Six questions to ask before you hire a software team
Most businesses that come to us have been burned once already. These are the questions that would have caught it.
Most of the businesses we meet have been through this once already. A developer built something, took the final payment, and disappeared. Nobody has the code, the hosting renews on someone else's card, and adding one field means starting over.
Almost every one of those situations would have been caught by asking six questions up front.
1. Who owns the source code?
Ask for it in writing. You own it should appear in the contract, not just in a conversation. Ask specifically what happens at the end: is the repository transferred to an account you control?
2. Whose name is on the domain?
This one catches people constantly. If the developer registers your domain under their own account, they control your business's address. Registration should be in your company's name, with you as the admin contact.
3. What happens if we want to leave?
A good answer is boring: you take the code and the data and go. If leaving involves a negotiation, you are being locked in by design.
4. What is the scope, exactly?
A quote without a written scope is not a quote, it is an opening position. Ask for the specific list of what is included, and what would count as a change request.
5. Who actually writes the code?
Ask whether the person scoping the project is the person building it. Work that passes from a salesperson to a project manager to a junior developer loses something at every handoff.
6. What does year two cost?
The build is the smaller number. Hosting, domains, SSL, backups, monitoring and support are what you pay indefinitely. Get that figure before you sign, not after.
The pattern
Every question above is really the same question: what happens when this relationship ends? A team that has thought about it answers easily. A team that hasn't gets uncomfortable — which is the answer.