Find out how the work will get done.
A proposal can describe the finished product beautifully and still leave the working relationship vague. These questions show you what working together will feel like before you commit.
Ask every partner on your shortlist.
Who will I speak to, week to week?
Find out who runs discovery, who reports progress, who answers technical questions and who picks up a problem after launch. A named contact for each beats “the team”.
What will I see, and when?
Ask what each milestone gives you to use or click through: a flow, a prototype, a working release. Slide decks and percentage-complete figures are hard to judge.
How are changes handled?
New ideas arrive once you see working software. Ask how a request is assessed, who decides whether it goes in, and how it affects time and cost.
Who holds the code and accounts?
Repositories, hosting, domains, app store listings and third-party services should sit in your name, or move to it on a defined schedule. Ask now, while everyone is on good terms.
What happens after launch?
Support, monitoring, security updates and continued development all need someone responsible. Ask whether the partner stays involved, and on what terms.
What would a handover involve?
Even if you never use it, the answer shows whether the partner writes things down and expects you to be free to leave.
Get it in writing.
Whatever you discuss in meetings, these points belong in the agreement.
Ask for a walkthrough, not a technology list. Any partner can name frameworks. Fewer can take you through a product they built and explain the decisions behind it: why a workflow behaves the way it does, how they dealt with an awkward integration, what they changed once real users arrived. That conversation tells you far more than the opening screen of a portfolio piece.
If you'd like to see ours, our client work and our own products are listed with what each actually does, and the team page explains who you'd be working with.
Notice how the first conversation goes. A partner who asks about your users, your current process and your constraints before talking money will probably run the project the same way. One who quotes a figure from a two-line brief is guessing, and you'll discover where the guess was wrong halfway through.
Tick these off before signing.
- You know who leads discovery and who delivers the work
- Milestones produce working output you can review
- The process for change requests is written down
- Code, data and accounts are in your name or transferable
- Third-party licences and charges are listed separately
- Support after launch has an agreement of its own
Asked while comparing partners.
Should the founder be involved in every task?
No. On a project of any size that would slow things down. What matters is clear responsibility at each stage. At OLN Labs, Aditya leads discovery and our team handles design, engineering and delivery, and you know who to contact for each.
Should I go with the cheapest proposal?
Only once you've checked it covers the same scope and responsibilities as the others. Our guide to software development costs lists what to compare line by line.
Is it a problem if the partner hosts the application?
Not if the accounts belong to you, or the agreement says how they'll be transferred. Here's how we approach ownership and handover.
Put these questions to us.
Ask us anything on this list and we'll answer it plainly.