Let me guess…
You’ve got an excellent idea for a startup and you want to turn it into a real product. But, building even a simplest product needs finance, which is a major challenge for almost all entrepreneurs.
Now of course, however simple or complex your idea may, it is necessary to validate that idea first to make sure that all your investment doesn’t go ashtray.
So, what’s the best way to validate an idea?
Answer: MVP.
MVP or the Minimum Viable Product is basically a development technique in which a new product, website, or application is built with sufficient features to satisfy early users.
Simply put, it helps to find out whether you should move ahead to develop a full-fledged product of your idea or not.
But, who will build the MVP for your startup idea?
Well, here’s the thing…
Ideas are like iron. Therefore, you should strike them when they’re steaming hot. That means, if you’ve the required technical knowledge, you should definitely go ahead and start building your MVP.
But, if you’re a non-technical entrepreneur (just like most others), then it’s rather better to rely on others to build your dream product.
And if this is the case, then it’s recommended to hire full stack developer.
Now, before you rush into finding full-stack developers all over the web, it’s better to first clearly understand what exactly a full stack developer is.
Defining full stack developers
In most simplest terms, a full stack developer is an all-rounder developer.
These developers are well-aware with most of the technologies to build an entire product.
They can work on both front-end development as well as back-end development and also hold the capability to make the entire product functional on their own.
In fact, these full stack developers are largely known as T-shaped professionals nowadays.
Why T-Shaped, you ask?
Well, it’s mainly because unlike the traditional I-shaped professionals, who are masters of their own domains but aren’t aware of other domains, the full stack developers are master of one or more domains and they also have enough knowledge about rest of the other domains.
In simple terms, a full stack developer can be a master in one or more front-end as well as back-end technologies. And, they also possess functional skills of languages beyond their main expertise.
So, when it comes to developing an MVP for your startup idea, these T-Shaped professionals are a perfect fit, especially for those who have strict budget.
Here’s why:
Let’s assume that you want to develop an E-commerce app. The designs are already finished and all you need is get its MVP built. Here, there are two ways to go around it.
First, hiring different individuals for different skill-sets such as:
- UX Designer
- Front-end Developer
- Back-end Developer
- Quality Analyst
Plus, the timeline as well as the expenses of each individual will also differ, resulting into a huge hassle in overall project management.
If you chose to go this route, firstly the communication between you and the hired individuals will be chaotic.
Solution? – Hire full stack developers.
Full stack developers are the best choice when it comes to building an MVP version of your product.
They work in harmony and also manage your entire project development, starting from ideation to suggest better designs and implementing it, without any chaos!
In short, the MVP is developed in timely manner and without wasting unnecessary money. And this is exactly why most entrepreneurs nowadays prefer full stack web development.
Understanding full stack development
Full stack development basically covers all aspects of development – from ideation to its deployment.
Simply put, an experienced full stack developer can develop front-end, back-end, database, and link them entirely.
So, depending on the complexity of your idea, you can choose to hire either a single developer or an entire full stack web development company to develop your MVP.
This full stack development mainly consists of 3 layers stated below:
- Presentation Layer
- Business Logic Layer
- Database Layer
Presentation layer
This is the frontend of a product or an application. At this layer, the User Interface is designed and developed. That means, your full stack developer needs to have the basic technical skills in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
That’s not enough though. That developer must also be well-versed with latest JavaScript frameworks.
So, when finding full stack developers, make sure that the chosen candidate has experience in using Angular.js, React.js, and Vue.js.
These JavaScript frameworks are latest in today’s market and they can help in strengthening the look and feel of your product.
Business logic layer
This is the backend of a product or application, which powers the frontend. In this layer, the full stack developers use server-side programming languages to write business logic of your application or product.
Therefore, your chosen full stack developer needs to know following backend languages with their frameworks.
The most useful backend frameworks include Node.js, Python with Django, Ruby on Rails, and Java with Spring MVC.
