How to Select an Agency for Your App Development?

If your answer is “yes”, well, don’t waste your time and start looking for app developers right now. However, don’t put this article too far away. When you’ll have to deal with the first issues & questions (and both will occur anyway), you’ll find many helpful tips & answers in the text below.

But if your answer is “no” (or if you came back after an unsuccessful “yes”), get ready. I’m going to take you behind-the-scenes of the app development world and teach how to separate the sheep from the goats.

❗ The Most Important Thing to Know Before You Select an App Development Agency

When looking for app developers, many think that they’re actually looking for “just-do-what-I-say” guys. No, no and, once more, no. First and foremost, you should understand that you’re looking for a partner.

🤔 Where & How to Find a Good App Developer?

The one who’s searching is the one who’s finding. It’s not a philosophical description of a photo from some fitness-model on Instagram, as you might think. It only means that you should be ready for a fastidious searching process, the success of which depends on you.

Of course, life is unpredictable. Sometimes it may happen that the first team you find will be the perfect match for you. However, more often you will have to spend some time in order to find this “match” on your own. How? Let’s figure it out!

We’ve already shared with our readers a few ideas on how to find a company for app development in the article about outsourcing. Let’s quickly remind those tips:

1. Use Google to find companies’ blogs and websites.
2. Publish a call for developers in social media.
3. Check out company listings like Clutch.
4. Ask your friends for recommendations.
5. Check freelance sites, like UpWork, but be ready to get tons of low-quality proposals.

How to Select an Agency for App Development: Top Tips

🔎 Do Some Homework: Check the Portfolio

You may be surprised, but a deep look into the portfolio can tell you more than you expect. After a quick check you will already have the first impression of the agency and understand whether they are worth more of your attention or not.

First and foremost, examine the public portfolio. Usually, companies put there the most successful (from development & business perspectives) examples of their work. However, you should be interested in finding case studies that are relevant to your own project. This will be a good sign for you as it means that the company has expertise in the field of your interest.

If it turns out, that you can’t find an appropriate case study, feel free to request more works via email or examine any others from the public portfolio.

Except for a cursory glance at the portfolio, take some time to review several case studies. What can a well-written case study tell you?

• What the main challenge was and how the team managed to overcome it.
• How deeply they have understood the main goal of the product.
• What tech tools the agency has used during the development (this may include programming languages, APIs, SDKs).
• How long it took to deliver the app.
• What app’s features are the most noteworthy.
• How successful the app was from the business perspective (number of downloads or daily/monthly active users, attracted investments and so on). Yet, this information may be missing if the case study was written shortly after the release. However, you can simply google it or check in the relevant app stores.

Finally, check the application yourself. No doubt, that all agencies - from top mobile app development companies to small local teams - will try to show their best when writing a case study. However, it won’t take anything to download some of their apps (especially if they are free) and examine it from the user perspective.

Have a look at UI/UX, performance, interactions between features. Afterwards, it will be easier for you to imagine how your app will look like when created by this exact team. Moreover, the smooth performance and the bugless flow can show you how much developers care about the end user and aim at creating a product for him. And this is exactly what you need, right?

If you’re pretty satisfied with what you saw, contact the team and ask the most important questions. Which ones? That’s what you’re about to find out!

❓ Questions, questions, questions

A long-lasting partnership can be only achieved as a result of good communication. However, the point here is that you actually don’t look for a bad or good agency. You’re are looking for the one that is suitable for you. And you can find it out after asking the following questions.

One Pro’ Tip Before We Start

Pay attention to the accents in communication.

Firstly, if all your conversations end with “... that’s why you should choose us”, “we’re super cool because…” and hundreds of other “we”, this agency isn’t the best choice for you. Of course, every company will try to show their best sides to impress you. Yet, if developers care more about their appearance rather than your project, consider this as a first warning bell.

At Stormotion, our team always cares about the achievements of our clients. For example, the financial startup “Oval Money” managed to raise €1.2m in funding demonstrating the MVP created by our team.

Yet, it would be wrong to perceive the business success of the previous projects and the professionalism of the team as the same. Sometimes startups may fail due to other reasons (for example, poor marketing, lack of funding, founders’ crisis etc.) and the development team will have nothing to do with this.

Who will work on my app?

Usually, the maintenance of communication between developers and the client is the task of the project manager. However, you have the full right to know who specifically is going to work on your product and even talk to these people.

At this stage, you shouldn’t be wondering how to find a good app developer. Your aim is to find out whether they have solved similar challenges or had experience with implementing the same features and know how to solve your tasks. If the answer is yes, count it as one more reason to select this agency for app development!

Yet, it’s totally normal that developers don’t have experience in building every feature that exists in the mobile world (but it doesn’t mean that they can’t 🙂) simply because there wasn’t a chance to work on it yet. Therefore, don’t consider this as the decisive factor.

So, if you’ve figured out everything you were interested in, don’t forget to discuss one more ticklish topic - development costs.

💶 Pay Attention To Costs (But Don’t Overestimate Its Importance)

All of my previous tips to select a mobile app company related mainly to agencies, their experience and expertise. This one is more about you.

It’s sad for me to see how many people make the same fatal mistake and put money-related questions in the center of everything. Of course, a limited budget is a usual thing for startups that can’t be ignored. By the way, that’s why our Stormotion team often shares with clients tips on how they can optimize app development expenses.

💡 Conclusion

So, I hope now you feel like a real pro’ who knows for sure how to select an agency for app development in a wise and proper way. Let’s quickly sum up what we’ve learned today: