YES! You can build a software product within your budget
Software development is often undertaken for any number of reasons, the top three are:
- Building a new product
- Evolving an existing product
- Rebuilding an existing product
Underpinning these initiatives is usually delivering business outcomes of driving revenue growth, growing market share and/or enhancing customer experience (to protect existing revenues).
One of the questions I most often get in my day job leading Market and Client Services at 3Pillar Global is, “How much will it cost to build my software product or platform?” My response is often jokingly, that depends — how much do you have budgeted!?”
No! On a serious note, my response is typically It Depends — It truly depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
The cool thing about the digital era we live in today is that the possibilities of software development combined with near ubiquitous bandwidth, cloud computing principles and mobility — anyone can slap down a credit card, buy a domain and technically launch a .com or .net functioning platform in 30 minutes (if you are technically inclined). You can build or have built for you a standalone app for iOS or Droid in 1 to a few weeks for $10,000-$75,000. If your software development initiatives are aimed at instantiating a business model of enterprise scale across any industry you are now in the ballpark of a couple hundred grand to millions of dollars — again, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. Whatever your need, dreams and budget, I would recommend you spend as little as possible, think big, but build small.
Spending as little as possible, thinking big and building small will typically net you the right product that your customers will love, assures you deliver the business outcomes your business demands and result in the self-funding of continuous product innovation. The alternative, in my experience, is the wrong product, on-time and on-budget (or typically over-budget). The later does happen much more often than you might think. I see it regularly.
Ultimately, Yes! You can build you a software product within your budget. How can I commit to that you might ask? You see it comes down to product depth and width. Every software development endeavor has a breadth and depth. Based on what you are trying to accomplish and the measures of success, you can accomplish software development that will build your product, get you to market rapidly, allow you to win and serve customers early in your product lifecycle and drive the lifeblood of any business – revenues.
Product Depth and Width replaces the old notion of Time, Resource and Budget. Throwing more people and budget at a product development effort doesn’t translate to a better product, faster. It often translates into a product, that cost more, took a lot of time and left both business and customer less than satisfied.
By applying the principles of rapid development, optimizing customer feedback, gaining immediate and continued product adoption, you can build only what you need and nothing you don’t well within your budget and accomplish your business objectives. And — I must reiterate, a Product Development outcome that ultimately leads to self-funding the product development investment itself.
I see failed software development and software products regularly. I’m blessed that my company often gets called in to clean up what I have come to call “Software Development Gone Wrong.” There is commonality in most of the messes and failures I examine. In short, they all are non-functioning products that are a long way from launching and generating revenue or they are the wrong product on-time and on-budget and the business is — well, let’s just say, the business is not happy. At the core of the failures I’ve been able to explore, are:
- Mindset
- Approach
- Thinking big and going big
- No customer feedback throughout development
- End of full development lifecycle release instead of releasing software early and often
Do you agree or disagree with my philosophy and experience? How are you addressing the budget question in software development today in an era where time-to-market is of the essence and budgets are limited?