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Tales from the PROS is hosted by Michael Georgiou, Co-Founder, and Eric Lawrence, Director of Growth at Imaginovation, an award-winning app and software development company. Each episode dives into honest, unscripted conversations, hard-earned lessons, and the behind-the-scenes chaos of life inside a tech agency.
If you’re a founder, exec, or innovator trying to navigate the tech world without getting burned, this podcast is your no-BS roadmap. Through real talk, personal stories, and insights from the front lines, you’ll pick up smarter ways to build software, steer clear of common mistakes, and choose the right partners in a crowded, often confusing space.
Whether you’re scaling a startup, driving digital change at a larger company, or just love keeping up with tech innovation, Tales from the PROS brings you straight-shooting advice and inspiration without the fluff.
Michael Georgiou (00:45)
Hey everyone, welcome back to Tales from the Pros. I'm Michael Georgiou joined by my co-host Eric Lawrence. Today's episode is one we wish every founder and executive could hear before hiring a software development partner. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by pitches, promises, and polished proposals from software, web, mobile, tech vendors, you're not alone, I can tell you that. In this episode, we're breaking down what really matters to customers.
when choosing the right development team. We'll share red flags, green flags, and even the tough questions most people don't think to ask, but absolutely should. So if you're on the edge of making a big tech decision or you just want to avoid learning the hard way, then this episode's for you. Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. Let's get into it. Eric, how you doing,
Eric Lawrence (01:34)
doing good. Yeah, it's good to
be here and welcome back. I know you've taken what a three year hiatus so must feel good to be back.
Michael Georgiou (01:41)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, it's no, it does feel good. It's a little bit kind of out of it. I'm to get used to this process again. You know, I was doing this a couple of days a week, but yeah, I know very, very excited and can't wait to just share these stories and, know, hear, have other, you know, people just learn from our experiences and hopefully it can help someone out there. You know, this is the whole goal. So yeah.
Eric Lawrence (02:04)
Yeah. And
I'm excited that we're talking this through today because when I'm on the front lines, I've been doing this for a little over three years. You hear a lot of horror stories from people. And I think it can be a bit of a murky marketplace where there's two types of people that I speak with on a day-to-day basis. Either the first type is somebody that's in more of an advantageous position, which is they need a project done and they haven't found the right vendor yet.
Michael Georgiou (02:11)
Yeah.
Eric Lawrence (02:32)
And they're just trying to figure out, is Imaginovation or is any other company out there going to be the right fit for what I'm trying to do? And then the other one is somebody who's been in it with another company. They've chosen someone and they've wasted thousands of dollars. They've wasted months, if not years of time, and they're nowhere closer to getting them the product that they wanted. So there's a whole kind of slew of people out there, but it's, it's really.
Michael Georgiou (02:54)
Ahem.
Eric Lawrence (02:57)
That's why I think this conversation is important because we want to help people find the right partner that's out there for them.
Michael Georgiou (03:04)
Yeah, no, I agree. It's yeah, there's just the crazy thing is, like, there's so much competition. There's a lot of these, you know, companies that, you know, that like us, like Imagine Novation in a sense that they throw a lot of these buzzwords to prospects, to leads, but potential customers, right? And they just try to tell them what they want to hear.
And that's really one thing that bothers me. You know, in my experience, I've been doing this almost 15 years, right? And we've kind of seen and done it all. You know, we learned that the good, the bad, the ugly, we worked with, you know, unfortunately, bad clients. We worked with good clients and amazing clients. And, you know, we always have the goal of trying to...
provide the utmost value to really help them to achieve their goals, right? And provide that impact. And that's very, very important, I think, having that motive, that intent when trying to work with a customer. And I think on the other side, right? for example, we're on the customer's shoes and we're looking to build an app and we want to find the right partner,
It can be very overwhelming and difficult when there's so many out there and they say this kind of fluff and give you all these buzzwords, like I said, and tell you what you want to hear. it's, it's not, it's not always good. you know, you don't really learn how good a company is until that trust has been built until you actually start working with, with the software company. And you know, it's just, yeah, it's, it's a crazy industry and this is.
what really drives, I think, us to do it as best as possible, right, to help people and help their businesses grow through technology, you know?
