Introduction:

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At Voxgig, we specialise in developing both software and teams. This case study sheds light on how we helped a client efficiently overcome technical debt, scale their MVP, and foster relationships with a potential in-house software development team.

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The Challenge

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So far in your business, you’ve spotted your market’s pain. You’ve designed the solution. You have enlisted your initial users and possibly even early investors to assist in the development and trial of a first version. Your assumptions have been tested, validated and are in demand. Now you face the challenge of scaling. Actually, you face the challenge of being ready to scale in the first place! Quite frankly, the thought of marketing the current version brings you out in a cold sweat. You know where the weaknesses are. Some of these weaknesses are time & labour related, not a reflection on your technology choices. There are processes and procedures that are performed manually now, and with flair. How does a scaled up version deliver the same experience to users, without tying you or your team to a desk?

There are several issues you need to address, but pretty high on the priority list are the double whammy of improving the robustness of your solution, and lack of internal resources to build that more robust version.

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For one of our clients, they reached out to us over a year ago and are currently closing a second investment round and multiple new, high-value customer contracts. Here’s how Voxgig assisted their sales and scaling efforts.

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The Options for this Opportunity

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At this stage of a business’s growth, it is most useful to take a strategic look at the likely future and at the available skills and resources available to your business. Whether or not you have inhouse software development capability, there is most likely a need when moving from MVP to robust, scalable solution to get an external view. Here are a some of the engagement types which can bring value to your business.

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Fractional CTO

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This is a cost effective way to source expert advice from experienced and highly networked CTO’s on a part time basis. If they are available, they may even eventually join your company in the full time position of CTO, but even if this is only ever a paid advisory role, you get targeted technology guidance and introductions. This is also an important position to have covered when seeking investment.

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Software Development - freelance

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There are many models and options open to you here. But there are also pitfalls, most particularly for non-technical CEOs and founders. It is common to have remote teams of developers, perhaps you will have many developers working as freelancers around the world, bringing with it the complexity of time zone management, people management and multiple invoices to be processed in multiple currencies.

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A combination of these was of most relevance to our client to support their inhouse technical team. It wasn’t ever a question of technical ability within our client’s team; it was a question of availability. With a team maintaining an existing service and revenue generating users, how could the company prioritise and drive technical development of a more robust offering to prospective customers?

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The Solution

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At Voxgig, we started working with our client at this exact juncture. Getting all the right signals from customers and prospective customers, they just didn’t have the bandwidth or budget to jump straight into a fulltime CTO or software development team to bring the product to where it needed to be. In addition to budget constraints, there was also a need to research technology options for this transition from MVP to scalable version. Just what are people using these days? And why?

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Outsourcing to Voxgig, which also serves other clients, allowed our client to gain exposure to the latest proven tool choices and avoid errors discovered on other journeys - all done while protecting your IP and secret sauce.

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We provided a fractional CTO service to bolster their engagements with prospective customers or investors. Often, while you know the business side of your product inside and out, it can be valuable to have a CTO available to answer broader questions about the scalability and sustainability of technology choices and roadmaps. That’s where we came in, attending meetings in partnership with our client, committed to their objectives.

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Through our open source network, we are well placed to find and hire quality and committed software developers. At Voxgig we actively manage and support our team of developers, providing technical coaching and mentoring sessions each week, but also coaching and skills progression in areas such as communication, product development and technical writing.

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As part of our commitment to our developers’ careers, we do not prevent or charge fees if after one year working on your project you feel you are in a position to hire them directly. This active developer management ensures that the client enjoys the security of delivery without this additional management overhead.

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The Outcome

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Working with Voxgig, you get the benefits of a single point of management contact, backed by decades of combined technology and business experience, bringing a team of committed and supported software developers to your project.

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