, as was promised and agreed upon.

To avoid common pitfalls in choosing a dev agency, we’ve outlined a checklist of mistakes non-tech founders make. Take your time reading it, and you’ll reduce your risk of choosing the wrong custom dev agency.

Non-tech founders’ mistakes when choosing a custom dev agency

Disappointment with the vendor’s work rarely happens due to one factor. It is more common for misunderstandings and unagreed-upon conditions to accumulate into a set of factors that cause unsatisfactory results.

Here is a list of common mistakes non-tech founders are prone to make when contracting a dev agency. Knowing these mistakes and how to avoid them is essential to increasing your chances of making your project a success.

Mistake 1: Not vetting the vendor before making a deal

This is a general mistake that triggers others covered below. One way to go beyond it is to hire a tech cofounder (CTO) or an advisor. The other way is to ask critical questions in the beginning, when the project is under discussion.

Before approving a software dev company, ask them the following essential questions:

• Who owns the code, and will this condition be explicit in the contract?

The answer should be that you own the code of the whole solution, with UI/UX flows and business logic. Your intellectual property rights are explicit in the contract.

• Can I speak to a past client from a similar project?

The vendor should give you the contact information of a former client so that you can discuss their experience with the vendor.

• How do you handle changes in requirements or scope?

Agree on the scope in advance. If changes happen, the vendor should be flexible enough to include them in the scope. Be careful, though, as a seemingly minor change you might want to introduce could force your team to make significant changes to the project from a technical standpoint. However, this does not mean that your vendor should object to minor changes.

• How do you ensure quality assurance and security?

These processes should be well-structured and time-tested. QA services and security of your solution are non-negotiable. A bug discovered by a vendor is much more affordable than one faced by your customers.

Experienced vendors provide robust infrastructure for development and use proven methods to test your solution.

• Who works on my project in reality?

During initial calls and meetings, you will be speaking to a sales manager, project managers, and senior developers. In fact, the task of development may be assigned to other developers. Your vendor should provide you with reliable information on the actual team working on your project.

As a sum up, the vendor should be comfortable with these questions and demonstrate the willingness to answer them. An excellent provider will be proactive and tell you how they deal with the above matters before you even ask.

Read also: How to Choose a Custom Software Development Company

Mistake 2: Choosing a company with unstructured communication and project management processes

An experienced and trustworthy vendor has time-tested project management processes. There is a designated person who serves as a single point of contact through which feedback from all parties can be heard.

Communication and project management should help you and the team resolve questions on time. Otherwise, such issues will arise much later and cause more problems than they could have if discussed from the outset.

The vendor should also have a curated onboarding process with clear deliverables at each stage of development. If you do not get clear answers about deliverables and timeline, it means that the company does not have a proven and structured method of developing projects.

Mistake 3: Lack of tech knowledge to validate dev practices

The lack of tech experience creates the foundation for the hardships that appear during the project. A non-tech founder cannot evaluate the quality of code or tech approaches claimed by the candidate vendor. An advisor or highly involved senior developer is needed to evaluate each intricacy of the vendor’s practices.

However, a non-tech founder can evaluate which workflows are necessary and which features can be included in version one. If you need your team to make changes to the requirements and they push back, ask them why. To evaluate their reply, a tech advisor is needed.

Also, as a non-tech founder, it is extremely valuable that you are precise with your requirements. Your guidance is also a necessary brick to build your product. Being articulate about your solution is what pushes product development to success.

Do you need a piece of tech advice on your project?

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Mistake 4: Rushing into signing a contract for a significant project

If you and your tech advisor are satisfied with the company’s replies to the essential questions, do not rush to sign a contract for the whole project. Test the waters with a small version of your product, a simple set of features.

This eliminates the risk of going all in instead of testing first. You never know how it will go in real life until you try working with the team. It may take you several months to realize if they fit your goals.

The team may be perfect. But they may not fit your particular business tasks. Small details may arise that may show hidden obstacles to the team's understanding of your project.