Eric Lawrence (04:47)
Yeah, yeah. And thinking
about like what's adding to the complexity, it's now for people that are out there in the market trying to find the right partner. It's not just about the partner itself, right? It's the way that they want their product to be built. There are these new things out there now like using AI potentially to build the app for them. Or you see a lot of companies out there that are offering
Michael Georgiou (04:58)
Right.
Eric Lawrence (05:08)
more low code, no code solutions. So now it's not just about the partner, it's about the way that these things are built and trying to figure out what makes sense for me in my own project. What am I trying to accomplish and how does this company and this methodology fit into the budget and the goals and just the long-term vision that I have.
Michael Georgiou (05:27)
Yeah. Yeah. And Eric, like, you know, for, you being the kind of the forefront in terms of being the first, person employee, I would say, ⁓ for our company that, that, interacts with a customer that's interested to, to hire, a, a software app vendor, right? You know, don't you see a lot of customers kind of looking
for a good solution, but they always tell you about these horror stories of software vendors that they worked with before that were low cost, very cheap, very, very extremely affordable, almost too good to be true. And I think that's the problem. It's like, you're being kind of
How do I say this? Like you're, they're, they're exposing you to the market and what's actually out there. ⁓ for a lot of these companies that are, just, they're, they're just trying to get in the door with offering a very, very cheap kind of solution, but it's not the right solution. It's not a good quality solution. And I think that's also a problem, you know,
Eric Lawrence (06:35)
Yeah, it's insane. Some of the things that happen out in the market. I remember there was a company that came to us in the past year where they wanted to build an app for the local town that they're a part of. And for whatever reason, they sought out 30 different bids, 30 bids. Usually when I speak with somebody, they're maybe considering anywhere from about one to three different companies, but for them, they put it out to the market and they said, we're going after 30.
Michael Georgiou (06:47)
There you go.
Eric Lawrence (07:01)
And I remember at the point where they made a decision and they opted to go with the cheapest company that could be out there. I asked them full transparency out of the 30 beds, what was the range of price that you got for this app that you wanted to build for the town? And they said anywhere from $5,000 to $750,000. And I think that range is kind of indicative of how crazy the space can be.
Michael Georgiou (07:07)
Mm-hmm.
You
my gosh. Yeah. I think I, I think I remember that one, but there's been so many like that though. You know, I mean, this is the thing it's the prices in this industry. They're all across the board. Like you said, right. And it's, that's why I think, you know, we decided to create this episode is to, you know, try to give our perspective of what it's really like to.
to find the right partner. And I'm not even talking about us. There's a lot of amazing companies out there, competitors that we have, not saying, it's just us. No, there's a lot of great companies out there that do it right. I think it's important to share, Eric, with people that you don't want to get screwed over and be that horror story that we hear about, where we will talk to potential customers and tell them,
to just be careful with some of the things that you're gonna hear in the market, right, with a very, very low cost solution. Like for example, you're building an MVP mobile app, iOS, Android, not gonna get technical, not that you and I are even technical, right, that's for more of our other guys, but you know, just kind of basic iOS, Android, mobile app, minimum viable product, an MVP, which I'm sure a lot of you, you know, have heard of the word MVP.
be thrown around a lot, you know, but a basic app with some good features to increase the user adoption, to just gauge interest when it does launch out there, right? To ⁓ see how good the app's going to be. With something like that, we'll quote it out at, I think, a reasonable price, but when a customer comes to us, they'll say, but I got quotes for $10,000.
25,000, even 50,000. We're just like, but you're looking for these features, this scope, you want it on both iOS and Android, which is fine, that's pretty standard, right? But then you want all these other features, like gamification, let's just say, which is a little bit more of a complex feature. And you're getting quotes for 15,000, 20,000, $30,000, like,
We're just letting you know this is something that is...
