As an entrepreneur, it’s an amazing feeling when your customers tell you that your business is delivering something unique. I recently had this happen and wanted to share the anecdote. I was recently introduced to a potential new customer looking to build a software product for a new business. The contact who introduced us joined us on a call where I described how we typically engage with customers when defining and building a “minimum viable product (MVP)”. I stated that Cod

Whenever we have a first call with a potential client, they invariably ask us two questions. First, they want to know whether they actually need a custom software solution rather than an off-the-shelf product (we covered this question in detail in last week’s blog post). Then they ask the “big question”: how much will it cost? The answer is that it all depends on what you want to build. The analogy I usually use is: “That’s like asking how much it costs to build a house.” The

If you’re starting a business in the 21st century, you are almost certainly going to need software solutions to run your business. Even the lowest technology businesses will need websites, accounting systems, billing systems, etc. Consequently, one of the first questions you’ll need to ask yourself is, “Do I need to build custom software or should I license something off the shelf?” We hear this question all the time at CodeStringers, particularly from startups. The company h

If you’re starting a new tech business, finding the right development team can be one of the most important decisions you make. But how do you find the right team? The first decision you’ll need to make is whether to develop in-house vs outsource. Then secondly, if you outsource, you’ll need to decide between an onshore and an offshore development team. We’ve discussed both of those decision points in previous articles. Today, we're going to focus on finding an offshore devel

You can’t watch the news for more than five minutes these days without hearing predictions of a recession, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, tightening of credit markets, global supply crisis, et cetera. When consumers get wind of these adverse events, they begin a cycle of economic decline: Consumers get nervous, so they spend less, Businesses make less money than they did before, Businesses slow hiring and/or lay off employees, Which makes consumers nervous, so they spen

Let's face it, the pandemic (and then the AI revolution) changed everything. Now, many businesses are undergoing a major digital transformation in order to adapt to today’s vastly different environment. Unfortunately, however, the keyword in that sentence is “undergoing.” Many of these projects continue to languish under indefinite delays and cost overruns. This is driving CEOs crazy. They can see so much potential for disruption in our new world, but the initiatives aimed at

Research on the relationship between leadership and organizational success has shown that a leader's capacity for empathy and compassion has the strongest influence on organizational profitability and productivity. How does empathy relate to your ability to lead? What can you do to improve your leadership skills? In this post, we will define empathy and empathetic leadership and provide advice on how to enhance this skill. What is empathy? The term empathy was first introduce

Because of the benefits outlined in the previous article, software outsourcing has become the solution for many firms worldwide. Software outsourcing also comes in various forms, classified by location, such as onshore, nearshore, and offshore. If you've decided to go the offshore route, the next question is which country is best suited for your offshore software development. This post will outline the criteria for determining which country is best suited to outsourcing your