As you name the boat, so shall it float. A startup is like a ship, wandering the seas and oceans. If its construction (tech stack) is robust, it will withstand various storms. So, choosing the tech stack for startups, companies determine the projects’ future.
Many things depend on performance, upgrade capabilities, code quality, and development speed. Companies should be careful about choosing the correct tech stack for startups because they are somewhat fragile products; without proper thoroughness, they can fail.
Why Choosing a Tech Stack for a Startup is Important Early On
A technology stack is a set of programming languages, frameworks, libraries, and other tools for creating a startup product.
Any application consists of server and client sides, also known as the back-end and front-end.
A startup is like a separate building: walls are the basis of an application or platform, and a facade with windows is its outer shell. By combining design, a startup gets a living space for further development and work.
A startup must choose an appropriate tech stack as early as possible. This must be done for the following reasons:
1) clear determining the financial costs of the project because of different developers’ rates
2) faster finding a qualified vendor who has sufficient experience to create a startup
3) easier focusing on specific frameworks
4) quicker starting of the product implementation and launch
7 Crucial Things to Consider When Choosing a Startup Technology Stack
No. 1: The Price of the Issue
Many startups are limited in the budget at the initial stage. They want to minimize development costs and leave funds to promote the company and its marketing strategy and work with further sales after the launch. Before choosing technologies, entrepreneurs need to look at such aspects as:
Technology Cost
Prices for technologies are different. The newest and most progressive ones are expensive, and the outdated ones fall in price. Here, companies need to balance the cost and quality of technologies. We advise businesses to choose free and open source technologies, such as Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, GO, .Net.
Of course, Java is the leader of open source. As of July 2021, about 21 million projects have been created globally with its help.
TOP 5 Most Popular Open-Source Programming Languages in 2022
Source: TIOBE
The advantage of the source code is access to technology for free for programmers, which means using accessible, open-source technologies will significantly reduce the company’s costs.
In 2020, JavaScript developers globally downloaded over one trillion open source packages from the Maven Central Repository, a unique framework by Apache Software Foundation for automating the assembly of various projects and their analytics. By the end of 2021, the volume of JavaScript packages and their open-source solutions reached over 1.5 trillion, a 50% year-over-year increase.
Analysts assume that the demand for affordable technologies will grow exponentially and break the record in 2021.
Developers’ Rates
The popularity of the technology creates great competition among specialists in the market. The excellent point is that competition leads to lower prices, which means companies will find developers with lower rates. It is preferable to use outsourcing here.
Outsourcing is the search for a software service provider outside of your country. In 2022, Eastern European countries such as Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Hungary will provide high-quality software services at affordable prices.
Next, we give an example of the cost of outsourcing services in various world regions.
Source: Accelerance
However, companies need to be careful when choosing technologies that are now making quite a splash: the newer the technology or framework, the more expensive the programmer.
Moreover, the choice of old technologies is also fraught with consequences. For example, the company chooses the old Ruby and then spends a lot more money adapting the old processes to the new requirements of the system.
No. 2: Community Support
A startup needs to have an active and large community. If a community is scarce, the technology is old and has no opportunity for dynamic development. The community is not just a reflection of the popularity of technology; it has a lot of educational resources, support in case of technical problems, quick help in solving complex problems.
Historically, programming languages such as Ruby, Java, and Python are the best choice for startup development. They are dynamic, high-performance, and have the world’s largest communities.
No. 3: Development Speed and Time to Market
Speed is essential for a startup because:
1) entering the market first means gaining a significant advantage over competitors
2) developing startups with limited time saves companies money for their further needs
All forward-looking businesses should conduct a Discovery Phase, the first stage of the development cycle in which companies receive marketing research and decide on the best tech stack. All this info reflects in the SRS document that describes all the data about the stack, the product’s prospects, user navigation, wireframes, etc.
In any case, entrepreneurs must decide how to bring the product to market first and win the technological race.
No. 4: Scalability
Startups need to think about whether they plan to scale in the future at the very beginning of the development journey. Most companies count on growth, which means that the technology stack must meet these needs. A product has the ability to further scale allows companies to process multiple requests, and the server can withstand this load.
The company has about a thousand requests a day, and the server copes perfectly. However, if there is a million user flow, the server can quickly fail and create many problems for company owners and customers themselves.
Not to face such a critical situation, it’s a good idea to use scalable programming languages and frameworks like PHP, Python, or Ruby.
No. 5: Project Size
Some companies immediately expect to create an enterprise, but this is not the right goal.
Once upon a time, modern enterprises were small companies and developed gradually.
A good idea would be to create a minimum valuable product (MVP) to launch a product with key functionality. An MVP product will help collect the necessary feedback from the target audience and find out what functions are missing.
No. 6: Project Type
The company, first of all, must understand which product it wants to create – a web or a mobile application since the tech stack will be different.
Ruby will be an excellent option if a company plans to create a marketplace website. However, if a business wants to make a mobile application, Flutter or React may be the best choice. As for games and video conferences, Java will be an excellent option.
No. 7: Mobile or Web
Startups can independently or with the help of an outsourced software service provider determine which type of product is better to implement – web or mobile. To make the right choice, businesses need to:
1) Understand the audience and their needs
2) Study market competitors
3) Focus on the project type (for example, it is highly irrational to create a web application to search for fellow travelers on the road)
Conclusion
Companies actively choose technologies to create new products that significantly improve life.
If a person in business has a goal to create a startup, now is not the time to postpone this process.
Before turning your dream into reality, it is vital to work out all the points concerning the correct tech stack. We advise you to pay attention to such issues as:
1) Cost of development and the rates of programmers
2) Community and their support
3) Development speed
4) Product industry
5) Ability to scale
6) Product size
7) Product software type
Having analyzed all 7 points independently or with the help of a software vendor, companies will be able to choose the best of the available technologies on the market.
