Building An App: Assemble Your Team (Part Three)

Who do I need to build an app?

You’ll need a team of people. Part Two of this series mentions that you’ll need someone with industry knowledge of what you’re building or who has an “in” with the audience/target market.

This is the third part of a mini-series for non-technical advice in app development. Part One can be found here and Part Two can be found here.

When I was an intern several years ago, I was the only technical person on my team. One day at lunch with a handful of coworkers, someone said “we should build an app”. It was then pointed out we wouldn’t get very far with one programmer and six project managers.

In terms building the app, you’ll need two skills from a technical standpoint:

• Developer: someone who can write code
• Designer: someone who can make it look good

It’s been my experience that these are typically two different people. Sure someone can have both skills, but I’ve found that people generally specialize in designing or coding.

If you need to hire someone, there’s a correlation between the quality of work and the cost. It’s also been my experience that you get what you pay for. People with more experience are going to provide a higher quality output, and will thus charge more. If you’re going to hire someone to fulfill one of the roles above, I suggest the freelance website Upwork.com. I would not recommend using Fiverr for this.

There are websites out there for “find a co-founder,” that can help bring on team members with the skills your team is lacking. In this case, forming a partnership may not cost you anything!

I personally had a negative experience with the one site I used for this, although it was the fault of the teammates, not the website that I used to find them.

NDA

Often when working with people, you may ask / be asked to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (“NDA”). This means that you promise to not take someone’s idea, leave them, and then go off and build it on your own.

Of course there’s two schools of thought on this:

✔️ Sign: don’t trust anyone.

❌ Don’t sign: show your willingness to build trust and have faith in that you don’t need to worry about legal issues (that do not yet or may not ever exist).

I’m a pessimist, by nature. And yet when it comes to this specific topic, I recommend not bothering with an NDA (within reason, of course!). It takes a lot to build an app. Is your idea really that good that someone is going to steal it? Maybe. But are they actually going to execute on it? No, probably not: people are lazy.

Teammate Characteristics

I think the most important attribute to look for is passion. If you have money to hire someone, this isn’t as important. If it doesn’t work out, throw money at somebody else.

I’m often in the category of having a minimal budget. My apps are often fun little side projects that may not make any money; or if it will, it won’t be for a long time. I want to spend as little as possible for something that’s not going to make me any money in return!

I know it’s hard to predict, but you want someone in it for the long haul. If they don’t share a passion for the specific product/app you’re building, do they at least have the entrepreneurial spirit? If so, that could be sufficient.

This isn’t a school project where you’re assigned teammates. You can pick who to work with.

I’ve had a handful of these business partnerships that have turned into friendships, which are bonus points 😃.

The next/final part of this series, focusing on the possibility of making a websites instead of a native app, can be found here.