It's, I don't think you're going to get the right product. So you could end up throwing away $30,000 and spending a year with a team that is not going to produce a good product. And, they're just going to keep invoicing you, sending new invoices of new work, new work, new work, new work. And the thing's never going to get freaking done. And that pisses me off, you know, cause they end up spending all this money and time.
And then it creates a ⁓ just a bad like image for our industry. And there's a lot of great companies in our industry that do it right. You know, it's, yeah.
Eric Lawrence (10:07)
Exactly. Exactly. And
I think that actually is a good transition point to talk about those red flags, to think of ways to help people avoid companies. And I would say, you know, if I'm thinking about red flags, one of the things that I think is very common is if a company agrees to everything and doesn't provide pushback. I think that's very familiar. And when I speak with people, they say, well,
Michael Georgiou (10:15)
Mm-hmm.
100%.
Eric Lawrence (10:32)
Yeah, they said that they understood it and they said, yes, yes, yes, but I just never really got the sense that they truly grasped it. So I think if somebody is going to build something that's going to be quite expensive, that's going to be integral to your business and you know, to, your own financial freedom, you need to make sure, do they understand it? Are they going to ask you the right questions or are they just saying yes, yes, yes. And then they spit out a quote because
Michael Georgiou (10:47)
Yep.
Eric Lawrence (11:01)
Again, there's, there's always a give and take. There may be things that you're thinking of where you say, Hey, this makes sense in my mind, but from a, you know, a software, ⁓ user experience, a user interface standard, it's way off. need to adjust things or maybe your monetization plan doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And that's really going to be on the software partner that you speak with to challenge you on it. You don't want to just have a bunch of yes men on your side. And I think
That's probably one of the biggest things that I run into, is when we're talking and somebody's like, well, you know, I was speaking with another company or I've been working with this company and they said yes to everything. But once we got into the actual technical implementation, it just all went up in flames. That's usually one of the starting points.
Michael Georgiou (11:32)
Right?
Ahem.
Yeah, no, that's a great point, Eric. And also, haven't you noticed, like another thing that, you know, that we've we've seen is with several companies, like they won't have a clear process of direction in the beginning when they're talking to customers, because the customer is looking for guidance, right? If they're going to hire you and they're going to spend
money from their own business or maybe they're just a startup and they're funding it, they're bootstrapping it themselves. Nonetheless, they want guidance and they want direction and the process needs to be very clear and concise. And that's where I think it's important to talk about the discovery phase. Even just in the sales process where before a client
pays you anything, right? To a check or whatever it might be, right? That there needs to be a very clear approach of how their product is going to be developed, at least on a high level. they, so the customer, the potential customer can be aligned with you and have perspective of like, okay, this is how these people do it. This is, I know exactly like step one, step two, like from A to Z, right? They know how this is going to be implemented.
It may not be fully detailed because you won't know that till, you know, there's a paid engagement and you, and you have like workshops and you get to know the product and the people. But, nonetheless, I think it's very important to have that clear guidance approach and help them at least on a high level to plan their product. and then start with like a discovery phase. And I've noticed some of those.
Unfortunately, some of the bad vendors, don't plan well. And when you don't plan well, you plan to fail.
Eric Lawrence (13:31)
Yeah, you've noticed that right, Michael, as far as the people that have had bad experiences that come to us and talk about it. Would you say that you normally notice or the person notices that things aren't right at the very beginning stage when it gets to planning?
Michael Georgiou (13:36)
yeah.
In like, what do you mean? Like what sense?
Eric Lawrence (13:48)
Usually somebody can sniff when something's off and they say, okay, hey, the problems with the relationship started at this point. Would you say that that's typically at the beginning or is it usually not until later in the development process?
Michael Georgiou (14:01)
That's a good question. I I think we've seen it both ways. It kind of depends.
It depends on, I think it can depend on the project and it can depend on the type of customer that you're dealing with. I've really seen it both ways, but let me ask you this. What have you experienced since being here for several years now? Just curious.
