How It works
Pure Development and Technical Service
- You have a backlog of tasks that need to be implemented.
- You have a defined MVP that needs to be implemented.
- You need to scale and grow your development team.
- You need temporary technical assistance and direction.
Technical Co-Founder
- You need someone to share the hassle of starting and leading a company with, who is technical and business-minded.
- You need someone who shares your vision and defines your technical strategy for the long term.
- You need someone who can join you when selling the company’s vision to different stakeholders including clients, partners, and investors.
- You need someone who can help you build a technical team and lead it for the long term.
- Your startup has been around for some time but you need to restructure it and partner with a new technical co-founder.
Stage 1
Initial Workshop
This preliminary stage serves as a way for us to get to know more about your startup and discuss the best way forward for both parties. This stage would normally take a week to complete.
Understanding Idea
We have thorough discussions about the idea and we challenge the idea from various angles including business, technical and legal.
Current Stage
We understand the current state of the art including the startup stage, the team, the level of funding and the exit plans in place.
Next Steps
We understand what are the next steps based on the current stage of the startup. For example, if a thorough validation has already been done, we may decide to jump to the MVP development directly.
Define Relationship
We have a common understanding of how we will be working together including discussions on remuneration and equity sharing.
Stage 2
Validation
This stage serves as a way to further validate the idea through different mechanisms which may include dedicated workshops, prototyping, wireframing, market research and focus groups. This stage would normally take a month but it can take more or less based on the idea being validated.
Research
Research the market in which the startup will be operating and answer as many questions as possible using the least amount of effort and resources.
Prototyping
Create prototypes and wireframes which can be used to communicate the idea better to stakeholders and get a better feel of whether the idea is feasible.
Workshops & Focus Groups
Organise workshops and focus groups with different stakeholders including potential clients or users to have a better understanding of the demand for the product or service.
Way Forward Decision
If the validation proves that the idea is feasible and that there is a definite market for it we will structure it and finalise our agreement to take it to the next steps.
Stage 3
MVP Development
Development of a production-ready MVP using an Agile development approach. This takes into consideration all necessary steps during development including UI/UX design, architectural design, and testing. This stage would normally take 3 to 6 months.
User Stories
Define and prioritise user stories in a way that we build the right product and the MVP necessary to start testing the market.
UI/UX Design
Design the overall user experience of the product/service and ensure top-notch design that users will fall in love with.
Architectural Design & Development
Design an architecture and develop a system which is in line with the requirements of the MVP in terms of technology used, performance and ability to scale.
Testing
Go through testing at the end of every sprint to ensure that we are building the right product while ensuring quality.
Stage 4
MVP Launch & Market Testing
This is a critical stage for any startup. This will be the first time that a functional product or service will hit the market and reach the first set of users and clients. As your technical co-founders we ensure that this stage goes smoothly and if it proves successful we start preparing the product or service to scale.
Manage Live Environment
We make sure that the live environment is set-up and capable to handle the target number of users. We use cost-effective environments and that allow for scale.
Continuous Fine Tuning
While testing the market using the MVP we will continuously adjust the product and service based on the feedback provided by users and the automated insight provided by analytical systems.
Conferences & Workshops
We attend conferences and workshops to help the other co-founders showcase the product and service.
Marketing & SEO
We make sure to optimise the product to benefit from better search engine ranking and use different marketing technologies to get the product to the fingertips of the target users.
Stage 5
Scale
We are not co-founders for the first year, we are co-founders for the long run. We will make sure to be present in scaling the service or product to larger markets and different clients. This stage demands that we work hard to reach the overall business vision.
Scale the Product or Service
Update the existing MVP and potentially re-think and re-develop some features to be able to scale the product or service allowing for more users and more functionality.
Explore New Markets
Create features and enhance the offering to allow us to tap new markets which can help us grow the user base, increase turnover and add new revenues streams.
Grow The Team
Add more people to the different teams including the technical team. We explore different options to make development more cost-effective.
Seek Funding
Funding can be sought for at different stages. Having a live system in place would put us in a better position to seek for larger rounds at this stage.