How to hire app developers for a startup
Freelancer, in-house or a studio, onshore or offshore: how to choose, what to put in the contract, and the questions that expose a bad fit before you pay for one.
Most early startups do not need a development team. They need a working first version in front of real users, built so that whoever comes next can continue it. Hiring for that is a different job from hiring a team to maintain a product at scale, and most of the expensive mistakes come from confusing the two.
Freelancer, in-house or studio?
| Option | Good when | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| One freelancer | The scope is small and you can review the code | One person is a single point of failure |
| An in-house hire | The product works and needs a full-time owner | Slow to hire and costly to get wrong |
| A studio | You need the product, the design and the launch together | Ownership and continuity must be written into the contract |
Does it matter where the developers are?
Less than it used to, as long as the hours overlap and the contract is clear. A founder in the United States hiring offshore should ask what time the studio answers messages, not where it is. A founder in the Netherlands or elsewhere in Europe often finds a studio on New York hours overlaps the afternoon well. A founder in Pakistan has a strong local market and should hold it to the same contract terms as anyone abroad. Our own studio is in Karachi and keeps New York hours for this reason.
What should the contract say?
- The repository, hosting, domains and model keys are created in your name, not transferred at the end.
- A written scope for the first version, priced separately from the full build.
- A knowledge base or specification that a new developer could continue from.
- A notice period, and exactly what you keep when the work ends.
- Who on their side writes the code, by name.
How fast can a first version be built?
Faster than most proposals suggest, when the rules are written first. For ehsaan, a pre-loved fashion marketplace in Pakistan, the first build used AI tooling, and the product now runs against a 19-section knowledge base that records every rule it follows. The tooling made the first version fast; the knowledge base is what lets the next developer continue it.
Questions that expose a bad fit
- Can I see a live build, and talk to the client?
- Whose name is the repository in today?
- What does the first version cost, and what does the full build cost?
- What happens to my product if you stop working with me?
- How will you tell me the scope is wrong?
When is a studio the wrong hire?
When the product already works and needs one person to own it every day. At that point an in-house engineer who lives with the product is worth more than any studio, ours included. A studio is for getting to a working product, or for building the parts a small team does not have time for.