CUSTOM SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Our Skills
We work directly with founders and product owners on scope and architecture, not just on writing code to a spec someone else wrote.
Industries we know
Client Quotes
“ I’ve collaborated with Software Lab on four projects across three different companies and platforms (iOS, Android, and Web). They operate as a complete production and development unit, excelling in both design and engineering, while consistently delivering polished final products. Their team enables us to rapidly scale our development capabilities far beyond what we could achieve internally. ”
Anna
CTO and Technologist for fintech company
Expert Answers
Making sense of the technical side takes a guide who understands both the code and the business behind it.
Should I hire in-house developers or an agency?
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Both have their advantages. Hiring in-house is great for continuity and can be an asset in negotiating an acquisition, but you get more bang for your buck with a good agency team. Agencies can scale up and down as you need and have a bigger roster of technology experts, which speeds up development and increases product agility. Often times we'll fill the gap until companies find the perfect hire, or we'll fill the holes when Google poaches your senior software developer.
How much does it cost to hire a developer?
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Well that's a loaded question. Hiring a full-time developer with mid-level experience will cost you anywhere from 150-250K/year. Seniors regularly earn 400K+ at top startups. The speed with which a developer can implement something grows exponentially with experience. Most contract developers range from $50-150/hour, depending on their location. We've priced ourselves to cost about what a mid-level engineer costs, but deliver a senior-level team with supporting Quality Assurance, architecture, and Scrum management.
How long does it take to build a website or app?
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As long as possible. Let us explain: Building a piece of software is an iterative process. It starts with an assumption about how a user will interact with your product. Once you build the software, one of two things happens. Either you validate your assumptions by seeing the kind of usage that you predicted, or you invalidate it by not getting the kind of usage you wanted. If validated, you're onto something big and will want to deliver more features, more scalability, and more value to those customers. If invalidated, you'll want to make adjustments or test new ideas. In either case, a sustained and ongoing approach will yield the best results. That said, most of our projects run about three months and then either pause for testing and feedback or roll into a secondary phase with enhanced feature sets.
When should I hire an agency?
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We get hired in three situations: When you want to build something, but don't know what; when you want to build many things, but don't know how; when you know what to build, but don't know who. In the first case, we help ideate through design thinking exercises and product planning. In the second case, we help companies employ rapid prototyping and testing, and in the third case, we build custom software to be the best in class. If you're not sure you are ready to hire, we're happy to help you think through the various considerations. We also have a ton of helpful resources on our blog, newsletter, and through our podcast.
What does a typical engagement look like?
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Our typical engagements are three months, two-four developers plus supporting QA, architecture, scrum management, and design. In these engagements, we typically build towards an MVP - a minimum viable product - that can be launched and used by real users. We use variations of the Agile process to develop software. We typically work in two-week sprints with daily standups and demo drops or production releases after each sprint. Feature estimation, sprint lockdowns, retrospectives, and backlog grooming round out the typical processes.
No account managers, no layers of hand-off — just the team that builds your product, start to finish.
Engineering Excellence