Finding The Right Technology Partner—The Processes That Set Them Apart

So you’ve found a great technology partner. This partner and his team have patiently listened to your product description and have created volumes of documents, notes, and recordings about what you need and how they can help you get that product out of the door. 

The usual story

Now the usual course of things occurs. You pay them, they start working for you and after many aggravating discussions of where the product is going, you finally end up with a product that looks nothing like what you initially described to them. This is what they understood from your description and not what you really wanted.

At this point, you are left with three options:

1. Start the development and design process again
2. Accept the product as-is and pay more to get things fixed in a “future” version
3. Start looking for a new partner

All three of these options are pretty frustrating, you’ve lost time, money and resources on something that you do not like and you are expected to either go with it or accept it as a bad investment. For many entrepreneurs, this is the end of the road. They have invested all they had in a hardly workable product that they cannot use anymore. Disgruntled, they move back to what they were doing or restart.

Finding the right Technology partner

With hundreds of software development partners around, how does one make the right choice? Do you choose the one with the largest team? The one with the most experience? The one that has all the bells and whistles you need?

Fret Not. Help is here.

The right technology partner for you will not just listen to you and give you a product—the right development partner will have the right process in place that will help you get to the MVP stage with confidence. Good software development companies follow software development methodologies and development processes that are proven to help you succeed. They are agile, they keep you informed and on top of things at all times, helping you get clarity, so that you can focus on product success rather than worrying about the nitty-gritty.

The process to success

At Volumetree, we follow a customized customer success process that helps both our customers and our teams to consistently launch successful products. 

We ensure that our clients understand that their product is essential for their customers and not about them. This helps them realize any pain points that they may have overlooked and created a great product at the outset. Here’s the recipe of our secret sauce that we use for creating successful products:

• Observation

We help our clients to closely observe the users that they wish to target. By understanding their behaviour and usage patterns we figure out their pain points and needs to design a product that will closely match their needs.

• Ideation

The ideation phase involves converting our observation points into actionable items, that will develop into a product idea. With a good set of ideas that fit the needs of the target audience, we can now proceed to create a prototype.

• Prototyping

A prototype is a rough idea that has seen the light of day. We build a quick-and-dirty rendition of the idea so that we can get user feedback. This is essentially the simplest version of the best idea that would fulfill our criterion.

• Feedback (AKA testing and validation)

Considered to be the most important part of our software development process, we showcase the prototype to our potential customers and get their feedback about it. This step provides us with the information we need to integrate into the design of the product.

• Iteration

We take user feedback and make changes to our prototype. This helps us create an essential loop of user feedback coupled with re-prototyping. Although this might seem tedious and time-consuming, it ensures that you will end up with the best version of what your product will be.

• Implementation

All the user feedback is finally incorporated into a great software product that has been designed, developed, tested and critiqued many times over. We use the first 5 steps for each new feature, ensuring that your product and its features are a great fit. The implementation stage readies you for a formal launch of your product.

• Launch

This is it. The big moment that you have been waiting for—but as all big moments go, it comes with a caveat. You’ve got to make sure that you have all the right stuff ready for the big day:

1. A pre-launch mailing list

This email list will ensure that your product’s launch details go out to all your potential clients, investors, people who have been involved in the development process and all your fanboys. So start creating this list before you even get to the observation stage. This will ensure that you have your customer base ready for the picking.

2. Get that MVP

Your MVP will ensure that your product launches with the bare-minimum features it needs, without any fuss or frustrations. An MVP will also help you to validate your product and earn money without investing too much.

3. Launch, launch baby!

It is time. The stage is set, emails have been sent out and you are ready. Get going at midnight, and work your launch all day long. You can be looking at a really long day, but this is what will get you the returns you need.

Remember, you won’t get a roast without a fire. Keep fanning the flames until the coals are hot and your beautiful roast will be ready to be served to your hungry customers. 

Your product is your baby and needs tender loving care at all times. We ensure that we do just that. At Volumetree(your next technology partner), we have helped dozens of customers successfully launch great products that went ahead to stand the test of time (and user bases). If you have an idea worth talking about, send us an email so we can help you tell us all about it!