Shall I hire just one or multiple developers for my startup?

Hiring is one of the most difficult tasks when it comes to running a startup. Ask CEOs from any part of the world, they would say that finding the right hire would easily be the top 3 problems of any startup. An employee can make or break an organization. There should be an alignment in a lot of things to make the relationship work. If you get the right one, everything will be running smoothly, but if you end up hiring badly, you will have to go through a lot of trouble, including wastage of time, money and resources. The worst part of a bad hire would be that they will completely derail your plans. Get the help of experienced folks by hiring dedicated mobile developers from Webvillee. 

For a startup, a pivotal part of their launch involves creating an MVP. The question that this article tries to answer is how big of a technical powerhouse should your development team be. When you are looking to have a developer join your ranks immediately, the best option available for you would be to hire a dedicated mobile app developer from Webvillee. 

In a utopian world, you have experienced developers who have been working with you for a long time and have a thorough understanding of your expectations. Unfortunately, the real world is different and it isn’t always ideal. An in-house team might not always be the right answer, hiring a dedicated mobile developer can be the safest option. 

The safest answer to how many developers would you need for your startup, it is this- It is a subjective question and it totally depends on the kind of project, complexity and features involved. In this article, we will discuss such factors. 

The MVP stage:

A Minimum Viable Product is the manifestation of your product with bare essentials. It is without frills and it will only have features that are most essential for its functioning. It will help your prospective customers/investors get an idea of what you can offer. Creating an MVP helps you to start small and work your way to create a fully-functional model. 

Remember that MVP is not the final product, but at this stage, you can make do with just one developer. Maybe two developers in certain cases. It doesn’t cost you a lot. Here’s a piece of advice, if you are looking to get an MVP, hire a dedicated web developer from an outsourcing partner like Webvillee. Why? Because it is easier to get it done with the help of a dedicated web developer that you can hire on a temporary basis which will allow you to concentrate on other core works. 

The scale of your application:

When you are looking to seriously start selling your product to your customers, an MVP isn’t really something that will work. You need to create a product that will have major features, then we will suggest you have a minimum of 2-3 employees. Let’s say you are building a big website that has a lot of features, like ebay.com, then here’s how you should calculate the number of developers required.

A huge website will have a lot of features, like payment gateway, inventory management, generic elements like images, texts, tokens, etc. You need to break down the entire website into different modules so that it is easy. For each module, you need at least one or two developers working on the website. So if there are 15 modules for a fully-featured website, then you need a minimum of 15-30 developers based on the size and functionality of each of them.

Based on the developer:

If you are building a product of a decent size, then the bare minimum number of developers that you would need is a front-end developer and a backend developer. You should have someone who knows how to pick the right technology stack for your product. The developer should be familiar with system design, product design and architecture. 

Once the architecture has been finalized along with the product’s design, you cannot go back and try to change it. In fact, a startup will not have enough horsepower (read time and resources) to change the architecture or tech stack. 

The skillset of the developer is obviously one of the most important factors, not only when hiring but also when calculating the number of developers you would require for your startup. Most businesses work in the form of a Sprint these days. A Sprint is a short time duration when a scrum team works to get a particular amount of work done. Once you are able to see how much work is getting done, you will have more clarity on the number of developers you would require. 

Money in the bank:

Another decisive factor when it comes to hiring developers for your startup is money. The number of developers you can hire would be completely dependent on how much funding you have. It is a given that your company’s strategies would be different if you had a $10 million funding vis-a-vis a $50,000 corpus pooled from friends and family. 

But there’s a catch though. You can’t build too fast. If there are certain things that take time, then that’s the case not only because of lack of resources but also since anything that is made too fast can end up having a lot of problems. But if you want to be on the safe side, get the help of an experienced outsourcing agency, they will be able to direct you how fast or slow you should move. Even the dedicated mobile app developers you hire from an agency like Webvillee would tell you that it is best to work in batches instead of trying to finish everything in a go. 

Here’s our take:

Even if you are working only on your MVP, we would suggest you have at least two developers. Why? Because it will help during code reviews to ensure that there is nothing wrong with the code. Nothing like having an extra pair of eyes. While you can hire full-time developers, here is the best option that is available. Hire dedicated mobile app developers or dedicated web developers based on your needs. 

You don’t have to invest a lot of time or money in training the dedicated mobile app developers you hire from an outsourcing agency. They have already worked on a lot of projects and are fully equipped to understand the vagaries of the job.