It entrepreneurship 03-development outsourcing for new startups

The main task of this week is to communicate with regional agents for the first time in the New Year. Therefore, there are a lot of things to communicate with. Naturally, there is a blog "raw material, however, sometimes I see what I see, and sometimes I think about what I write after seeing it. I have many ideas and suggestions for agents who say yes, but do these suggestions really work? They only need to know after using them. After all, I did not really start a business, but I made suggestions from the perspective of a consultant. At this time, I felt that my role was more like a channel manager, I even think it is more appropriate to change this series of articles to "channel manager Work experience.
In the communication with several agents, we found that the current software sales companies, especially small start-up companies, have invested all their major resources in sales, implementation, and service, in addition, because I did not develop products or have no corresponding developers, I am facing the customer's personalized requirements, or I am confused by the pre-sales fraud method, finally, persuade the customer to give up the requirement, or if the customer really wants to stick to it, only give up the project; or, in the implementation stage, the implementation capability of the implementers should be relied on to propose alternative solutions, and persuade the customer to accept it. If it still does not work, the contract has been signed, and the final payment cannot be received, the project becomes a "bad end" project.
It seems very easy to solve this general problem. Isn't it enough to recruit another developer? The customer only needs to provide the required functions. But in the opinion of the company boss, it is not so easy to recruit developers. There are several obstacles:
1. The company does not have any products, and development cannot begin. All products are provided by software vendors. They are responsible for sales, implementation, and service. If the customer has typical requirements, they can report to the software vendors, however, if the software vendor passes the evaluation, it will be included in the development plan of the next version. It will not be developed based on the cycle of the project. If the next version is released, I don't know whether it is half a year or a year later. If this requirement is more personalized and not representative, it will be eliminated in, the next step on this project is very difficult. If you recruit software developers for development by yourself, there is no source code, what can you do for developers?
2. Perform secondary development based on the manufacturer's products. version upgrade is not feasible. Although there is no source code from the manufacturer, the existing ERP products are still relatively good at openness. They both have open platforms and clear data dictionaries, developers can make some triggers and stored procedures at the database level to meet the customer's requirements, if the vendor's software products have been upgraded, the customer will follow the upgrade. If the data dictionary changes, isn't it too much trouble? In addition, if the customer needs to add new modules, another plug-in or plug-in has to be implemented to modify the vendor's data dictionary, it is a complicated task.
3. Small companies have strict cost control and cannot afford developers. How much is a developer's salary? 5000 a month. It's normal. But can a small company raise such a developer? It is unrealistic for small companies to recruit new users and cultivate new ones, because they do not cultivate the abilities of developers. If they recruit skilled employees, their wages will not be low, there are not so many projects in a month that can allow project developers to work at full capacity. Another point is that the number of small startups is relatively small. Companies are not talking about any cultural structures, and their teams are also new. Developers are now demanding the work environment, it is not easy to want a skilled employee to stay in such a company.
Based on the above points, I have provided several companies with the following suggestions: if there are projects requiring secondary development, outsource these projects. I have always believed that many technical staff on csdn have always wanted to work in Soho, but they have never had such an opportunity. From this perspective, if csdn's friends want to create their own Soho and receive private orders, such pure-sales software companies will be your stable order source.
Of course, if you want to outsource the project, you still need to pay attention to the following issues:
1. Development cooperation can be either an individual or a company: Project outsourcing, a specialized outsourcing company, or a specialized outsourcing technical developer, however, companies that specialize in outsourcing have a high price, and if you are not careful about it, you may also eat your customers. It is troublesome to bypass your direct cooperation with the customers, but their advantages are: the development speed is fast and the quality is stable; there is also the need for technical developers, their biggest advantage is that the price is low, in addition, it does not pose too much threat to customers, but because of the different levels of technical capabilities, we need to pay attention to the quality of development. At the same time, such technical personnel often have their own jobs, because of the large amount of development in your work, there may be frequent delays in outsourcing projects, which is also a matter of attention.
2. Development cooperation requires long-term and stable development. Whether looking for personal development, or looking for outsourcing companies to develop, the cooperation between the two parties must be long-term and stable because a project is developed, it is okay if the customer does not finish the operation. If the customer has subsequent maintenance, redevelopment, and requirement improvement, it is inseparable from the participation of developers. At the same time, find a development partner, because it takes time to get familiar with the original software products. If you are a newbie every time, you cannot increase development efficiency, the human sky required for natural development is high, so the price will not fall.
3. You need to have the ability to assess your needs: Outsourcing development often does not expose your development partners to your customers, at this time, start-ups need to have their own ability to assess their own needs. What kind of needs can be achieved, what kind of needs cannot be achieved, and how much is required to achieve this, if you have such a demand evaluation capability, you will naturally have a strong bargaining power. You are also standing on your feet when you make a reasonable offer to your customers and communicate with your partners, this is a difficult task for entrepreneurial companies that only do sales. It requires a learning process.
4. Development outsourcing is dedicated to customer demands. Even if development is outsourced, it is affected by the capabilities of developers, the constraints of the vendor system, and the quotation of customers, development does not always meet the customer's needs. Therefore, I think it is best to integrate the development content together. I can go deep into an industry and create an industry application around the general systems of the manufacturers, or solve some special needs, form a standard plug-in package or a standard plug-in. In this way, the next time you encounter the same requirements of customers in the same industry, you can naturally sell them directly to customers, which can reduce the company's development costs and effectively expand the marginal benefits of development resources. If this plug-in is well done, you can even resell it to the software vendor. It is not known that the software vendor can sell it for you. This idea is very beautiful. Try it.