Pitfalls to avoid when working with agencies
Coming from personal experience, there are tons of ways working with an agency can go wrong. I’ve spent $120k working with 4 agencies: SEO, paid acquisition, conversion copywriting, and design.
I also know the situation from the other side, as I run a development marketplace to hire vetted engineers. Having matched hundreds of developers with startups and worked with agencies myself, I found what makes choosing an agency a success.
Sharing my personal checklist:
1. Go to the agency when you know what needs to be built
User stories, jobs to be done, roadmap or design: whatever specification you have. Otherwise, much of the code will be thrown away. Same rules work for marketing agencies. If you don’t know your users and positioning, none of the agencies will do marketing for you.
2. Check out the background before shortlisting
Start with research: find testimonials or real products the agency helped build. Check the “Showcase” section on the website. Open Trustpilot & G2. The more previous experience you can see, the better.
3. Ask for a consultation first
Meeting the team can help you check the fit before starting the project. If you’re looking for a dev agency, chat with developers beforehand. Really, get to know the developers. Soft skills are as critical as ability to code. Avoid working with agencies that underpay their developers.
Get the agency selection checklist in a ready-to-use Google Doc format.
4. Keep the decision-making in-house
Make sure you have the technical co-founder or CTO to make the strategic decisions. If you don’t want to include someone full-time, you can get started with a fractional CTO. Don’t outsource strategy.
5. Ask for replacement policy
Verify that the agency has a replacement policy in case of bad hires or other issues. As a side comment here, have an agreement that outlines that you own the right to the product and all the associated intellectual property.
6. Hire the agency that’s a good fit for your culture
Pick the team that uses the same development approach, has remote culture, shares similar values and you’d generally like to hang out with those people.
7. Start small & provide feedback
Figure out if you can get the small commitment from the beginning. Focus on delivering a smaller MVP with the ability to change developers on the way (if it gets stuck). Get iterations with user feedback as early as possible to ensure you’re moving in the right direction. Move in short sprints. Pay for milestones.
If you need help building your product, Lemon.io always has skilled hands to build your broduct faster.