Eric Lawrence (14:24)
Yeah, I would say usually it's in the first phase. I'd say probably seven out of 10 times. That's what I see. It's, it's the, you know, they, they said they knew what I was trying to build. They reassured me that they could do it. we spent maybe a few hours planning it out, which for everybody listening here to plan out an app, even if it's a simple app, you're going to want to take it least.
five hours with your team to sit down, plan it out, put together wireframes, iterate, because it's sometimes the small details that get overlooked. Things that you weren't even thinking about about, know, what does my security look like? How do I want to handle, you know, a customer that wants to refer business to the app? How does that go? So these are like tiny details that can often be overlooked. But the problem is, you know, if you're
team isn't really planning it with you and you start spotting these once the app has been built and you're deploying it and getting users onto the app, then those changes they take weeks if not months to make.
Michael Georgiou (15:25)
Agreed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. think that's why I highly emphasize that the discovery phase, whether it's going to be a paid engagement or not, because like I said before, it can kind of depend where we've done both, we've, depending on the opportunity of the customer, kind of the context, we have a clear process, but sometimes we might
offer a paid discovery and sometimes we'll kind of do the discovery for free depending on the size of the opportunity or the complexity of the scope. Sometimes we can understand things very well in the way beginning where we're like, you know, we don't need to charge for a discovery, right? But I agree with what you're saying. Either way, there needs to be a very clear plan where...
almost everything's going to be considered because then what's going to happen is there's going to be a lot of surprises down the actual development process that they're in the implementation where you don't want to surprise customers if they're not expecting it. You don't just want to, you know, for us being a vendor, we don't, we're not going to go and invoice a customer before they even know what they're being invoiced for. that's, that's, that's another problem that I've seen a lot of companies do is they'll, they'll
just invoice you, right, for something that was not communicated early on. And that means there's a lack of clear approach and process and expectations from the way beginning. And that is vital, vital, is having those clear expectations and just be fully balanced, fully aligned from the way beginning, because that's what's going to create a really good relationship.
You know, and I think that's another point that I wanted to talk about is for trying to seek and hire a good development vendor, you really need to look at how they communicate with you.
I think that's critical. And you've seen that too, Eric, kind of being on the forefront of sales, you know, in our company, it's like, you'll hear the horror stories as well of like, you know, you're the only guys that have ⁓ responded to me so quickly and so on and so forth within a minute, you know, like.
Eric Lawrence (17:39)
Transparency, man, it's key. Transparency is everything. And it's funny where transparency comes into play because there's the just the timeliness of the response. If you haven't heard from your main contact over at the company, and it could be something as simple as the first time you reach out to the company and they take two days to follow back up with you. That's usually a yellow or red flag there, but
Michael Georgiou (17:44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric Lawrence (18:04)
even things that are simple because you need to start getting into the mentality of this is my partner. I'm considering you. It's, it's almost like you're dating each other. It's if I were to build an app with them and there was an issue that happened with the app, would it take them two, three days to respond to an issue, especially one that's critical? Those are things that you need to think of. And from a transparency sake, like you mentioned, Michael, the biggest area that I find
you know, transparency is needed is with the timeline, the expectations with the timeline, because there can be a lot of times where somebody comes in thinking, you know, my app's not that big. It's going to take maybe two months to build. And it's going to be really important that if a company comes to you and says, yes, we can build it in two months, ask them, what are you guys doing to get this done in two months? How are you guys handling your time?
Michael Georgiou (18:45)
Yeah
Eric Lawrence (18:56)
Because oftentimes a company will say, yeah, we can do it at this point. You want them to challenge you. mean, ideally they can fit within the timeline that you have and your expectations are in line with the reality of how long it would take to build. But always challenge and understand and say, hey, does this seem right? does it seem like they're just kind of saying whatever I need to hear to get the deal? ⁓
Michael Georgiou (19:23)
No, I think that's a great point. that's definitely that I would definitely say that's a top kind of a characteristic to look for when you're trying to hire a vendor, a development partner. You should not be afraid to challenge them and ask tough questions because because you know, for our audience, right? When someone's looking to invest a lot of money and time, like we mentioned before,
⁓ which is all subjective, right? In terms of kind of the money side, you know, what is a lot of money, you know, how much we'll get into a price and conversation, maybe another episode, but, no, think like, you know, nonetheless, it's very important to try to kind of think about what, what, what can I ask this potential partner that will make them think outside the box a little bit, a little bit out of their comfort zone. Cause I know
great customers have asked us that. And it was challenging sometimes. And you're just like, you're caught off guard. For example, sometimes a customer will ask us, can you show us a clear example of maybe a similar product that you've built? And our answer is, ⁓ no. Or we're not just going to be like, hey.