Also, their attention to detail, willingness to help you build for scalability, and understanding of security are what can be discovered during the trial period. Positive outcomes testify to the fact that you can entrust them with your bigger project.

Mistake 5: Speaking to sales as if it were the team working on your project

Even if you speak to frank representatives of the vendor, they are still on the agency’s side. They are not the team that will work on your project.

Thus, the first essential thing is to distinguish frank representatives from those who make promises. If you can get the contacts of past references from such representatives, that’s a good sign. The references can validate salespeople’s words.

It is a good practice to listen not only to the vendor’s representatives but also to past references and the actual team that will work on your project. Otherwise, you may find yourself with promises that will fall into vain later.

Again, your CTO or advisor can help you evaluate the qualifications of your future team during preliminary meetings or product discovery.

Mistake 6: Evaluating the portfolio by appearance

Non-tech founders tend to be attracted by the solution’s appearance, design, and catchy language. A polished portfolio looks great. But what’s inside? Was the project as successful as the portfolio presents it? Was it challenging to build the presented solution?

Here are crucial questions that you should clarify for yourself when evaluating the portfolio:

• Does this project’s goal and challenges match my case?
• Does the team solve the issues outlined in the case study?
• What technical and architectural approaches does the team use for the solution?
• How does the team approach the problems?
• What solutions have been achieved?
• How does project management work for this case study?
• What are the outcomes of the case? Any specific figures available?
• Is there any worthy optimization or innovation in the project?

The more positive the answers are, the better the presented project is. If you can’t find answers in the case study, you can call the vendor. Their willingness to clarify things for you tells more than the case study and other sales materials.

When evaluating case studies, pay attention not only to appearance, UI design, and appealing language. Consider what it actually means.

By the way, we are happy to share our experience in our portfolio. If you are curious, check out our behind-the-scenes look at how we build MVPs, marketplaces, and SaaS solutions.

Mistake 7: Paying attention only to the appearance of your product

It’s true that the design is what people notice first, but the second thing is whether your product actually works. Is it robust and stable? Is it bug-free and secure? Does it provide the paid service smoothly? Those questions subconsciously pop up in customers’ minds. So, you'd better hire a team that will discover discrepancies in your product before your customers do.

Besides the look of your product, there are aspects that matter for it to work and deliver an excellent user experience. These are architecture, infrastructure, backend, testing, and security. Regarding them, here are essential questions to consider:

• Is your product’s architecture based on the modern principles of component autonomy and decentralization?
• Does your company provide a safe infrastructure for setting up, developing, and launching your product?
• Does the backend work smoothly, holding together even the most complex operations?
• Does your vendor provide rigorous testing services?
• Does your tech partner adhere to the latest security standards?

Those are questions worth clarifying, in addition to how your solution will look. So, pay attention not only to UI, but also to UX and modern tech approaches to building products.

Mistake 8: Underestimating the necessity of explicitness in agreement

It’s not by default that IP rights, security, confidentiality, and project scope are explicitly written into a contract. Different locations and jurisdictions have their own rules. So it’s best to discuss with the vendor in advance that these essential aspects are explicitly set in the agreement.

This is necessary for you to own your solution and avoid vendor lock-in. If you lose access to your tech vendor, you should not be limited to their services. You should have the possibility to turn to another vendor to help you run your product. So, your solution, with all rights explicitly written in the contract, should be your property.

As for the scope, it should be explicit to avoid arguments on whether the feature should have been developed or not. Such arguments happen often, so better to protect yourself and agree on the explicit scope in advance.

Confidentiality and security are also subject to explicit agreement. It should be binding not only for your vendor but also for their employees and subcontractors. Alternatively, you can agree that your vendor performs the work on your solution without subcontracting.

Mistake 9: Ignoring red flags

It may be tempting to rush into signing a contract, but we recommend that you pay attention to red flags. Ignoring them is a costly mistake. So here are several of them to help you look out:

• Seeming certainty before analyzing your business needs;
• Polished case studies without reference to challenges and problem-solving;
• Discussing features without connection to your business needs;
• Agreeability even without asking you questions and challenging your assumptions when it is necessary;
• Suspiciously fast delivery of estimates;
• Pushback when you demand explicitness in the contract and contacts of past references;
• Vague or no answers to your questions about the post-launch work of your product.

