startup-costs, business-structureWhat we have:
What we don’t have:
I suggested we hire a consultant to audit our software and our project management, but don’t know what to expect of such a consultant other than “solve all our insecurities”. I also wouldn’t know where to find such a consultant, that would be willing to come for a week every few months to check if we’re on track.
Is my idea worth anything or are there better ways to spend money to get rid of these insecurities. On the one hand, we have a budget and need to break even in two years, but on the other we need to create our organization for the long-run.
You have assessed that you lack a number of competencies for your project to succeed. And that’s a great start!
My recommendation as for using external talents: if it is not core competency, not something you absolutely need for your business to succeed, then it is okay to pay a consultant, free-lancer, contractor or alike to handle it.
But if it is core to your business, if it will be an ongoing development or operation need, then you need to bring in the talent into the team.
Notice that being in a rural area far away from the usual talent-gathering locations makes them harder to find, but you can always have someone working from a remote location.
One experience I would like to share on this topic: I have met once long ago a specialized ERP piece of software that was internally maintained by the “client” (the final user), with only internal talents. The foundations for that software were laid by a consulting group that was present in the beginnings of development. But once the talent (the consulting group) was gone, the internal development group kept on following the laid path, without the global or higher view of why that was laid like that. 10 years later the software was a complete mess, a frankenstein built with archaic and unmaintained technology that costed millions in internal talents to code, given that they would have to teach new comers the obsolete and abandoned technology they were still using. In that case, it seems to me that the technology was poorly chosen from the start, but no chance for a refactoring and pivoting was available, as the talent needed for that was not present in the team.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.