How to hire a custom software development company

If you’re looking for the best software development company for your custom application, you’ll probably do what most people do - ask around, and do some Google searching. It’s ironic that as much as custom software development companies want you to find them, it isn’t easy. You can’t shop for developers on the web like you would a new backpack or bicycle.

There are a few “Here’s a list of the best software development companies” articles, but the companies listed are hand-picked by someone who has a financial reason to list those particular companies, or they don’t have any hands-on experience hiring and managing that type of vendor.

It doesn’t help to try to search for a company in your geographical area; these days, it really doesn’t matter where the company is located as long as they are professional, communicative, and organized. Thanks to chat and screen-sharing apps, you’ll get as much done virtually as you would if they were down the street.

So we’re back to asking around and doing some Google searching. Asking around is pretty straightforward; we usually ask a business friend, “Who have you used for software development, and how was it?” Or, “Do you know any good custom software development companies?” The problem with this approach is that what you need may have little to do with what your friend needed. Which brings us back to search.

It’s instructive to see what others have searched for when facing a similar problem. Most people search for “software development company,” which is a highly contested phrase that yields, as of this writing, 282 million results. Next popular is the term “custom software development,” which yields 57 million results. Still too big of a pool to wade through or make any sense of. “Custom software development company” is still pretty broad (50 million results), but at least you’re making your intent clear - you want to hire a company that makes custom software.

It’s best to take a different approach. What kind of application do you need developed? A full-scale, enterprise application, or a small, mobile app? Do you know which platforms it’s going to run on (Android or iPhone - obvious examples)? Do you have reason to need it written using a specific language or tool that you are already invested in (Java, PHP, Javascript, Objective-C, Node.js, Ruby, C, C++, C#)? Is it serving a particular function, or industry?

If you know the answers to any of these questions, you can add them to the end of the term “custom application development company” and you’ll start to get results that you can pursue. Honestly, the best software development companies will have their act together, in all aspects of their business, and they will be more likely to set up their search engine optimization program so they can be found when you type in those end-of-search-term qualifiers.

How well their site explains what they do can be yet another stumbling block. I don’t need to tell you how to find your way through this phase; we’ve all learned how to poke around sites - and give up when that poking isn’t returning results. Personally, I find that going directly to their blog and reading what they’re passionate about goes a long way toward figuring out if this company will be a fit.

Character counts when evaluating a custom software development company

The best software development companies are almost obsessed with the usability of the end result, because they know that usability has a direct impact on user acceptance, and user acceptance has a direct impact on revenue.

Any good developer will tell you that users have very specific ideas about how they want an application to work, and guessing about those specifics is a fool’s game. Research must be conducted before development begins. This takes character, because all of the forces driving the project will be pushing it in the other direction. “We know what they want.” “We don’t’ have time.” “All we have to do is copy this other app and we’ll be right on target.” It takes wisdom, experience, and fortitude to make sure that users are consulted as part of the design process, and at certain stages as the application is being developed.

The company’s blog articles and case studies will help you decide if you have found a user-centric company, and one whose managers and developers believe in developing applications that will be accepted by users and are more likely to be a market success.