Your tech vendor should be a strategist who carefully analyzes your particular needs. Vague answers or a lack of them is a red flag worth considering to avoid extra expenses with an unsatisfying result.

Mistake 10: Evaluating the company, taking into account the price only

When vetting a tech vendor, consider how the company works on projects. It includes communication, your engagement, best practices with technologies, and adherence to QA and security standards.

Do not judge the vendor by the price only. The actual metric you should measure in this regard is the cost of ownership, not plain hourly rates. If you pay more, but avoid costly rewrites later, isn’t it worth it?

Also, take into account that the price depends on the project's complexity and scope. So, you might consider including the minimum set of features in the first version of your product or MVP. If the scope changes after contract signing, the price will also change.

Weigh the above aspects when evaluating your vendor. They all add to how much you spend in the end.

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Mistake 11: Overreliance on artificial intelligence and software builders

There is a common misconception that AI and low-code/no-code builders can make affordable solutions fast. What is closer to reality is that such technologies can optimize development and speed up prototyping. However, if you need a full-scale solution that can evolve, overreliance on these technologies can be unreasonable.

AI without human supervision is an unreliable tool. It has capabilities that help humans with tasks. Still, in custom software development, as in other domains, AI must be supervised by humans. Otherwise, you may encounter undesirable bugs as AI makes mistakes.

As for builders, they are better suited to building simple prototypes than to full-featured solutions. If your project plans include growing, custom building suits you better, providing robustness and scalability that builders can’t offer.

We address this stereotype to help you avoid the illusion that something valuable can be built fast and cheaply. You need to invest if you plan to evolve. Test your idea with minimum viable product development services. Then, move on to a more ambitious version of your idea.

Mistake 12: Piling business requirements changes onto the dev team

You, as a founder, also have a job to do. Do not fall into the trap of a claim that now it is easy to do everything with AI or no-code or low-code builders. When you bring up a new feature or a change that seems minor to you, it may be a technical challenge that requires rearranging things about your project.

So, here is the bottom line: changes are inevitable, but in some situations, a minor tweak can necessitate rebuilding a chunk of the solution.

That is why you need a tech advisor or a team lead developer who is genuinely interested in your success and attentive to details. Your critical thinking and guidance on the product as a non-tech founder are necessary. In tandem with the trusted tech expertise, they will make the groundwork for the successful and satisfying delivery of your project.

Why preliminary discussions are essential to avoid mistakes

When working with non-tech founders, we have spotted several problems they deal with:

• Vague vision of the final product;
• Lack of tech knowledge;
• Paying attention more to design than to working parts;
• Underestimating the price of the scope changes.

These obstacles to product development should be addressed as soon as possible, before signing a contract and before a single line of code is written.

For instance, at Codica, we hold project discovery sessions to clarify the above questions, along with other aspects necessary for successful product delivery.

Product discovery is not a formal step, but an opportunity to discuss with the client their business goals, audience, competitors, UX flow, future design, solution architecture, features, deliverables, and team composition.

If our clients come to us with their own ideas, we discuss them together with stakeholders and our team during the product discovery phase. Clarifying the necessary aspects with deep research is what makes product discovery so valuable when planning the product.

That is why we recommend our clients start with the project discovery phase to avoid common pitfalls in development, verify your vendor, discuss the scope and agreement, and address many other essential aspects. These discussions will contribute to successful project delivery.

On a closing note

We hope that our guide has clarified common pitfalls for you as a non-tech founder. Remember to discuss essential questions before you sign the contract. It will be much easier for your tech vendor to estimate your project and deliver it on time. Also, you’ll have a foundation to decide if to sign the contract with the selected vendor at all.

If you’re in the process of vetting a company or you are thinking about a project of your own, let’s get in touch. Our team is eager to answer your questions, whether they are technical, non-technical, or both. Ultimately, let’s bring your idea to reality.