With the current pace of innovation and technology, if you’re not moving fast you’re not going to last until Christmas.
We don’t have to tell you that time is money.
Money for salaries that you have to spend, and money from customers that you’re not getting until you have a product that you can charge for.
So with this in mind, let’s look at your options as a budding startup co-founder who’s deciding what’s the best way to get started.
The obvious way: hire a CTO + team
We say this is the “obvious” way because this is how traditionally companies are started. A team of 2-3 co-founders where one of them is a “technical” person. However, with software engineers salaries rising around the world and competition from both startups and Fortune 500 companies through the roof, this is getting harder and harder.
Between the time it’s going to take you to hire a team and get things underway, you’re looking at 12 months and roughly 200k spent to develop your v1.
The “other” way: outsource it to a software house
Because of the issues in the above point, many startups have skipped the whole “let’s find a CTO/technical co-founder” process altogether and gone straight to outsourcing.
There are tens of thousands of software houses to choose from, whether locally or overseas.
By going through a software house, you’re looking at 6 months and 70-100k invested.
The “new” way: Low-code development
Low-code development is a trending buzzword these days, and for good reason! It allows you to move lightning fast which is exactly what you should be prioritizing as a new startup.
We wrote an article where we go into detail about the differences between conventional software houses and Lateral Studio.
Low-code development relies on existing tools that can be integrated to create “custom” solution that are ready for your first 100 users but take a fraction of the time to develop.
When you choose Low-code, you’re looking at weeks for development and 10-30k budget.
If you’re curious to see what is our process to develop MVPs in 2-4 weeks, head to this page.
- Software house: 70-100k, 6 months +
- In-house team: 200k+, 12 months between hiring and development
- Low-code studio: 10-30k, less than three months
