How to fetch software development (outsourcing) project?

by Abhishek

With my three friends I am running an IT service company for more than 5 years now. We have learned things the long and hard way during all these years. There was actually no single person to guide us regarding any aspect of the IT business though we have had many well wishers so far.

So to help entrepreneurs who are also planning to start their own company or who have just started the company I am planning to write series of articles which can help them in this journey. So here is the first one for you guys.

During these 5 years we have faced many challenges technically as well as in managing projects, clients and people. But one of the most challenging part of our business right now is scaling. We plan to double the revenue and increase the profitability without increasing head count considerably. We have around 70 people team right now and we plan to maintain the same. So now one of the challenges is to get quality projects from which you can earn more.

Following are few ways using which you can fetch software development projects from the market:

  • Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Exhaust all your contacts for fetching the first project for your company. Do it for free if needed. You have to have experience to fetch some serious work. In your initial stage, contacts are the best thing you can have. This is perhaps the best time to use your family contacts and relatives.
  • If you are couple of years old company, make a list of all old clients and send them personalized mail saying if we can be of any other help.
  • Join the bidding site such as oDesk and Elance and start building a great profile. oDesk is my favorite site for getting new work as it has a unique model which makes a win-win situation for both buyers and providers. The other best thing about it is that you mostly get hourly projects over there and weekly payments. Payment for your work is guaranteed. Elance is good for bigger size fixed projects. There are many other bidding sites such as Guru, Rent-A-Coder etc but these two are my favorites.
  • Become a Microsoft Partner and access their database of companies. Email them, call them for building relationship.
  • Get your company or yourself registered on Facebook and Twitter. Use their search functionality to find out what people are looking for.
  • If you have little extra money try Google Adwords for keywords like “hire a programmer”, “companies in india”, “outsourcing” etc
  • Get it from most popular classified site craigslist.org
  • Tie up with local partners who can outsource you projects.
  • If you are a new company start developing on the latest technologies. For e.g. Developing iPhone Applications will get you far more projects than developing in PHP or .NET right now.

These are just the few ways and there can be many other ways to fetch software development projects. Please leave me a comment if you have  other ways of fetching the projects. We all will be happy to know.