We'll show it to you right now on the call. You want to kind of, you know, have a clear process on those sales calls. However, we'll show them after we'll give them an example, a case study, or even take another meeting. So we have a little bit more time to prep so we don't actually just mess up the call. And you know, if we're not ready for that, so there's ways to handle that. Right. But I think the important thing is, is to make sure that you ask tough questions, um, where they can be a little bit out of the comfort zone. So you can see what their personalities are like.
you know, and what their character is like, because that could be someone that you're going to be working with for years potentially, right? Another thing I would say as well is you want to look for a company that has a lot of social proof and credibility in the marketplace. Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of other companies that they kind of, they haven't marketed themselves that much.
And I'm not sure why, because if you're not marketing yourself as a company, right, and you're not showing the good work that you've done, then how are people going to trust you? You you can't just rely only on conversations. You need to find that driving point for people that actually contact you, right, and start building that trust. And I think that's where the conversations begin, is when they actually reach out, you know?
Eric Lawrence (21:52)
Yeah, social proof is huge. And the
last thing that I'd mention on that is make sure you speak with who your main contact is going to be on the project. There's so many instances of somebody saying, hey, I spoke with the salesperson. They were great. I trusted the company and they handed me off. So if you haven't figure out who's going to be your main point of contact for the project and then try to set up a conversation with them because that's really going to be who you gel with.
Michael Georgiou (22:00)
yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Lawrence (22:18)
If you don't gel with them on that call, don't go down that path.
Michael Georgiou (22:21)
Oh yeah.
Yep, yep. And another point I wanted to make here is that, you know, for customers out there that are looking for a partner, development partner, they really want to, you want to try to make sure that you talk with some technical people too. You know, whether it be a developer or a technical project manager, try to,
work with somebody that actually understands the implementation side, it's not just salespeople, right? That's another thing that I've kind of noticed is you want to show your technical acumen and your expertise from the way beginning, right? Where that trust will be built, not just from kind of the business, the customer and sales relationship, but from the technical aside.
with the potential customer is very, important, right? And that's where it allows you to also build trust with the team. I think that's very important.
Eric Lawrence (23:16)
Absolutely.
Yeah. So Michael, think now's the time where we give our shout out to today's sponsor. today's episode is sponsored by MagicTask, the to-do list that actually makes you want to get things done and have fun while doing it. MagicTask blends productivity with personality, turning task management into a dopamine boosting experience. Whether you're a meticulous planner or thrive in organized chaos, it helps you stay on track without feeling like a chore.
Michael Georgiou (23:25)
Do it.
Eric Lawrence (23:47)
Here at Imaginovation we use MagicTask to run all of our projects and day-to-day operations. It's that good. Check it out at magictasks.io and see how it can level up your personal and team productivity.
Michael Georgiou (23:59)
Yes, I highly recommend MagicTask, definitely. It's a really amazing product and they're making a lot of ⁓ innovations and just improving it, enhancing it. So it's a wonderful product to use.
Eric Lawrence (24:11)
Awesome.
Michael Georgiou (24:12)
So let's
get to the next one. Yeah, go ahead, Eric, yeah.
Eric Lawrence (24:15)
Yeah, yeah, I, I with you as far as what we can discuss next. I think it's good for people to come prepared with questions that they should ask the vendor that they're going to be speaking with things that are just going to be a good way to kind of snuff out who's the right fit. so getting into that, the, the first thing, and I know we briefly touched on this, but it is, it's who I be working with day to day.
