Introduction
Blockchain technology is continuing to gain great momentum in the business world. Market trends show that there is a growing appetite among companies for blockchain solutions. However, this boom in demand has made it more difficult to choose a reliable blockchain development partner.
Due to the growing popularity of blockchain, many outsourcing companies have started offering blockchain development as one of their services. Yet, just learning a new programming language or learning a new skill does not make a company eligible to claim that it has true expertise in blockchain, which makes careful blockchain development services selection essential.
This guide discusses the smart considerations you should make in identifying and choosing the best blockchain development partner for your upcoming project and improving your blockchain development partner selection process.
Starting Your Search
For those who are new to outsourcing blockchain projects, it helps to set basic parameters for the project before you start talking to a potential partner or begin the discovery phase. Consider answering the following fundamental questions about your project's purpose:
- •What is the main idea behind your project?
- •What is the specific problem that your solution solves?
- •How does your approach advance the state of the art?
- •Do you have preferences on the concept of development or frameworks of blockchain?
It is good to answer these questions in advance to clarify your needs and start narrowing down your search to suitable development partners.
Also, consider if outsourcing to experienced blockchain specialists or building an in-house team is better suited to your needs when deciding on the right blockchain outsourcing partner.
Picking the right development framework is a critical decision when it comes to any blockchain project. This choice is directly related to the fundamental purpose and goals of your project.
Two Main Approaches to Development: Custom blockchain development vs existing platforms
Understanding which approach of blockchain development is best for your idea entails taking a look at the main methodologies available.
Blockchain project development typically goes through one of two distinct approaches, which requires different sets of skills and tools from your development team.
Making the Most of Existing Platforms
The first method of blockchain development entails making use of existing blockchain systems to solve a specific problem. Examples include smart contract writing using Solidity or implementing comparison cycles using Hyperledger. Developers who take this path must be familiar with specific programming languages and have experience with implementations of similar platforms.
In addition, developers must have thorough knowledge of the operation of their chosen platform, including any peculiarities and limitations. Ignoring these nuances can lead to delays and extra costs for your projects.
This approach is appropriate for small to medium-sized tasks that need integration with existing projects.
Building Custom Blockchain Solutions
The second methodology is to build blockchain architecture from scratch. This approach is normally used for innovative projects that present new ideas or alternative solutions to industry challenges. Developers adopting this path do not necessarily need to know many such languages, as knowledge of languages such as C++ or Python is often sufficient.
However, this approach requires extensive knowledge and experience in blockchain logic and architecture design. This knowledge becomes crucial because these projects often involve circulation of monies or assets that even small errors in consensus or incorrect synchronization of nodes would lead to massive financial losses.
This is best for a large and scalable project or enterprise blockchain projects that need custom development of unique blockchain systems.
Understanding which blockchain framework works best for your project requirements significantly narrows down your vendor choices and saves a lot of time during the selection process.
Essential Selection Criteria for effective blockchain development partner selection criteria
After understanding your project basics and approach, you can prepare a list of potential vendors for the discussions. Here are some important considerations to look out for when choosing a blockchain development company and understanding what to look for in a blockchain development company when evaluating your potential blockchain development partner.
Verifying Technical Competency
Just reading up on the basics of blockchain does not mean you have become an expert. The technology has many nuances that are revealed only by gaining significant experience with it.
Ask for relevant documentation that shows that a company has the skills and the knowledge that they need when evaluating blockchain development company expertise. One way to check the verification is to look at what a company does on platforms such as GitHub where you can read about the projects and look at the contributors and release dates.
Consider asking for direct conversations with members of the engineering team to help clarify any technical uncertainties when hiring blockchain developers. This is your investment and you have the right to full disclosure about who is taking your money and what they are delivering.
For those of you who don't want to go through the trouble of reading technical code reviews, look at the company's portfolio on their website. Vendors usually present their best and most important projects. Portfolio reviews also give insight into the size of projects a specific blockchain company works with on a routine basis.
Measuring Creativity and Flexibility
Once you have documented your project requirements, send this information out to selected companies in advance, so that they have time to prepare detailed proposals. Ask detailed questions making sure technical engineers have thoroughly reviewed and understood all the specification details.
During discussions, assess the number of alternative solutions proposed by the company. While some blockchain development companies are offering more than one option, reflecting pricing flexibility, pay particular attention to creativity and versatility in method of approach.
Flexible approaches include identifying alternative approaches to problem solving at similar cost and quality levels. This capability becomes particularly useful for large and scalable projects and proves to be very important when implementing innovative solutions.
Development teams may find that they encounter unexpected difficulties or obstacles during the implementation process, making the ability to adapt a significant advantage.
