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It’s an undeniable fact that startups make our world a better and smarter place. Take Uber, Airbnb, Zoom, LinkedIn and other solutions that we actively use on a daily basis. They turn communication, employment, traveling, shopping and working activities to a whole new level.
No wonder each year the number of startups increases and breaks new records. According to the recent statistics, as of 2022 there are more than 70,000 startups in the US. And as of July 2022, there are more than 1,100 startups worldwide with a valuation of over $1billion.
However, it is not a secret that not every startup becomes a unicorn. Most of them fail at early stages. And this happens mostly because they build projects that either do not meet market needs or do not satisfy demanding users.
On top of that, project development is a risky venture and many startups end up losing a lot of money and struggling with attracting further investments. But do not worry, we know how to avoid a startup failure and we’ll tell you everything you need to know.
Since our company specializes in custom software development for startups and growing businesses, we’d like to share with you some secrets of successful startups. We will cover up how to turn a brilliant project idea into a scalable product, what to do to make your solution a perfect market fit, and how to make your development journey less bumpy and challenging.
Why startups need reliable development vendors
As we’ve already mentioned, for many startups software development can become a huge failure. But this is not necessarily going to happen if you hire an experienced and cohesive development team to build your project.
You may have a clear vision of your project and particular business goals, but if you lack technical background you need someone to rely on and know that they will do a 100% great job. After all, you are putting your budget, time and perhaps even reputation at stake.
If you take a look at the statistics, you’ll discover that the first reason why 42% of startups fail is because of incorrectly defined market needs. 29% of all failures are a result of funding and budget loss. And based on our experience, we can say that at least 62% of failures are caused by bad quality of product. That is why it is so important to find dedicated teams and developers with relevant expertise to minimize all possible risks.
Development companies not only build high-quality solutions, they also bring so much more to the successful startups. They take care of:
As you can see, a software development company does a huge job to build and deliver impeccable solutions able to impress you, your investors and end users. On top of that, your level of involvement can be minimized, so that you can focus on your business plan and goals while the developers will do their job and turn your ideas into real software.
And last but not least, thanks to outsourcing you will be able to boost your time-to-market and release your project faster. In some cases a solid version of a project can be built by a team in 3-6 months, which increases the odds of fast market entry which is utterly important for startups.
Outsourcing startup development to a software development company like ours has a lot of benefits. Check out this blog post written by our expert that covers all possible pitfalls and points out outsourcing benefits essentials that might help you while choosing the team and making the final decision.
Top 5 reasons to choose Altamira as your software development partner
Now when you are aware how advantageous it is to cooperate with experienced development agencies, we’d like to take our company as an example.
We’ll focus on the decision-making reasons that can help you to venture out and entrust your project to a company like ours. So first things first, let’s talk about pros and professional capabilities the Altamira team can offer to your startup.
#1 Wide range of services
The first and foremost advantage is that our team offers a wide variety of development services that you can benefit from. Altamira specialists offer:
- Web development and mobile development (native, hybrid and cross-platform solutions for iOS and Android devices);
- Trendy UI/UX design for mobile apps and web apps;
- Discovery stage and preparation of all necessary documentation;
- Fast MVP development and proof of concept creation;
- Creation of industry-specific apps powered by AI, ML, AR, Big Data and IoT;
- Modernization of existing solutions, data migration and code review;
- Effective team augmentation.
#2 Huge talent pool
Apart from a wide service range, we have a huge talent pool of 120+ technical specialists of different seniority and qualification. We select an appropriate team for every startup. The most important criteria for this selection is relevant experience of developers, deep understanding of your business niche and goals, and ability to work with the technologies necessary for a project.
Speaking about the tech stack that we use for web and mobile app development, it includes but is not limited to the following:
All our developers and QA specialists have graduated from tech universities. They have all necessary certifications and they improve their qualification by attending conferences, taking courses, and learning from the best specialists worldwide. So you can be sure that by hiring us you get specialists who deliver an app with clean code and advanced functionality.
#3 Full involvement into your project
Whatever mobile apps and web apps we build, we always immerse deeply into your business industry – whether it is retail, entertainment, education or dating. Our goal is to understand the real needs and problems of the end users that your app is going to solve.
We strive to ensure seamless user experience and achieve customer satisfaction so that your startup can become highly competitive and get numerous growth possibilities. To achieve full involvement, we conduct market research, explore the solutions of your competitors, examine your requirements and assumptions, and end up providing a detailed plan with well-defined user stories and properly selected tech stack.
