THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN HIRING A DIGITAL PRODUCT AGENCY

When it comes to scaling your product, you need help. Hire a digital product agency to scale and grow your business. Find an agency that’s strategic about who they work with and can truly implement change within your organization. Product agencies offer a solution to this problem by providing services from design and development of new features, bug fixes and other small updates to major redesigns so users see things differently and find things faster than before. These services are also ideal for scaling up an operation from a small team until you have enough resources to build the product from scratch. Whether you need help with growing your user base, testing your app with more users, or expanding into international markets, our blog walks you through the considerations when hiring a digital product agency.

Understand your company’s current state and needs

To get the most out of hiring a product agency, you need to first understand the state of your company today. This will help you understand what you’re trying to achieve with the product and what stage it is at. There’s no point hiring an agency to scale up when you have an existing product that’s already scaling. You need to hire an agency that can help you scale up the product, not just scale the team. To understand the current state of your product, you can ask your team, talk to your customers and look at analytics to understand where you currently are. For example, some key questions you can ask yourself include: Is your product already in demand? Is there a market for your product? What is the growth rate of your customer base? These are just some of the questions you can ask to learn more about the state of your product.

Demand clear goals and metrics before hiring a product agency

A product agency will be able to provide you with new features, redesigns and updates that make a difference to your users, but what are these updates meant to achieve? You should set specific goals and metrics before hiring a digital product agency. Again, depending on the stage of your product, you might want to scale up or down. For example, if you have an existing product with existing features, you might want to scale down and build on top of that. If you have a basic product that doesn’t have a customer base yet, scaling down will help you understand what your customer base is looking for. You can set specific goals and metrics at different stages of your product and the agency can help you understand how their services can help you achieve these goals. You can also ask the agency if they have experience scaling the product they’re helping scale up. If they don’t, you can consider looking elsewhere.

Know what you’re looking for in a digital product agency

Finding the right agency can be difficult. That’s why we’ve put this guide together. You’ll want to find an agency that fits your team’s culture and has the expertise to scale your product. This is essential for the success of your product, so don’t compromise here. There are a few things you should look for, including expertise in the product you’re trying to scale, team culture and processes, clear goals and metrics, and the ability to help you scale the product from its current state. You can also use our checklist to help you find an agency that fits your needs.

Find an agency with the right culture fit before working with them

A digital product agency is like an extension of your company, so you want to find an agency that fits well before working with them. Product agencies come in all shapes and sizes, so you want to make sure you’re comfortable with working with the team before locking them in. Ask yourself the following questions: 

- Do you feel like you click with the team? 

- Is the culture at the agency similar to the culture in your company? 

- Do the people at the agency seem excited about scaling your product? 

If you can’t answer yes to these questions, it’s probably best to look elsewhere. If you do find an agency that fits well, make sure you spend time getting to know the team and the culture at the agency. This will help you understand how they can help you scale your product and have the best experience together.