Database layer
The database is a part of backend and your full stack developer must be comfortable with both relational as well as Non-relational databases.
Relational databases generally use tables to store data, while Non-relational databases store data in JSON format. And right now, there are mainly three popular database langauges: MySQL, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL.
Between these three, MySQL and PostgreSQL are relational databases, while MongoDB is the non-relational database language.
How to identify a right full stack developer?
This is quite simple actually. All you need to do is find out whether a candidate is well-acquainted with following required knowledge and skills or not.
In fact, we’ve already discussed a few of those required skills and knowledge just above, but in case your idea is complex, then there are couple of more areas your full stack developer needs to be expert at.
HTTP & REST
HTTP generally creates protocols to establish a secure communication channel between the client and the server.
So, if your product is a web app, then your hired full stack developer must have the knowledge about the working process of HTTP as well as REST commands to ensure seamless configuration.
Data structures & algorithms
Algorithms play an important part of development process, which is why your hired full stack developer must know the all steps of using algorithms and should also be well-versed with stacks, heaps, and procedure that goes across the process.
Doing so not only will help you have accurate code, but Google has also started asking tons of questions on data structures and algorithms.
Therefore, your code must consist of appropriate algorithms as well as data structures so that it is easy to identify which code performs which exact activity at any given time.
Deployment options
There are tons of PaaS (Platform as a Service) deployment options available in the market right now. These options basically include AWS, Digital Ocean, Heroku, and more.
Heroku, on one hand, offers the feature to upload the entire project code and deploy it with minimum configuration, while AWS, on the other hand, provides a handful of options for code deployment, data storage, and processing.
Though to use these platforms to your advantage, your hired full stack developer should be aware of deployment as well as configuration process of each platform.
Git
Git is a tool that allows developers as well as other project stakeholders to see the modifications done in the code by each individual developers.
This means, at any given moment, you can revise changes in codes and when something goes wrong, you can almost instantly revoke the previous working code to avoid wasting good amount of time identifying and fixing a code error.
However, a full stack developer should have experience in using Git so that you can keep track of all bugs and issues that are rising with new changes and modifications.
Advantages of hiring full stack developer for MVP development
In our eyes, full stack developers are superheroes. Following are the list of benefits you get when you hire a full-stack developer.
Cost saving
This is an obvious one. It is of course a costly affair to hire individual specialized developers than hiring one or more full-stack developers.
Read More: Estimating Cost of MVP Development for a Mobile App
And in MVP development, it’s rather better to have Jack of all trades than a master of one.
Easy to upgrade
Compared to specialized developers, full stack developers are more adaptive to latest technologies.
So, if your MVP needs an instant upgrade to latest technology, a full-stack developer can quickly learn, adapt, and improvise compared to specialized developer or domain specific expert who might not.
Easy switching
Any experienced full stack developer can switch between front-end to back-end and vice-versa easily.
In addition, that developer already know what the end result is expected to be, and is also aware about the probable problems which can arise.
Therefore, they know the consequences that are about to happen and find their way around it in advance.
Fast & timely delivery
The full stack developers always work as a team. This makes the entire project development process easier as the developers divide the work responsibility among each other equally and coordinate well to bring out best results.
This coordination and work ethics makes the delivery of project fast and in timely manner.
Easy maintenance
Since full stack developers tend to stay updated with all latest tools and technologies, maintaining an MVP and updating it gets simplified. This results into better chances of receiving positive reviews from early adopters.
Concluding note…
If you’re fully confident about your startup idea and ready to give it a go, you should outsource your project to an experienced full stack web development company.
Though you can of course hire in-house developers, but it won’t cheap. Plus, you’ll also have to deal with day-to-day project management hassle.
Therefore, it’s best to hire a remote team of full stack developers who work on your terms, so that you can focus on other aspects of your startup such as branding, marketing, and launch when your MVP gets developed.
Most importantly, if you’re search for full stack development team, our dedicated experts are available at your service.
