Looking for advice on starting an overseas development business
Hi all. I am considering starting my own development consulting company in Jordan. People are well educated there but wages are low. You can hire great engineers there for the same that a restaurant worker gets paid in California. I don't have any problem finding and hiring good developers because I know the language and I have family there. I can find developers that are fluent in English but it's harder.
I am not sure how to start getting contracts in the U.S. I see that iOS and Android development are popular so I was considering to specialize in iOS development.
I only have about 2 YOE in the U.S. at FAANG so I could also run into a problem where I am not experienced enough to lead a team or company.
Legal stuff in Jordan is no problem. I have a relative that's a lawyer in Jordan and he explained what I need to do.
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
Discussion
(2 comments)- 1
3 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroSo my immediate thought is to look for big contracts on places like Upwork. When you're just starting out, you need platforms quite heavily to get the ball initially rolling. As with anything in software, your goal is to just bias towards doing and build stuff.
After you get Upwork contracts and do incredible work, you should have some amount of word-of-mouth. The process is simple:
- When you finish up with a client, ask them for leads
- Follow through with those leads and do great work for them
- Go back to Step 1 with these initial leads to produce new leads
Here's another spicy idea that I have seen be really popular: Create an awesome open-source repo
I'm also a mobile engineer, and I have seen this strategy work wonders. The idea is that you expose a ton of value for free with this awesome Android/iOS library and then say that if you need additional mobile development help, reach out to your consultancy. So many mobile libraries I've used were backed by folks running a consultancy.
The cool thing about the open-source strategy is that it can come naturally from your consulting work. If you notice yourselves writing the same UI component several times, just wrap it up into a library and publish it.
Lastly, another bold idea is to publish some high-quality free and open-source side projects and use that as an advertising engine: [Taro Top 10] Building Impressive Side Projects
- 13 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
Very interesting, I'd love to follow along as you build this! This model of leveraging lower-cost labor around the world and delivering a service to American companies is a great business.
When starting a development agency, here's what comes to mind for me:
- Figure out a niche. iOS development is good, but I'm thinking more around industry. e.g. iOS apps for restaurants or mobile apps for sport franchise, etc. By being specific, you build awareness in a specific domain and those customers will prefer you over a larger, more generic agency.
- Leverage your network. Your first few clients will be based on the trust they have with you. So you need to figure out people with budget in your network who can give you a chance to build an app. Your goal here is not to make a huge profit -- you want testimonials and portfolio pieces.
- What do your clients value? Sometimes, building the app is just one part of what a business wants. They also want help with content creation, ASO, or technical support.
There's a ton of writing about this online, so I'd go through all that content as well. Here's what I found for web dev, but I'm sure a lot would apply for iOS as well: https://dorik.com/blog/how-to-start-a-web-development-agency
