Well, lets start off by saying I’m not a technical person when it comes to tech companies. Hell, Im a nurse by profession. So if I can do this, anyone can. That being said, I have little background in the software space because we had some custom software developed over the last few years for our Amazon business. But when we started that path, I didnt know anything.
There are a few things that helped me setup for success going into this business. First off, I like technology and am willing to learn about it. Do I know enough now years later to program anything? Absolutely not. Do I know enough to make sure we are headed in the right direction? Yes. Over the last few years I feel like I have learned a lot about programming and it has been very useful knowing foundational terms and ideas, but I know I’ll never be the one to code it. I can read through some code and try and understand what its doing but very far from proficient.
So how did we get started? I simply used the same company we were using in the past. I found them on Upwork years ago and they have been awesome. My team for Fix it Today is a team of 4.75 people. We have 2 full time javascript developers, a full time phone app developer, a 1/2 time QA person and a 1/4 time project manager. These guys are AWESOME. I’m really thankful for my team.
So we had a team put together by the third party development company. We settled on Node.js as the programming language and using mysql for the database. Our development servers reside on Amazon AWS but we are transitioning away simply because of the long term costs. What other technology are we using for Fix It Today? Well, Amazon SES/SNS for bulk email and text. Since we are developing a phone app, its written in React Native which allows us to have a cross platform app for both iOS and Google Play. We will integrate Branch.io for some deep links so we can understand our advertising a little better.
So starting a tech company realistically just takes money and finding the right company to work with (when you are not a software developer yourself). I would have loved to have a co-foudner that was technical but, I’d rather just pay a company than to depend on a single person to be honest. With a technical cofounder, they will be responsible for the development but you’ll find in situations like ours, we need multiple programming languages to build a phone app and a web app.
If you decide to go down this path, I’ll give you a bit of wisdom that I think will really help.
- Projects will ALWAYS take twice as long and cost twice as much as you budget for.
- You need to spend a lot more time at the beginning with proper planning of every aspect. This will save a ton of development time and reduce wasteful coding.
- You’re not always right. This is a tough one since its your idea, but the idea is true. My team has come up with amazing ideas and Im thankful I listened to their input and went against my own cautiousness.
- Have outside input. Someone that is not your friend, not your family. You want a stranger for validation. I guess thats the next article….validation.
