I’m trying to understand how founders handle this stage.
Once a product starts getting real users, the challenge seems to change. You’re no longer just trying to build features quickly — you need developers who can understand the existing product, fix problems without creating new ones, and keep development moving as requirements increase.
For founders who have already gone through this stage, what actually worked best for you?
I’m especially curious about what looked inexpensive at first but became expensive later because of delays, communication problems, rewrites, or poor code quality.
Would love to hear real experiences rather than recommendations for specific companies.
From my experience as a developer often tasked with saving a founders dream as they sunk thousands into the platform with nothing to show, it’s like you said, seems inexpensive at first but all the problems that came.
Often a $25/hour developer seems less expensive than a $125/hour developer until you find out the $25/hour takes 5-10 X the amount of time to deliver a mediocre at best feature because they are using your projector as a learning tool. They never built enough to know how to properly build you project so it’s a chance for them to learn. Sure, they might get you a quasi functional product but it likely cost you 4X what it should a tool 5X longer to build and is of substandard quality.
An example, recently I saved a founder who after $7500 spent was going to give up. During our call I could see the surprise in the eyes at my hourly rate. After $2400 spent with me they have an actual functioning booking app with payment integration done properly. I have at least 25 articles worth of ‘do not do this when building’ from just two features in that app.
The client thought when hiring an agency in USA they were getting a US based developer but the project was subbed out to a freelancer elsewhere.
So, major mistakes…1. Hiring an agency that works with freelancers scattered globally who are not in house developers. 2. Not getting a second opinion early when things seem off. 3. Expecting 2 years of experience building in bubble is enough for a developer to deliver top tier results - 2 years IS NOT a Senior Developer. 4. Moving forward onto other feature sets when not satisfied with existing completed feature sets.
The issues can make rebuilds necessary in order to iterate, expand or add new features which can kill your business. Still many solo founders put the future of their business into the hands of developers based on a lower hourly rate without factoring in how the extra hours will cause total price to be higher, total delivery time longer and product quality lower and they think they are getting a good deal. I once made the mistake myself.
Finding the right team is super important. You might have to go through several people to find the right ones. Cheaper is almost never better. But expensive is not always better as well. You have to find the right person. Check out their work, interview them and test them out with small things before giving them the more complicated stuff to work on.
