How to start a software business?

Are you looking to transform your offline business into an online business? Are you looking to create a software solution for problems you face in your current business model? Are you looking forward to building a new software solution that can help millions ease their day-to-day life? Are you ready to start a b2b business where you offer software as a service to different startups/businesses and create value for their operations or services? If so, then you need to know how to start. This article guides you to know the step-by-step process of establishing a software company.

Know your market

Before starting your software business, do market research and get to know your customers. Analyze if this is even a problem and how impactful it can be if you have a software solution. Why it's a need now to build a solution like this and not before?

Do your competition analysis, and understand why there were no solutions before? If there are big players in similar solutions, what value will your software bring? What will be the customer acquisition cost if you plan to sell this to b2c or b2b customers? What is the lifetime value of a customer? How much is the market size, and how can you penetrate the market with your solution if ready. If you are building this software for your usage, understand how much effort it may reduce and what cost you may save if this software is available to you. Once you answer all of these, you will understand if it's worth investing in your software idea or not.

Choose the right way to sell your software:

How you sell your software/product is vital for succeeding in the market. First, analyze the way your competitors are doing. You may choose traditional selling methods or use digital or print media. Digital marketing has changed the market trends. Next, you need to strategize your marketing strategy, which will give you insight into whether this will be an easy sellable solution. If you are going to use this software internally, you may not need to sell this software, but your internal team/users should be adaptable to the solution.

Decide your platform

As per the business needs and customer behavior, the first thing is to decide how a user should interact with the software solution. Do you want to provide a web-based solution? Or a desktop base solution or a mobile app-based solution? Or do you want to keep it on all the platforms? This can be tricky, as your marketing strategy, your cost to build the software, everything depends on this basic question. It will help if you analyze your user behavior and some market surveys/research to answer this question.

Engage development team

A software solution needs to have a strong foundation. There are multiple ways you can get the job done. There are pros and cons to what you choose.

1) Hire your team

The benefits of hiring your team are:

By hiring your team, you can look after your running business. By this, you will be able to save your time and money by letting them take care of the projects.

Based on the tasks, the development team aims to work. After completing the project, the process may go for further testing.

If a critical issue arises in the project, your team will have all the necessary tools and assist you in resolving the problem.

The disadvantages of hiring your team are:

Hiring an employee is an expensive process.

The company has to pay taxes for and benefits to its staff.

The recruitment process is time-consuming.

Managing staff and creating a healthy workplace culture is not easy.

2) Use professional Freelance individuals

The benefits of hiring professional freelance individuals are:

Freelancers are specialists in their field.

Timing and budget can be decided on a per-project basis.

Cost-effective.

Flexibility to complete the project on time.

There are a few disadvantages of hiring freelancers like:

The cheaper freelancer lowers the skills or qualifications.

At times freelancers may not deliver the project on time.

Freelancers may quit abruptly if they find another high-paying job.

3) Hire a software agency

The benefits of hiring a software agency are:

Software agencies are reliable for startup development and big projects. Ex: Athmin.

They are flexible and can provide you with experienced and highly skilled tech-savvy.

Hiring a software agency is nothing but hiring a bunch of professionals - managers, developers, designers, QA experts, etc.

Apart from writing code for your project, the software agencies manage the tasks well and collaborate with the internal team.

The drawbacks of hiring a software agency include:

Hiring a software agency could be expensive for Short-term project work.

It takes time to hire a dedicated software agency.

It is not suitable for all projects.

Launch with Beta customers and fix issues

Beta testing is an acceptance testing type that adds value to the product as the customer validates the product for usability, functionality, and compatibility. So, it is better to launch the software business with beta customers.

Launch your dream

Launching your dreams is the key to attaining success in any field. If you want to start a software business, you must keep focusing on how to be successful by reaching your business to the target end-users. In such a way, your dream comes true.

Provide support

Whether a start-up or multinational company, it is essential to support your team at all levels. It is because your team is your strength; without them, there could be any growth in your business.