My name is Michael Jacobs, I’m a 20-year-old app entrepreneur and this my app story. Over the past years I have been following the entrepreneurial path and it has lead me into mobile app development. This past summer I traveled abroad to India where I came up with an app idea that I decided to pursue when I got back home. Since then, I’ve worked with a development team based in India to develop and release my app SociaLink on the iTunes App Store. I am not a programmer nor do I have any technical background, but that didn’t stop me from bringing my idea to life. In this article, I’ll share 4 important lessons I learned through outsourcing my app development to India which I believe can help any app entrepreneur looking to do the same.

1) Have More Than An Email Conversation With Your Developers

Create visual or verbal connections (i.e. Skype)

Emails are great, but making a physical connection is best

When outsourcing people make the mistake of relying on email rather than face-to-face or verbal communication. I personally see this as a huge mistake. You NEED to make a human connection with the person you are working with rather than relying on technology. Luckily, I was in India when I came up with my app idea, which allowed me to have face-to-face meetings with the development teams I was interviewing. If you are not in the same position, I recommend you start using Skype and get some face-to-face or verbal exposure. This will build a stronger relationship and better communication between you and the development team.

2) Do Your Research On Potential Development Teams

Look at the teams previous work online

Study their app store reviews

Ask for references and follow up with those references!

One of the most beneficial things for me when deciding on a development team was that I did my research. I had multiple teams that seemed to have high quality work, but each had different prices. At that point, I realized that my main concern needed to be quality. I made sure to test the previous apps that the company had created, read as many reviews as possible, and spoke with their previous clients. Getting in touch with previous clients and hearing their positive responses about the company I did choose is what solidified my decision. Your goal with doing research is to make sure you know the good and the bad about a company before you decide to hire and invest thousands of dollars with them.

3) Choose a team based on quality, not price

Although lowering costs is one of the main goals of outsourcing, especially for a startup, the quality of the product MUST to be the first priority. If you cut prices by half but receive a poor product, then you will end up spending more getting it fixed or having to starting over with another company. Although I was a startup company with extremely low funds, I realized that the main priority when creating my app was to have it functioning correctly. If you don’t believe the development team can do it correctly, keep looking for someone who can, despite the low costs.

4) Keep constant communication with your developers

Explain everything in extreme detail

Never assume things are happening…CHECK!

Get ready for some late nights

One of the biggest mistakes you can make (and that I made) is to assume that the development team is working or they are properly creating your product. One of the mistakes I made when working on my first outsourcing project was assuming that the development team understood how each step of my app was suppose to work. Although I had provided a detail SOW (Scope of Work), the words and pictures themselves were not enough to explain how the app needed to function. For me, the reason my app was developed successfully was the fact that I was on Skype constantly communicating my vision to the development team in India. Since there is a 12.5 hour difference between my time zone and India, I stayed up late for multiple months to make sure the app was developed properly. If you don’t do this, you risk having an app that doesn’t do what you want it to and you could end up months behind development. Trust me, the late nights are worth it.