If you are finding it tough to get your app to market, I invite you to read this post in full. I’ll discuss a few of the reasons why so many apps fail to materialize, and a new business model we are rolling out this year to allow us to reach some small- to mid-size clients in 2014 and beyond. If you find this informative, feel free to bookmark this site, as we are planning to reveal our massive Guide to App Development in the near future, where we will share many insights we’ve gleaned in the over 10 years Glowdot has been in business — and particularly the 6 years we’ve been in the app development game — which will help you as you start your search for an app developer.

First of all, in case you find this page with no knowledge of who we are: Glowdot is a full-service software development studio located in Santa Monica, California, also known as “Silicon Beach”. Our specialties are mobile apps (iOS, Android, et al) and games. If you have looked into companies like ours in the past, you might notice one thing that sets us apart: our clients are big. Very big. And some of the biggest ones we aren’t able to show you. We’ve worked hard over the past few years to cultivate a top-shelf team of designers, artists, project managers, sound designers, musicians, and, most importantly, programmers. And as a result, we have been privileged to work with some of the biggest businesses and brands in the world.

That’s not to say we won’t or don’t want to work with smaller clients! In fact, quite the opposite: we’ve been actively looking for ways to make smaller projects work for years. Working with big, well-funded companies is easier for us because those clients tend to know what they are getting into, understand the costs involved and why it costs what it does, and have a good understanding of the process and requirements of software development going in.  As a result, the process of negotiating a contract is usually very smooth and pleasant, with very little need to explain every detail.

Smaller clients, on the other hand, are sometimes, to an extent, out of their element.  They may have a very wrong (usually shockingly low) expectation of  the cost and time factors.  They may have an exaggerated sense of the value of an idea versus the value of the execution of that idea.  And so on.  Usually these issues cause the process to break down long before they even start.  More and more I am hearing that those seeking a developer are having a hard time even getting a response to their emails, and on the other side I’m hearing more and more from developers that they are screening potential clients based on that initial email — if there is even a hint that the client has too low a budget, or off-base expectations, that email goes right into the trash.

I’ve long maintained that it doesn’t have to be this way.  Developers should be taking the time to educate their clients, and the process of hiring a developer or studio should be a conversation.

So let’s start the conversation!

Your budget is too low

The number one biggest problem.  The budget issue is clouded by so many factors I’m certain I’m going to forget most of them, but here are a few.

Offshore development studios offering sub-par services at ridiculously low rates.

I can sum this up with 6 words: you get what you pay for. In the six years we’ve been developing mobile software, we have not once seen a quality app come out of one of these agencies.  Literally not once.

The mobile app market is incredibly competitive.  In order to succeed, you must be best-in-class or the market will reject your offering.  You simply cannot cut corners anymore.  I could spend a full day listing out examples of first-to-market apps that were destroyed by bigger, better competitors who did it right from the start.  The example almost everyone knows of is Facebook vs. MySpace.  Fewer people know MySpace initially lured users from another, earlier site called Friendster.  The moral of the story is the better platform wins.

These outsourcing agencies keep their costs low by employing programmers with a lower cost of living, little to no experience, and a couple weeks or months of education.  Compare this to a top-shelf developer in California, who has anywhere from 4 to 8 years of education, usually post-graduate at a major university, and 10 or more years of experience.  If you hired the second programmer, they would cost you anywhere from $140,000-$180,000 a year plus stock and benefits (and the benefits for talented developers are insane!)  A developer in India, on the other hand, may run you $24,000 a year, flat.

That’s a vast difference in cost, but the trade-off is a vast difference in quality as well.  I’ll repeat again: we have never, ever seen this work out well.  If you’re lucky, you’ll get an app at the end of it.  But not the level of quality the market demands.  In the worst case, you’ll get stuck in a hell of revisions and redos that may end up costing you as much as a competent developer in the first place.

Advice from friends and colleagues

“You can get that app built for $5000, I know a guy…”

“That’s a one week project.” (or worse: “that should only take a couple hours”)

Good software takes time.  Good software requires a team of talented, experienced and highly educated people working long hours for weeks if not months.  And it is a never ending process.  New platforms, changing platforms, adding features, removing features.  The process is always ongoing.  Anyone who tells you software can be done quickly or cheaply simply doesn’t understand software.

