Engineering Mistakes to Avoid for a Successful Startup

We know how hard and wearisome it is to set up a startup. There are many issues out there that affect the launch of a start-up in a well-settled market. Engineering is the most critical aspect of a tech startup that may turn into a big disaster if not carried out in the right way.

Without the right engineering skills and technical choices, a startup will miss out on delivering desired values to its clients and customers. It might also create problems in fundraising. Silly engineering mistakes can sink the whole company if not taken care of. A report says that nearly between 70% to 95% of startups are attempting failure and shutting down because of a bad engineering approach.

A startup needs moderate productivity, and properly executed strategies to flourish in the market. It demands engineers with a pragmatic approach rather than going for a hyped stack.

Let’s have a look at common engineering mistakes you must keep away from your tech startup:

• Opting for Untested Tech-stack

Startups always go for shiny new technology launched fresh in the market to be recognized as a leading-edge company. Many startups make this fatal mistake of adopting up-to-date technology. Startups follow a big blunder by chasing the hyped technology rather than going for tested technology.

The latest technologies get the quick attention of entrepreneurs and mobile app development company/agency because they want to modernize their product and work operations. Being a new venture in the market, startups want to stand out among others and hence, they opt for hype technologies. 

However, completely relying on the latest technologies is surely a recipe for disaster. New technologies are not tested thoroughly and hence, have many downsides that are not easy to counteract.

Moreover, new technologies and frameworks do not have enough libraries and packages to make the tricky coding part easier for developers. In the end, your development team will end up spending most of their time writing the codes from scratch, figuring out the problems or errors, rather than developing a reliable product.

Being a startup owner you have already taken enough risks, so you should not add an extra unnecessary risk of using hype technology.

Also Read: How Technology is Reshaping the Construction Industry?

• Recruiting Wrong Engineers

When you hire web developers and engineers, you must ensure that they are a good fit for your startup. A startup requires a team of engineers having a distinct mindset with a lean and agile approach towards any problem. But the biggest mistake a start-up makes is recruiting the wrong engineers that are not suitable for working in the startup environment.

It is important that an early-stage startup should hire engineers with a can-do attitude towards gigantic challenges in front of them, and never nay-saying. While the engineers who have previously worked in an MNC will not be comfortable working at a startup.

The market is filled with engineers that claim to be promising, but a startup needs high-quality, agile engineers with the empathy to implement quick iterations. For a startup, on-time deployment and delivery of a product is a critical factor, so the engineers should be capable of handling work pressure and deliver the result in the defined time-frame to build a solid business foundation.

• Unnecessary Scaling

Many startups face financial crises because of unnecessary scaling of the product. It is not feasible for a startup to spend too much on product development rather than just developing essential software. But still, if a startup goes for developing a large scale product without knowing the possibilities of its success in the market and being too optimistic with its strategy, it may turn into a deadly investment.

Almost 70% of startups witness failure because of premature scaling as they spend too much of their funding on scaling the product and left with a negative response or an average response from the users. So adding unnecessary features to the product and making the mobile app development process complicated is threatening to the lifespan of the company.

Although, these additions are imperative for future aspects but not a primary goal for an early-stage startup trying to fit in the marketplace. During the growth phase of a startup, the investment should be in productivity not in polishing and scaling the product. Premature scaling means trying to anticipate future requirements and handling future problems before they arise. It takes your valuable resources away from your immediate goal and you are stuck in an unrequited trap with no emergency exit.

Also Read: How to Reduce the Cost of Mobile App Development?

• Increasing Technical Debt

Technical Debt allows you to compromise with the complexity of your product for rapid delivery. It allows developers to take shortcuts while building a product. When short term benefit of quick delivery is more important than long-term value, developers go for technical debt. It is analogous to financial debt that comes with a cost and needs to be paid later with interest.

Technical debt allows a quick product launch while neglecting the complexities of the coding. An early-stage startup might have one to two technical debts but it is quite critical for a growing startup to handle increasing technical debts. As the company grows, the product development becomes complicated and code compilation increases, the startup has to clear out its technical debts. If not done, rising TD will result in a slower release cycle, more code complexity and difficulty in adding new features.

Final Words

When launching a startup, clarity in goals and proper planning to carry out the work operations is really important. Otherwise, lousy engineering mistakes can take your startup down before it reaches the success heights.

When engineering is a vital tool for a tech-startup, it might be the reason for failure as well. Scaling your product without any market knowledge will result in a waste of resources, money and time while hiring wrong people for your team will be a big loss for your company. So, remember everything when setting up a startup in the market.