Before You Build

Having worked with a diverse range of clients across various projects, we've noticed that the most successful collaborations often come from clients who understand a few critical aspects of software development. This post highlights five key insights that we believe are essential for anyone considering building a software product or platform.

1. Building Software is Like Building a House

Think of software development like constructing a house. There's a foundation that needs to be solid right from the start. As you build, layers like wiring, insulation, and drywall are added—these can be costly and time-consuming to change later if something goes wrong. And there are parts that are easy to swap out, like a fresh coat of paint or the feng shui of a room.

Creating a strong blueprint for your software before any code is written is crucial. It’s the classic "measure twice, cut once" philosophy—large changes made mid-project can be expensive in both time and money. However, new needs do arise, and your development team can pivot when necessary. It’s just important to have the expectation that significant changes will come with some cost.

Before "breaking ground," it’s also important to validate your software idea. You wouldn’t build a house that no one wants to buy, right? Spend ample time on market research to ensure your solution is something people are willing to pay for. It might sting to learn your idea isn’t as viable as you hoped, but that’s nothing compared to the pain of spending tens of thousands of dollars on it first.

2. Software is Counter-Intuitive

It’s easy to assume that tasks we humans perform effortlessly would be simple for software to handle too. However, software operates on strict rules and logic—something our brains are inherently flexible with. Where humans can make leaps in understanding with "fuzzy logic", computers need precise instructions for every possible scenario. For example, something as basic as deciding whether a user is considered "active" might seem straightforward, but in code, defining what "active" means (is it based on logins, recent interactions, events they’ve experienced over the last 6 months, or something else?) and accounting for every edge case can become a complicated challenge.

What often surprises clients is that things they think will be quick fixes or minor tweaks can take a lot of time to implement due to underlying complexities. Conversely, features that seem highly intricate can sometimes be built in just a few hours. A minor visual adjustment to an app might require significant rework of its architecture, while integrating advanced algorithms or new data models can sometimes happen faster than expected. Understanding the counter-intuitive nature of software development will help set better expectations for how projects progress.

3. Your Engagement is Mission Critical

Building software is a partnership. While our expertise lies in software, the client - that’s YOU - is the domain expert. Your active engagement is crucial to ensure the final product aligns with your vision. Without your input, the result will inevitably differ from what you imagined, no matter how hard the development team tries.

Consider something as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You probably have a specific idea of what makes the perfect PB&J—maybe it’s made with special whole wheat bread from a certain store, or perhaps you prefer grape jelly over strawberry. I cut the crust off of mine. You cut yours into fourths. Someone else thinks a PB&J is a type of hot dog. This amount of variation exists in something as simple as a sandwich; it isn’t difficult to see how complex the specifics can get in a full system surrounding concepts that aren’t as universal.

When your software team asks for your feedback on designs, you owe yourself the time and effort to take it seriously. That’s the easiest and cheapest time to make adjustments. When you’re given demos or access to testing environments, think critically about your users and what they would want. That’s the second easiest and cheapest time to make adjustments.

4. Not All Valuable Work is Visible Work

When most people think about software, they focus on the user interface. This isn’t anyone’s fault, it’s specifically designed for that. While the UI is important, much of the real value of your application lies in what you can’t see. The organization of data models, the codified business logic, and the automated tests that allow developers to work quickly and confidently without introducing new defects—all of these are crucial elements that contribute to the success of your software.

These aspects of development might not be visible to you, and that can be frustrating. It’s far more frustrating to pay for fixes to a platform that should be stable, on a feature that was working fine last week. Trust that the unseen work is laying the foundation for a more reliable and scalable product.

5. Your Software Product is a Business

Also just like a house, software isn’t something you build once and forget about. Technology evolves rapidly—new devices, new vulnerabilities, and new technologies emerge all the time. To keep your software relevant and secure, you’ll likely need ongoing support from a software development team throughout its life.

Moreover, especially if your product is something people pay for, you’ll need a dedicated support team to handle customer issues. While your engineering team might be able to manage these requests initially, this approach isn’t scalable and will eventually detract from the time they can spend building and improving your product.

It’s important to consider legal representation as well. At a bare minimum, you’ll need terms of service and a privacy policy. Depending on your business domain, you may also need legal protections related to the data you’re storing, how it’s accessed, who can use the system, and more.

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Venturing into the software business can be overwhelming, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. At Disca, we offer services to help both aspiring and accomplished entrepreneurs with their software products, providing insights like the ones shared above. We’re here to help you navigate the complexities of software development and bring your vision to life. We hope to hear from you soon!