Our advice: be open to the conversation about time and budget.  If what you hear sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

How can we fix this?

Glowdot is experimenting with a new model in 2014: Venture Technology.  Before we talk about what this new model is, let’s talk about what it isn’t.

Can you build my app and we’ll split the profits?

No.

I won’t go into this too much, because it’s been covered to death out there on the Internet.  No one will ever build your app for you for free (essentially providing many thousands of dollars of investment in time) and cross their fingers hoping for a return.  And even if they did, the split would not be 50/50.  It’s a model that many people still seem to think is legitimate, even though it makes almost no sense. If you are creating apps and need a fast connection, then get one of these best wireless routers.

But… its not entirely nonsensical.

The idea for this post came from repeatedly seeing a few patterns emerge in our industry:

First, the start-up process.  Someone has an idea, they raise some money from a venture capitalist, which they in turn spend on development.  Either they hire a team and get to work, or they hire an outside agency like Glowdot and they get to work.  The venture capitalist invests in the company and the developer or developers get paid.

One really great place to start your research is to look at how much money these start-ups initially raise.  They don’t raise hundreds or a couple thousand.  In some cases they raise millions to get their product out the door.  More typical would be raising somewhere between $50,000 and $200,000 to get an app out on one platform.  Understandably, that’s a whole lot of money to most people.  And raising it might very well be impossible if you don’t know the right people.

The second situation is the under-funded client who simply cannot afford the realistic bid and so chooses among the bids he or she can afford.  Which in turn leads to a client choosing a sub-par developer and wasting their money.  It is a situation that continues to disturb us — we hate to see people throw their money away.

So we’ve come up with an option for certain clients: instead of sending you back out to find the proper funding, we can offset the cost to an extent by providing Venture Technology.  This does not mean we can build an app for you for free, or even for the same price as our offshore competitors.  We simply can’t.  But we can offer some portion of our services as an investment in you, your idea, and your business.

The bid is the start of the conversation, not the end!

One thing we need to do a better job of is making our smaller clients aware that the bidding process is the start of the conversation, not the end.  When we offer a proposal on a project, we are calculating a timeline and a price that we feel is true and fair to a product that we are proud to put our stamp on.

At the same time, we know that clients are also getting bids from low-ball, low-quality developers who often have no business offering a proposal in the first place.  We’ve heard that during this RFP phase, clients have seen bids range from $700 up to nearly a million.  No wonder there’s so much confusion!

Our bids are always going to be higher.  We don’t outsource, our team is best-in-class, and we pride ourselves on building the best software we can.  This naturally makes us expensive. But we also don’t want to see businesses that can’t afford us go down in flames simply because they can’t afford quality.

If we believe in your idea, and your determination to make it work, we can adjust our costs as an investment in your vision.  Not only does this offer us some compensation (in the best case), it keeps us engaged in your business in the long term.  Since software truly is a never ending process, you really want a technology partner more than you want an app developer.  And that’s what we do best.

We can also help shape your project to match your budget, by advising you on technologies and features that may or may not give you the biggest bang for your buck.  Lots of great software starts out small and gradually evolves into the full vision, and we can advise you on how to best grow into the big picture.  As our COO Michael is fond of saying, asking “how much does it cost to build an app” is like asking “how long is a rope”.  There are so many variables involved, too many to accurately reflect in a project bid.  So we typically offer you the longest rope we can.  From there, we can start adjusting to match your budget.

As a final note, understand this offer isn’t available to every project.  We have to truly believe in your vision, your idea, and your ability to pull it off once you have working technology in your hands.  And you have to have at least enough funding to cover our minimum costs.  But if we do, and you do, let’s start the conversation and see if we can help you build world-class software and change the world!

We have already taken on a few clients under this offering and we are very excited about the conversations we’ve had, so I invite you to reach out to us so we can talk.  Software is our passion and there is nothing we love more than discussing great ideas with energetic and enthusiastic entrepreneurs!