The questions to ask before you pay anyone to build software

You would not hire a builder for your house without asking a few pointed questions first. Yet people commission software, which can cost as much as an extension, on the strength of a good demo and a confident smile.

You do not need to be technical to protect yourself. You need a short list of questions that a good partner will answer happily and a poor one will wriggle away from. Here it is.

"What is the smallest useful version of this?"

If the answer is a twelve month plan to build everything at once, be careful. The best builders instinctively look for the smallest version that starts creating value, because that is how you find out you are right while it is still cheap to change your mind. Someone who wants to build the whole cathedral before you have seen a single wall is taking your risk and calling it ambition.

"What does it cost to run, not just to build?"

Software costs money every month it is alive. A partner who cannot tell you the running cost has not thought about it, which tells you something about how the rest will go. You want a number, roughly, in pounds.

"Who owns it, and could someone else take it over?"

You are paying for an asset, not renting a mystery. Ask whether you will get the code, the documentation and a clean enough structure that another team could pick it up. If the honest answer is that only they can ever touch it, you are not buying software, you are buying a landlord.

"How will you test it, and what happens after launch?"

The gap between "it works in the demo" and "it works for my customers" is filled with testing, security and support. A serious answer here, unglamorous and specific, is one of the best signals you will get. A vague one is also a signal.

"When would you tell me not to build this?"

This is my favourite, because it flushes out honesty. Anyone who will only ever say yes is selling, not advising. A partner worth having will happily tell you when off the shelf is cheaper, or when the idea needs rethinking, because their reputation matters more to them than this one invoice.

The one that is really about you

There is a last question, and it is for you, not them. "Do I actually understand what I want this to do for my business?" The clearer you are on the outcome, the better everyone builds, and the less you spend discovering it the expensive way.

You will notice none of these questions are technical. That is the point. The technical stuff is theirs to worry about. The questions above are how you find out whether they are the sort of people who will.