Ready to Start Your Blockchain Project?
Connect with experienced blockchain developers who can turn your vision into reality.
Essential Selection Criteria (continued)
Fixed Price Estimates
IT companies generally offer three major budgeting structures. When you have well-prepared technical specifications, ask for fixed-price cost estimates even if this seems to be not applicable to your project. Companies sometimes don't offer fixed pricing to hide the fact that they are unsure about timeframes or do not have enough relevant experience.
Even when you agree on hourly billing, ask for an estimate of fixed pricing as well. This is useful for assessing the level of experience of the vendor. Preparing such estimates should cause no problems for companies with properly prepared technical specifications.
Direct Team Communication
While paying and waiting for completed deliverables is a very appealing way of thinking, this is not the reality outside of advertising slogans.
Communication with project managers is not enough to provide sufficient insight into development processes. Therefore, check the willingness of development team to conduct regular calls.
After final proposals are agreed upon with appropriate teams, make sure to remain actively involved in development processes. Schedule work making sure the development team will work on nothing but your project. If you are constrained by time, you might want to hire a product manager to represent your interests.
Leadership Authority and Community Engagement
Executive leadership is the representation of the high-ranking officials within a company. The number of senior executives depends upon the size and scale of the company. Larger blockchain outsourcing firms will usually have more senior authorities to handle dynamic workflows.
Also consider company activity across social media and publications in recognized communities of the industry. Reviewing the presence of companies across popular platforms can be a good source of information for choosing trustworthy blockchain developers.
Take a look at whether the companies are active on platforms such as:
- •Medium
Recognition from industry authorities and awards from respected evaluation platforms are also signs of credibility.
Warning Signs of Inadequate Providers
To separate out credible blockchain vendors, look out for several warning signs of companies that may be problematic when it comes to outsourcing blockchain. Today's market has many companies claiming to have dedicated and experienced blockchain engineering teams. Unfortunately, some of these claims are sometimes exaggerated or misleading.
Insufficient Technical Preparation
Some companies direct their customers in the first place to business analysts or consultants for the discussion of ideas and technical requirements development. This work may also be done by the internal staff of the customer.
The resulting presentation often looks impressive visually with elaborate slides, animations, and graphics. However, about eighty percent of such initial requirements are subject to significant revision by actual development teams in the process of preparing technical specifications.
Poor contractors may just follow initial technical requirements to the letter. This is the worst-case scenario as the customers invest in non-functional products. Make sure your development team has good quality technical specifications and does good business analysis to avoid technical conflicts.
Warning Signs of Inadequate Providers (continued)
Experienced blockchain development teams can prepare technical requirements from your initial concept only. Converting such requirements to technical specifications is not a problem if done by the same team and saves a lot of time.
Be Comfortable Approaching Outsourcing Partners with Just Your Concept
Carefully evaluate your outsourcing partner's competency to do this preparatory work.
Exaggerated Experience Claims
Another indicator of inappropriate companies are the claims of seven to ten years of blockchain development experience. Such extensive practice appears almost impossible since blockchain application outside of cryptocurrency was still mainly theoretical before Ethereum came into the picture.
Before 2015, blockchain was almost entirely limited to cryptocurrency contexts while wider adaptation seemed questionable and unrealistic. Therefore, when companies say they have seven, ten years of blockchain development experience, take such claims with a grain of salt. The real breakthrough of blockchain development was around 2017-2018.
Blockchain as a Secondary Service
Many companies started developing blockchain but were already offering other IT services. Firms specializing in traditional development, backend or frontend solutions just added blockchain to their lists of services when industry enthusiasm peaked in 2018.
This approach satisfies neither development methodology described earlier. Rapidly acquiring quality programming or multiple new languages is not practical. Similarly, learning a lot of things about the proper architecture of blockchain in a short period of time is almost impossible.
Therefore, when you require blockchain expertise, look for such companies that are dedicated to blockchain development mostly. These guidelines should help you with your search process and highlight the best practices for choosing a blockchain developer.
Conclusion
Any successful project is a synergy of client ideas and outsourcing company capabilities. Rather than trying to be perfect, try to look for complementary strengths suited to your project requirements. When both participants bring their best qualities to the table, projects get the best results.
Evaluate closely:
- •Technical competency
- •Creative flexibility
- •Transparent communication
- •Industry recognition
- •Focused expertise
Stay away from vendors with warning signs such as:
- •Poor technical preparation
- •Grandiose experience claims
- •Treating blockchain as one more service among many offerings
The world of blockchain development continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Selecting a partner with genuine expertise, proven track records, and a focused approach to blockchain technology can set your project on the path to success in this dynamic and transformative field.