#4 Cost-efficiency and scalability
Software development for startups as well as enterprise software development can be a costly and risky venture. That is why it is crucial to cooperate with companies that can minimize your expenses. Thorough market research, proper project estimation and a well-set plan of development have to avoid additional costs and stay within your budget.
Qualified teams like ours offer perfect price\quality ratio and always advocate future scalability of your startup. We use an Agile development approach which allows us to balance developers load and project cost, and ensure the best possible quality of code.
#5 Development speed and quality of solutions
We always offer optimal team composition for every startup so that the desired project can be developed as soon as possible without compromising its quality. We have experienced business analysts, project managers, developers, QA specialists, DevOps and marketing experts that take all efforts to deliver high-class solutions in 3-6 months and make it a perfect market fit.
We estimate the project and identify how many specialists of what seniority are required to write clean code, perform all kinds of testing and release products on time.
Our software development services for startup founders
Our software development agency has been building solutions for startups for more than 10 years. We have cooperated with clients from healthcare, education, retail, real estate, banking, travel and entertainment spheres. And this cooperation allowed our developers to gain all necessary expertise to deliver top-notch software products able to impress even the most demanding users.
As of now we offer a range of professional development services to all startup owners and founders. The full list of our services includes:
And now let’s take a closer look at each of those options, so that you can understand how everything works and which option might be the most advantageous for your startup.
From discovery to successful final product launch
When it comes to software development for startups, we believe that thorough preparation is the key to success. That is why we offer our clients to complete the discovery stage and receive all necessary deliverables that will help them with future development.
The discovery stage implies holistic market and competitors research with the purpose of gathering all necessary information about existing solutions, identifying your unique selling point and starting work on all required technical documentation.
The discovery stage is completed in a week or two by our business analysts, who then provide you with the following deliverables:
In general, the discovery includes three main stages that are preparation, ideation and validation. Once they are completed, your team can proceed with the development. And because they have all plans and documents in their disposal, this will be a truly seamless experience.
Discovery stage helps to avoid numerous risks, therefore it is very essential to complete it and get all necessary plans and documents. We have an article covering this stage in detail, check it out here.
MVP development to speed-up your time-to-market
Minimum viable product development helped so many great businesses to enter the market really fast and adjust their project with time. MVP software development implies that you create a solid but simple test version of your product to test your business idea and gather end user feedback.
MVP helps to test the market, properly shape your app idea and introduce more and more new features with time.There is no need to take huge risks and build projects with all the features at once. After all, many startups fail because they identify market needs incorrectly, and invest all their money in the development of a wrong project.
Altamira offers MVP and POC development services to ensure future project success and scalability. While building every MVP project or creating a proof of concept we take into account your business goals and users needs. On average, we need 3-5 months to deliver your project and here are the main development stages:
Our experts have already discussed all the advantages and specificities of MVP development for startups in this blog post. It is highly recommended to read it to avoid common mistakes, establish all processes right and invest your money wisely. MVP can become an incredible starting point for your startup and drive its further success.
How we help startups to scale up
As we’ve already mentioned, our software development company helps startups not only to build high-quality products but also to scale up. Together with Altamira you can perform seamless team augmentation and get specialists of essential expertise and seniority, benefit from fast development scaling, and boost the efficiency of your core development team.
Altamira can become your long-term reliable development and staff augmentation partner that can help you form proper strategy, build right communication between all tech specialists, balance project scope and all the sprints, and speed-up your project development.
Our experts help startuppers with many technical aspects such as:
Our approach to custom software development
Before starting any project, our team members focus on the software development life cycle, set main tasks and organize them into a well-structured sequence. Our typical mobile and web development process includes several stages – research, design and prototyping, coding, quality assurance and project release.
Also we have project managers who follow Agile approach and make sure that all deadlines are preserved and everything goes according to the initial plan. Our project managers are always in touch with you and provide you with all reports, updates and numbers.
Altamira always pays special attention to the design and does everything to make end users happy and satisfied. The main goal of our designers is to create a project look that will highlight your brand identity and will stand out.
Therefore they select the most suitable color palette, and make the design user-friendly. All buttons, loaders, interfaces are easy to find and use and that’s what really makes any app a good one. We also take care of responsive design and take into account all necessary dimensions and resolutions while designing an app for mobile devices. High-quality code wrapped into a trendy and comprehensive design is the receipt of a truly successful digital startup.
Our tech team cares not only about end product quality, but also about its security. That’s why our software engineers follow the best security practices, OWASP controls, and all required industry standards. To make sure that the code is clean and secure our QA experts perform manual and automated testing, resort to abuse cases, use SAST (Static Application Security Testing) and DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing) to thoroughly analyze the source code.