And that just kind of cuts through of, is the person I'm speaking with going to be the right one that I'm working with? Or is it really going to be a different team? Maybe somebody that's offshore that I wasn't expecting, just understanding who's going to be a part of the team and what their responsibilities are.
Michael Georgiou (24:56)
Yeah, yeah, no, and I think it's really vital to, you know, for, you know, customers to also try to understand the dynamics of not just who their point of contact is gonna be, like you said, that's very important, absolutely. But it's also important for them to really understand like, where is the team located? You know, is the...
potential vendor comfortable with talking about their team? Not that, listen, not that you want to grill them about the members of their team, because we live in a global society, right? mean, there's a lot of companies that people all around the world in this day and age. It's normal, especially virtual companies now after COVID and all that stuff. But, you know, it's important to really be able to understand, you know, what type of team
what type of people are you going to be working with? Not just the project manager, not just the account manager, the sales, kind of the sales person from the beginning, but where is my team? I'm speaking like as a customer, where is my team going to be placed? Are they, are they offshore? Are they near shore? Are they all in the U S are they, you know, it's important to know that and, ⁓ just kind of make sure that, that the team is being honest about that. Cause
I can tell you for us, we have people all around the world. We're not ashamed of it, right? We have people here in the U S and then we also have people in India and South America and Argentina. And we're proud of our people. You know, we've worked hard to, to, to, ⁓ hire some of the best developers out there, that will really be, you know, that work on all of our clients projects. And, ⁓ yeah, I just think that's a, of a vital component to.
to building a strong relationship and helping you to vet the right partner.
Eric Lawrence (26:46)
Yeah, definitely, definitely. I think another good question to ask, and this, this just goes into a little bit of the flexibility. How can they handle just an ever shifting environment? Because when you get into building a product, there are things that can change partway through. So a really good question would be what happens if the scope changes mid project? And that's, that's just a good sense of how flexible is the team that I'm working with going to be if
Michael Georgiou (26:56)
Mm-hmm.
yeah.
Eric Lawrence (27:14)
things come up and we need to change things in the middle of development. So that's, that's always a good one that you could pose to just get a sense of how they can handle that.
Michael Georgiou (27:24)
Yeah, yeah. And I think also a good question is what does it look like when the project is, I don't want to say done, just because for us, we have this kind of this mindset that when you're building a piece of software, for a website, it's a little bit different. It can be one and done right a bit, but for an app that is going to be built, it's like a living organism. always needs to be nurtured and improved upon and kind of
you know, and just innovated. But when the first MVP, let's just say is done and it's ready for a kind of, for a launch in the marketplace, at least to be, to get those first users, right? Those beta users, those beta testers, let's just say. What does support look like? What does ongoing development look like? You know, that's also ⁓ a very important question to ask.
Eric Lawrence (28:13)
Absolutely. Yeah, I would say those are critical things to know. And one of the overlooked questions that I feel a lot of people don't have on their radar when they first start reaching out to vendors is who owns the IP. You could tell when somebody's been doing this a while because that's going to be one of the question first questions that they ask. And usually that comes from a place of if somebody had a product built before.
Michael Georgiou (28:32)
Yeah.
Eric Lawrence (28:40)
And when the time comes, they want to move on. Maybe they're hiring their own resources or maybe they want to go with another partner. If you do not have ownership over your intellectual property or your code base, you may have to ditch it entirely because the company that you're with may not give it up. So that I emphasize this to everyone listening, please, please, please, if you're asking somebody and you're vetting them out,
Michael Georgiou (28:58)
Yeah.
Eric Lawrence (29:03)
Make sure that you understand who owns the product at the end of the day.
Michael Georgiou (29:07)
Right, right. Yeah, I would say that would definitely be a red flag. If a vendor does not give you full ownership of the code that you paid for, yeah, that's definitely a red flag. I mean, there's, yeah.
Eric Lawrence (29:21)
Yeah, and if they say, ⁓
we'll license it out to you, that's another red flag. Yeah.
