The software universe is scary for a business owner looking into commissioning a product. Where do you start? Who do you hire? How do you know who to hire? Buying a car is easy because most of the time; you can see and touch it. Software on the other hand is abstract. You can easily say; I want something like ‘that’. However; ‘that’ was made for someone else with bespoke needs. It might serve you but not as efficiently.
I have a category dedicated to bringing some order to the confusion around aspect of decisions that need be made before commission such projects. On this blog post, I am addressing scale. How big one should start relative to their establishment.
Do you need a entire team of developers or will one do? What kind of hosting do you need? How long will such a project take before a minimum viable product is available for use? These are the kind of questions I’ll try to answer.
Unless trying flamboyance then efficiency is key. You do not want want a lorry where a cart would do. You need a cart that will grow into a lorry as your business grows. We are all idealist heart. We feel that our idea will rule world and change reality but all of that is in our heads. Starting like your idea is reality turns ugly and expensive real quick. Reality is; we were not born adults even though our parents sometimes wish their children; just knew. They have to instill and that takes patience.
A software project is no different. It can be as small as it can be or as big as it need be and the user will never know. Web software scales on the back-end (business logic) and not on the front end (what the user sees). Here’s how.
A web application constitutes of two logical parts. Getting more users does not change what the user sees on the website. More users means more load in terms of storage and requests. You will probably need a bigger database and employ more customer care agents and all this is not visible to the user. The user experience stays as is.
It would be detrimental to growth if an increase in usage also brought about a change in user experience. Imagine logging into your mail and finding a different interface, why? It gained more users. An increase in usage would be detrimental if increase in usage came at a cost of the smooth experience had by earlier users. A balance need be struck.
Telling what the future holds is difficult in a fluid business environment. Adapting is key. That being said; you need a cart which you are certain of growth. It needs to be able to grow or shrink if need be but your needs be met while keeping efficiency at heart.
Here is an example of the types of developers and what they do. Try this if you need to know who to approach for your solution. Software is not an expensive endeavor but it will be a nightmare should you dive into the waters blind.