By delegating app development to Altamira, you will definitely get a fully-fledged secure solution and what’s more important your budget and deadlines will be preserved. On top of that, we guarantee help with software integration, improvement and maintenance.
What advanced technologies we use to empower projects
We strongly believe that all digital solutions should be modern and long lasting. Therefore we always empower startups by using advanced technologies such as:
- Artificial intelligence;
- Augmented reality;
- Machine learning;
- Internet of Things;
- Big Data.
To turn the boldest idea into a real project our software developers use the best practices and integrate all necessary third party systems such as payment gateway, location, and many more other APIs your startup may need. Our software development specialists can create web and mobile apps of any complexity, IoT and Big Data solutions, image recognition software, tools with advanced analytics, business intelligence tools, cloud-based software, SaaS platforms and more.
If you have a certain idea in mind and have any doubts regarding the tech stack that you’ve selected, just drop us a line and get a free expert consultation. We will help you to shape your idea and select the most suitable technology and integrations.
Success stories we’d like to showcase
When it comes to business, examples always speak louder than words. That is why we’d like to share with you some success stories of our startup clients, demonstrating software products we developed for them.
Zemp Center
This is a custom PoS system for the retail companies that we developed for one of our clients. His initial goal was to introduce a mobile PoS solution that will help retail companies with inventory management, reporting, employee management, supplier communication and many more. So our client wanted to build a solution that will help to achieve flexibility and automation of many retail processes.
Our team has created a detailed project plan, performed a development of Zemp Center from scratch and implemented a range of features such as: barcodes scanning, stock count, employee listings reports, product listings, customer orders, graphs with metrics, and more.
Since the app works with numbers and metrics, our designers created a clean and minimalistic look for it. As a result every option is easy to find thanks to user-friendly UX. Here is how Zemp Center looks like:
Global Pet Security
The founder of Global Pet Security wanted to build a multiplatform solution to keep track of pet’s vaccinations, have all information about the pets in one safe place, and to provide an option to locate a pet in case it gets lost. Global Pet security was built using Flutter.
Our software engineers integrated payment gateway and Google API so that the maps can be used. They also implemented a lot of options such as digital pet profile, digital documents sharing, declaring pet missing, tracking pet’s location, QR code generation and scanning, scheduling of vet visits.
As a result the solution turned out to be a huge success and now it is actively used by breeders, pet owners and even veterinarians. This startup began with an incredible idea and thanks to high-quality development it became a real useful project that brings income to its owner.
These two projects that we described are examples of how startups can become profitable business models. And we definitely have way more such success stories in our portfolio. So in case you are interested, check out these case studies:
- INCINQ – a blind dating app with a bunch of advanced features;
- Aqualine drones – robust app for on-demand drone services;
- Bestyn – a holistic platform for neighbors where they can communicate, make announcements, organize events and exchange news;
- CTRL Golf – an IoT powered app for learning how to play Golf and practicing right techniques;
- Auxyn – advanced social media platform for musicians;
- Mazaaks – brand new social network for comedians.
FAQ
What technical specialist do I need to build a project?
To create a software you need a cohesive team of technicians. They are software engineers – front-end and back-end coders, designers, quality assurance specialists, project manager, and in some cases DevOps and marketing experts. It is always better to hire a full team than look for all of those specialists elsewhere.
Where to look for reliable software development companies?
We always highly recommend exploring services rating vendors such as GoodFirms or Clutch. There you can select the necessary category and find companies that specialize in certain kinds of development services. Also it is always a good idea to check out their clients’ reviews, company website and portfolio to get a bigger picture and make the right final choice.
How are development projects estimated?
To estimate projects, companies need to understand the scope of required work, know the tech stack that will be used, and count how many hours of work it may take to complete the job. All specialists have hourly rates that differ depending on qualification and seniority. So team composition also influences the final price. To find out all details about project estimation, check out this blog post explaining all approaches and techniques.
To conclude
All in all, software development for startups gains its momentum. Software vendors worldwide help startuppers to develop incredible solutions and achieve tremendous business growth. You may have the most interesting project idea in mind, but without the help of a technical partner with extensive expertise your idea may never turn into something real and profitable.
Our company helped dozens of startups to successfully launch and win the hearts of the end users. By choosing us and our custom web software or mobile development services, you choose a cohesive team of specialists, who will guide you through all processes, minimize all development risks, and deliver high-quality products within the set time and budget.
