How to build and run a developer-first software agency

2 points by majestic5762 3y ago ↗ HN

I'm a full-stack developer with 10+ years of experience and I really love my craft. I've always dreamt of building my own team so we can deliver cool products together. I've missed lots of B2B opportunities which I could've handled if I wasn't alone. Experience showed me that most of the agencies I worked with in the past are negligent by delivering smelly, unscalable code, and this drives me nuts. I have built for myself all the necessary boilerplates, flows, scripts, etc, with respect to latest tech, patterns and DX, giving me a pretty good boost while enforcing best standards.

I know how to build good software in a timely manner, but I need more people. How can I start without having a steady stream of projects to begin with? I plan to work just with freelance full-stack seniors, even part-time.

If you were to think like a growth hacker, where can I find such people?

If you were to consider joining such team, what would make you happy?

The values I want to cultivate are: developer-first, remote culture, async communication, frictionless experience, available resources to do your job without wasting energy on non-functional things, from infrastructure, to product specs and documentation.

Work when you can, have pros around when you need them, respect the client, deliver, get paid, don't block others, repeat. If stuff hits the fan, then protect the team, push back on the client, take losses if I have to.

1 comment

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gregjor 3y ago ↗

You only make money as a freelancer or agency over the long term by focusing on the customer. In my experience customers don't care about "developer first" values or the things developers say they strive for such as code "quality" (measured how?) or scalability (a possible future requirement). Nor do they care about async communication or remote culture or any of that, they just want to see progress and have their emails and calls answered. Your process and values don't matter to the customer except as they deliver business value, a vague and hard to support claim. Either you and your team add business value and meet customer requirements or someone else gets the job, or you land in tedious arbitration hearings. Arguing with the customer usually doesn't work out, unless you already have a strong trust relationship and domain expertise.

I keep my freelancing focus on the customer. My process and ideas about quality and scalability have to fit customer requirements, and I have to back up my talk about quality and scalability with evidence. The agency that represents me also maintains a strong focus on the customer.

"Growth hacking" the freelancer and agency models has led to lots of failed projects and customers with a bad taste for agencies. When getting new projects takes priority over delivering value and keeping customers happy you only grow by churning projects, and the industry has more than enough of that already.