Hiring consultants is a great option when it's time to bring in more help... but how can you vet or qualify a consultant if you don't understand what their process and finished product should look like? Spoiler alert – you can't.Highlights:Know How to do the Job Yourself First. Can you really "hire" someone that you can't vet? Learning keeps knowledge in house and grows your experience. How else can you actually prove the consultants are providing value? Use your KPIs for people you pay. You can’t know everything about everything, but you can set up Key Performance Indicators for any project. Compare them between your initial test-run and results generated by your consultant.ROI is your tool to validate the investment. If you don't know what kind of Return on Investment to expect, do some research to familiarize, and then have a conversation with your consultant to make sure that expectations align. Without this, you won’t be able to see compelling results and could falsely assume that they did a bad job. Links:Got an App Idea? Hire us!Follow us on InstagramFollow us on LinkedInEbook: The Founder's Guide to Hiring a Great DeveloperEbook: Validate Your Perfect App Idea

Developing an app is unbelievably challenging. This thing is your baby and nothing hurts more than honest feedback that your baby is plain ugly!Don't be like most entrepreneurs who avoid tough feedback. You need to know what's broken and that means having a thick skin. Listen to today's episode to find out why you the best customers will hurt your feelings.Highlights:Be Careful Who You Interview. Lots of people will interview anyone convenient in their life. Your mom, a friend from school, or a coworker, etc. Even if these people have experience and match your target customer they are far too biased to ever give good feedback.Strangers Are Far More Honest. You must find strangers because they will actually hurt your feelings with REAL feedback.You Need Honest Feedback. That brutal, honest feedback from strangers is valuable and a true insight into your market. Just be prepared with a thick skin. They don't hold any punches.Links: Got an App Idea? Hire us!Follow us on InstagramFollow us on LinkedInEbook: The Founder's Guide to Hiring a Great DeveloperEbook: Validate Your Perfect App Idea

Trying to keep up with tech jargon can feel like taking on another full-time job. Your eyes are crossing when you open that email and read things like "blockchain", "plugin", and "API". We get it. And we are here for you. Tune in as we cover various tech terms to help you better understand what you are getting into when working with developers.Highlights:Learning the Language. It's important to learn various tech terms so that you know what you are getting into when working with developers.Tech Terms To Know. Familiarize with these ten terms to begin building your tech knowledge base.APIBlockchainCDNMachine LearningPluginResponsive DesignSaaSUI/UXDatabaseEnvironmentDeveloper Continue Building. Tune in to future episodes where we continue this series with more terms to help give you leverage in negotiating, leverage in coming up with pricing structures/quotes/proposals, and to help you understand what you need vs. what you don't need.Links: Got an App Idea? Hire us!Follow us on InstagramFollow us on LinkedInEbook: The Founder's Guide to Hiring a Great DeveloperEbook: Validate Your Perfect App Idea

Feeling lost when it comes to your search for a developer? Where do you even start? What questions do you need to be asking? And what is this actually going to cost? Tune in for answers to all that and more.Highlights: Finding Developers.  Tap local businesses networks and connections for referrals, find a developer to help you interview and vet candidates, look at agencies and freelancers online and start gathering quotes. Offshore is fine, but harder to vet, communicate, and execute. Don’t go offshore just to go cheap.Vetting and Interviews. How will they help you validate various functionality? What is their development process? How do they involve you with the development process? Will you get to inject feedback every week, or will they just deploy it when done? What does the launch and handoff process look like? How will you handle future updates and maintenance? Check out: https://gorillabotlabs.com/hirePicking Your Rockstar. Reflect after each interview, take notes, and do a quick gut check. Use a consistent grading scale, and break ties with your initial gut feeling.Links: Got an App Idea? Hire us!Follow us on InstagramFollow us on LinkedInEbook: The Founder's Guide to Hiring a Great DeveloperEbook: Validate Your Perfect App Idea

Calculate how much your app will cost. Learn the perfect price range for your new app idea and how you should be paying your developers.Highlights:Ways You Can For Your App. There are a few common ways to pay for your app development such as equity, milestones billing, weekly/biweekly iterations, total lump sum, or 50/50 splits.You Can Estimate The Cost. First start with a basic idea you have right now. Next, imagine what the app the does in 5 years. Now, I want you to really compare the two. What has to be in your MVP v1.0? Trim it down to the absolute bare essentials so you can launch faster.Red Flags That Will Cost You More. Avoid tech-jargon you don't understand. You're more likely to add bloated features and requirements into your software when try to use buzzwords you don't understand."Links:Got an App Idea? Hire us!Follow us on InstagramFollow us on LinkedInEbook: The Founder's Guide to Hiring a Great DeveloperEbook: Validate Your Perfect App Idea

The only thing worse than your app going offline is realizing you know nothing about it and can't even find the code. Don't be that founder. Own your code.LinksGot an App Idea? Hire us!Follow us on InstagramFollow us on LinkedInEbook: The Founder's Guide to Hiring a Great DeveloperEbook: Validate Your Perfect App Idea

Developing your app idea and launching it into the market is a challenging. In today’s episode we’ll cover what actually matters when building your app so you don’t get stuck halfway.HighlightsThe customer always comes first. You can only solve a problem when a customer has a problem. You can only make a dollar when a customer’s problem is solved. The customer always comes first.Tweaking features is fun. Many founders get caught in a cycle of endless launching and tweaking product features. You need features, but only the right ones. Learn what your customer actually uses, not what you think they want. LinksGot an App Idea? Hire us!Follow us on InstagramFollow us on LinkedInEbook: The Founder's Guide to Hiring a Great DeveloperEbook: Validate Your Perfect App Idea

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first ever episode of the Founders vs Tech podcast. It's a pleasure to finally release this puppy!Today we're talking all about the minimum viable product (MVP) and how they should embarrass you a bit. Artsy people, designers, and perfectionists beware! You're not going to like this, but you absolutely need the lesson.The term MVP is so overloaded, overused, and just downright misused in today's startup culture. An MVP is not your v1.0. It's also not your perfect dream vision with all your features crammed in.You need to be ruthless about your MVP. What do you actually need to make money? What is the absolutely bare minimum you can build so that someone trades you their hard earned dollars.The truth is that most founder's spend way too long on their MVPs, wasting months (years even) and thousands of dollars on crap they never needed in the first place.If you're even remotely worried about the time and financial investment going into your app, you need this episode!Psst. Hey! - You don’t need a developer to validate your app idea. In my free ebook “Validate Your App Idea (Without Hiring A Developer)”, I breakdown a simple, step-by-step framework so you can validate your perfect app idea and prove it works.To learn how to validate your app idea, go to gorillabotlabs.com/validateLove this episode?Share it with a friendLeave a 5 star reviewFollow us on socialInstagramLinkedInhttps://www.gorillabotlabs.com/1

Welcome to “Founders versus Tech”, the weekly podcast for busy entrepreneurs and founders who know they need technology but just struggle to figure it out. I am your host John Rake, and every Thursday I release a brand new episode bringing you the best advice for launching mobile apps, estimating costs, spotting red flags, hiring great developers, and so much more so you can focus on “scaling” your business - not “dealing” with your tech.Speaking of tech … it’s ridiculously frustrating, yet critical to achieving your business goals. So if you consider yourself “tech-challenged”, join me. I’ll be distilling over a decade of my professional experience every single week so that you can get the nuts and bolts, jargon-free tech advice YOU NEED completely free anywhere that you can find podcasts. For more “Founders versus Tech” business tips, and what not to do with your technology, follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn @foundersvstech. Now, get back to your business, it ain’t gonna run itself!