Deciding between in-house, full-time development and working with an agency is a big step in developing your product. Use this guide to help you.
How much will it cost to get started?
In-house
You're spending at minimum $10k per month for a single junior developer based in the US. If you need help building a product roadmap, strategy, and managing end-to-end execution you are going to spend 2-3x that amount.
Agency
Eliminate all hiring hassles and overhead— work with veterans for your development requirements while paying them only for set hours and length of their engagement.
How much do i need to spend on an ongoing basis?
In-house
Team’s full-time salaries continue during inevitable project lulls – and you have to bear costly software licenses and continuous training expenses.
Agency
Cost-efficient scaling to let you add or subtract resources precisely when needed, ensuring every dollar spent contributes to your project’s progress.
How quickly can i get my product to market?
In-house
Recruiting, onboarding, and aligning a qualified team takes 3-6 months before meaningful development or project collaboration begins.
Agency
Hit the ground running with top-notch experts who can roll up their sleeves and immediately dive into development, dramatically speeding up your way to market.
How can i access the talent i need?
In-house
You generally have two options:
1. Hire a search firm to help you with the hiring process
2. Post a job description on LinkedIn and deal with 1000s of unqualified applicants
Agency
Most software agencies are going to have a deep bench of vetted talent to activate based on the needs of your product. At Ventive, for example, we have over 50 team members with expertise growing business with innovative products.
Will it be easy to scale my team as needs change?
In-house
You need to plan 6-12 months ahead based on projections. Depending upon the health of your business and cash on hand the difficulty and risk of this can vary significantly.
Agency
Since agencies like Ventive always keep a bench of talent available, they can always scale up and down based on revenue growth, feature sprints, bug fixes, etc.
How will i support the app after it is launched?
In-house
Support needs vary A LOT from month to month. If you staffed up to complete major product goals you will have to find work for those team members or consider letting them go until another big project comes up.
Agency
You will have support that will scale based on your strategic business needs. If you have minimal work needed, then your billings will be minimal. If you need a big new feature to land more sales you have a full team at full throttle immediately.
How can they help with the strategic aspects of product growth?
In-house
This depends upon your budget. If you have the budget for an executive-level contributor like a CTO or CPO, then you will have more access to strategic direction. If you're mostly working with junior devs, you wont have the strategic expertise available to you and you may be flying blind.
Agency
At good software and product agencies there are CTO-level employees on staff contributing to the success for your product. For example, Ventive's entire C-Suite keeps an eye on every project to see opportunities for the growth of your product.
How much oversight and management is required?
In-house
You need to set up a fully functioning management hierarchy with the supervision to go with it. It's not easy, but if you have done this before you can usually get started on the right foot yourself.
Agency
Expert-managed development frees you to focus on business growth and strategy. Do what you're great at. Let your agency dev team handle the rest.