Working with a software house can be a scary experience. After all, you entrust your money and business to strangers. It is not only wise, but an absolute necessity for you to ask the software house tons of questions. We gathered a few of them below. We also took this opportunity to tell you how we work with new clients.
Do you have experience in working with similar projects?
If your chosen software house has previously worked on a similar project, they probably can reuse some code or solutions. What are the benefits of it for you as a client? Your commission can be finished faster, as programmers and designers don’t have to create it from scratch. Working on a similar design also means that the software house can give you more precise pieces of advice concerning your project. After all, they already know the basis: what’s good and what you should reconsider.
Although we have to add that even if your chosen software house doesn’t have the experience in similar projects, it doesn’t mean it will be a lousy cooperation. Software houses are filled with skilled specialists that will gladly handle any challenges that you will throw at them.
Here at Dotinum we specialize in product configurators, WordPress websites and web applications. Contact us if you want to create one of the things mentioned above. If it is something totally different, contact us anyway.
Check out our portfolio (link) and case studies.
Have you worked with clients from my location? If not, how can we handle our meetings?
Recently the location of business partners has definitely lost its relevance. Vast majority of people work from home, the meetings are handled via Zoom or other platforms. If you can work from your own comfy chair, why not handle important business decisions? The only obstacle can be your time zones. If they are drastically different, either you or someone from software house has to stay late. Other than that, location doesn’t matter so much.
Majority of our clients are from the opposite side of Poland or from another country. We rarely see our clients face to face – it’s safe to say that more than 95% of the meetings are online.
Read more about the outsourcing in Poland in our interview with Alick. Alick is one of our clients that decided to work with us despite a huge distance between him in the USA and us in Poland.
What technologies do you use?
A rather important question for your project. It may happen that your chosen software house doesn’t work on the technology necessary for creating your vision. Maybe the software used by the software house will add something new that you didn’t think about yet? Remember to discuss what your chosen company can and cannot do in regards to your requirements.
In Dotinum we work on Laravel, Angular, NodeJS. If you want to know more, read our article https://dotinum.com/blog/get-to-know-how-we-work-technologies-we-use-in-everyday-work/.
What technical expertise can you offer? What talents do you have in your software house?
It doesn’t hurt to ask what kind of specialists are working on your chosen software house. Maybe you won’t have to look out for a specific talent in order to complete your project according to your vision.
In Dotinum we have talented programmers with more than 10 years of experience both in front end and back end. We also have graphic designers who have worked with us on almost every project so far.
If you want to know more about our employees, read an interview with one of our front-end developers, Kuba https://dotinum.com/blog/meet-our-team-the-interview-with-back-end-developer/.
When can you start working on my project?
Another important question to ask. Each software house (or any company in that matter) will have a different approach to starting a project. Here in Dotinum we start our work as soon as we have a signed contract with clear guidelines.
How much will it cost?
A rather tricky question with universally disliked answer – it depends. It may happen that a software house will have a strict pricelist, but for the most part it will depend on the:
- difficulty of the project,
- length of it,
- number of features.
Always ask beforehand about the estimated cost of the project. It is crucial to know if your chosen software house fits within your budget.
In Dotinum, where we create product configurators, the cost will be higher when it comes to creating 3D configurator. Why? Because it is more difficult and requires more time from our programmers. Same rules apply to the websites: the more complicated one with an online shop and additional features will be more expensive than a single page.
If you want to talk about the cost of your project, write to us. (link)
Who owns the source code after the end of the project?
A valid question, that you need to ask at the very beginning. It can spare you a lot of arguments and nerves in further steps of the project. Here in Dotinum we are transferring the financial rights. What does it mean for you? We are creating code just for you – which means we will not reuse it anywhere else. But we can adapt terms and conditions to your personal needs. Just remember to ask us and we will surely find a solution appropriate for both sides.