How to select the best tech agency for your digital product?

Selecting the best nearshore team to build a digital product can be daunting. With so many agencies to choose from, finding the right partner for your company's unique needs is essential. In this blog post, we will discuss how to select the best nearshore team to build a digital product, including how to prepare your team to work with an agency, what to look for in a partner, and how to make the relationship work.

First, ensuring your team is ready before seeking out an agency partner is crucial. For a successful partnership, you must have clarity on what you need to build and the fundamental goals of your product development process. This applies to startup founders, commercial businesses, and non-profits who may stumble into technology without a clear vision of what they need to achieve. Designating someone on your team with decision-making power to be the clear owner of the product development process and ensuring that communication flows smoothly is also essential. If you don’t have the bandwidth to provide the necessary information to support the process, working with an agency may not be a good fit for you. This is because you may get overwhelmed by their productivity, plus your business as usual, and then become the bottleneck to progress.

Once you have a clear vision and can support a detailed product development process, it's time to collaborate with an agency partner. Here are a few tips on how to vet and collaborate with them.

1. Aligned incentives, goodwill, trustworthiness, and a culture of excellence should be the first things to look for in a potential agency partner. Great teams are hard to come by and tend to be locked in for longer periods of time. A track record of sustained relationships (years-long, not months-long) indicates an ability to perform for a sustained period. This can suggest valuing client relationships and their ability to keep up quality. Such sustained success doesn’t arise only from a commercial relationship but requires pride in good craftsmanship across the company.
2. Thought partnership, not just a body shop, is also essential. Your future partner should commit to high-velocity, efficient work systems, and processes, which is necessary for your success. Many companies whose income comes from selling time may lack the ability or interest to think about how to achieve your goals as simply and effectively as possible. However, you should be able to tell from a small to medium-sized agency whether their leadership and critical people are clearly committed to leverage and efficiency over extending the time and the bills. The best technologists are inspired by challenges and results rather than by running a large team on a relatively stagnant project.
3. Look for a firm interested in and able to be a strategic partner. Creating a digital product with an agency is a two-way relationship, and you need to be willing to ask and hear about options and considerations before making decisions. Seek a firm with people on the team with this skill set and inclination. The way to do so is to look for opinionated positions on technologies and ways of work in a manner that is compatible with your approach. Additionally, consider whether they have a broader skill set in your product industry or are familiar with your customer segment. This will bring benefits beyond coding to your product. It's essential to recognize that a significant portion of the value and leverage in creating a digital product occurs during the definition phase. Therefore, the agency you bring on should be able to ask the right questions, provide valuable pushback, and offer creative options you may not have considered.

Remember that collaboration and team effort are the keys to success in digital products, like in other business areas. No matter how brilliant your idea is, you will struggle to bring it to life without the right team and a collaborative mindset. Working together to solve problems, generate ideas, and create innovative solutions is crucial to achieving success in product development.

If you are looking for a partner who can help you bring your product ideas to life, contact us today. Our diverse team of experts is eager to learn more about your project and partner with you to achieve outstanding results. We look forward to working with you.