Best Software Consultants for Startups

The Rise of Engineering Outsourcing and Top-Rated Consultants

The practice of outsourcing engineering tasks has seen a significant increase in recent years. Consequently, we are launching a new initiative focused on profiling the software consultants most favored by startups. Startup founders and leaders are invited to participate in a brief survey to share their insights and help us identify leading professionals.

Our initial profile features Joshua Davidson, CEO of Chop Dawg, interviewed earlier this week. He states, “We’ve been established for a considerable period and have successfully maintained our relevance.” He further explains that partners consistently emphasize how their longevity enables them to offer not only solutions, but also a deep understanding of the reasoning behind those solutions, promoting pragmatism – saving both time and resources, and knowing what approaches to avoid. Years of experience have inevitably led to encountering and learning from numerous mistakes, a valuable asset for their clients.

Since its inception in 2009, the software development agency has completed over 350 digital product projects for startups of varying sizes.

Further details can be found in the link provided. However, first, let’s examine some of the initial feedback received from our new survey.

Consultant Spotlights & Testimonials

Consultant: Appetiser Apps
Recommended by: Andre Eikmeier, founder of Good Empire
Testimonial: “They possess a strong global reputation and a history of delivering quality products. We particularly appreciated their flexible engagement model, allowing our CTO to lead a team of six developers from Appetiser, supplemented by UX/UI, product management, and project management support as needed. This fostered a collaborative environment, rather than a ‘black box’ agency approach, simultaneously building internal capabilities and reducing dependency. This collaboration enabled us to launch a first product iteration within three months, developing both iOS and Android versions concurrently.”

Consultant: Aloa
Recommended by: Samir Mirza, Fifth Star Funds
Testimonial: “Fifth Star Funds is a venture philanthropy fund dedicated to addressing the funding gap for Black founders at the early stages. As an evergreen fund, all returns from our investments are reinvested to support more founders. Aloa serves as our development partner due to their unwavering integrity. They align with our mission, offering services at cost to our portfolio companies, and have even provided pro-bono work for our team members, including building our website. Aloa demonstrates a clear understanding of the challenges inherent in outsourcing. They prioritize understanding business problems and identifying the most effective technological solutions, even advising potential clients to explore no-code tools when Aloa isn’t the right fit.”

Consultant: Ajmera InfoTech
Recommended by: Chintan Bakshi, Skyku
Testimonial: “As a startup CTO, I sought a team capable of providing sustained development and product launch support over multiple years. Our bootstrapped company initially attempted to train new hires, but faced attrition due to a competitive job market. Ajmera Infotech provided experienced architects and developers with whom we’ve collaborated through numerous releases. We’ve established a strong level of trust and can effectively leverage different time zones to achieve 16-18 hours of daily productivity, allowing us to remain within budget while continuously enhancing our product and services.”

Consultant: Goncalo (Gonka) Moraes, Rishabh Jaipuria (RJ) from DevGrid
Recommended by: Leo Malave, co-founder and CTO of Orbix360 Inc
Testimonial: “We transitioned from a ‘hobby’ SaaS project to a fully-fledged company with defined goals, release schedules, and a growing customer base. DevGrid’s support enabled us to create an achievable product roadmap, establish a viable revenue model, and develop plans for securing investment.”

Consultant: Cultum
Recommended by: Deji Ariyo, Laudah
Testimonial: “[We selected them because of their] expertise, transparency, cost-effectiveness, and willingness to assist. They have helped, and continue to help, transform our concept into a market-ready solution that resonates with customers.”

Consultant: ManagedKube
Recommended by: Garland Kan, consultant
Testimonial: “[They possess] a comprehensive understanding of cloud technology and its integration with open-source software, resulting in a scalable yet easily understandable and maintainable infrastructure. Their ultimate goal was to render themselves unnecessary!”

Consultant: Appetiser Apps
Recommended by: Matt Brennan, TradeNow
Testimonial: “The Appetiser team has consistently delivered high-quality applications and demonstrated a belief in TradeNow’s vision from the outset. We quickly established a strong working relationship that has continued throughout our journey.”

Industry Insights & Trends

Software Consulting

(TechCrunch+) Investors discuss the increasing adoption of infrastructure as code (IaC) in DevOps: “While IaC is becoming more prevalent, the complexities of data center configuration and management persist, creating both challenges and opportunities.” Karan interviewed leading investors in IaC startups, inquiring about the most promising applications of IaC’s ability to provision any cloud resource and how startups can differentiate themselves in this competitive landscape.

Navigating AI innovation alongside regulation: Will Uppington, CEO and co-founder of TruEra, explores the potential impact of AI regulation on innovation in Europe. Uppington notes, “The core of the EC regulations focuses on new requirements for “high-risk” AI systems, including those used in remote biometric identification, public infrastructure management, hiring, creditworthiness assessment, education, and various public-sector applications, such as emergency response dispatch.”

Chop Dawg’s approach to long-term startup development: Miranda Halpern interviewed Davidson regarding current trends in app development, the evolving landscape of tech outsourcing since the pandemic, and more. Davidson emphasizes, “Our company is committed to continuous improvement. Even now, as CEO, I constantly ask myself, “How can we refine our processes? What new technologies can we integrate? How can we leverage emerging design and technology trends?” This dedication to improvement is something I’m particularly proud of.”

Growth Marketing

(TechCrunch+) Analyzing growth marketing in the context of Apple’s attribution changes: Danny provides a recap of his panel at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021. Danny states, “Growth drives revenue, venture capital, prestige, and scale – ultimately fueling business success. However, measuring growth is complex and becoming increasingly challenging. Changes to attribution in iOS 14 and 15, along with other privacy initiatives, have forced growth marketers to re-evaluate their analytics engines.”

Why conventional marketing strategies fall short with software developers: Anna Heim interviewed Adam DuVander, author of “Developer Marketing Does Not Exist.” DuVander argues, “The book’s title is a call for marketers to treat their technical audience differently. Reaching developers requires more education and less overt promotion. Your ‘marketing’ should not feel like marketing.”

(TechCrunch+) Common growth marketing errors made by startups: Jonathan Martinez identifies frequent growth marketing mistakes and offers solutions. Martinez observes, “A recurring theme connects most startups attempting growth marketing. Common errors include inaccurate performance metric measurement, siloed product and growth teams, slow testing cycles, and a failure to consider the entire marketing funnel.”

(TechCrunch+) Effective B2B marketing tactics: Ryan Narod, marketing lead at Mutiny, presents ten marketing tactics. Nord advises, “When a target account visits your pricing page, immediately showcasing their potential ROI is highly beneficial. The simplest way to calculate ROI is by industry vertical.”