Michael Georgiou (29:26)
I was just going to say that. Yeah,
we've come across, man, like I remember years ago, we were ⁓ competing on a bid with a prospect. It was a big project. And I remember me and Pete were working for weeks. Pete is for you, for those of you that they don't know, Pete Paranzo is my business partner. And we were working on this proposal for weeks. It was a big project.
We were competing with a much larger company than ours. and I remember we were, we were building a really great rapport with this, with this prospect and this prospect actually decided to go with that other company, which is fine. Right. I mean, you're sometimes you're going to win some, you're going to lose some it's normal in this, in any industry really. But we found out that that person.
or that company left the competitor. They spent, I think, several hundred thousand dollars. And then there were no clear terms in the contract of what happens to the IP. And that's another thing, is make sure that there are clear terms in the contract so you understand all the expectations. And we could probably do another episode.
Eric kind of talking about the, a little bit more of the contract stuff, but we're not lawyers. let's see. But yeah, you know, I think like, yeah, probably, but no, you know, having those clear expectations and, and yeah, this, this potential customer, ⁓ it was going to be an amazing project. And he chose this other competitor and, he, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I think like a year of work or something like that. And then, ⁓ I saw this person.
Eric Lawrence (30:34)
Probably best to leave to the lawyers, ⁓
Michael Georgiou (30:56)
randomly out, I think it was at like a networking event or something like that. And he told me that, you know, actually, yeah, we spent all of our funding on this other company. I wish we chose you guys because they asked us for a licensing fee for almost half of the full amount for what they spent on the product. And that was just phase one. So they didn't even own their freaking code.
I mean, it was, I was like, it's insane. Like I, I couldn't believe it. and I've heard many stories like that. everyone out there, just, just do your due diligence, make sure that, you know, ⁓ you take your time and choosing the right. Software partner that there are clear expectations from the, from the beginning, a clear process, make sure that you, you, you like the people you get good vibes from the people that you're going to potentially work with. and that.
Eric Lawrence (31:19)
It's insane.
Michael Georgiou (31:45)
You know, just do your research in terms of pricing as well, which we'll do in another episode. And then I'm probably missing some things here. What else did I miss here, Eric? What other kind of flags to look for?
Eric Lawrence (31:55)
I think I think you hit it on
the nail on the head for most of this. The only other thought that I'd provide is is, yep, communications big. And then think about it as you're inviting this company to basically become a part of your own company.
Michael Georgiou (31:59)
Yeah, communication. Communication is huge.
Eric Lawrence (32:10)
Do you like the people that you're working with? I think that's so overlooked because at the end of the day, people get so hung up on, well, is the pricing there? Did they say yes to my timeframe? know, those small details that they can often overlook. Do I like these people? Am I going to be happy interacting with these people? And especially, you know, as far as like honesty and transparencies concerned,
Michael Georgiou (32:11)
that's huge.
Eric Lawrence (32:35)
There are things that can go wrong with every software project. It's just the way that the world works. If I were to hit a hurdle with these guys, do I trust that they have my back? Are they going to do the right things? And are we not going to hit a place where the water hole is poisoned, so to speak? Because that's what always happens with other companies, where when somebody's working with someone else, there's always this kind of turning point.
Michael Georgiou (32:40)
100%.
yeah.
Eric Lawrence (33:00)
in the relationship where somebody wasn't honest about something or a problem happened in the company just did not jump on it or handle it the way that it was supposed to. like integrity, working with people that you like and you trust, those are all things that I think often get overlooked, but consider them.
Michael Georgiou (33:12)
Yep. Honesty.
Yeah, think critically, ask hard questions, trust your gut. And yeah, it just, we just keep learning and growing and improving. And I think that's the very important thing here. yeah, yeah. So we appreciate everyone. I think we've run out of time here, but yeah, I want to thank you all for watching and listening. And this is Michael Georgiou again, your host from Tales from the Pros.
Eric Lawrence, my co-host here, and can't wait till next episode. Thank you, everyone.