Last Updated on Mar 13, 2020 by James W
The era in which we live is an amazing time to be an entrepreneur. Gone are the days when you need to spend years in development hiring expensive design or engineering firms, building multiple prototypes, and constantly having to go back to the proverbial drawing board due to technical issues.
Today, there are a slew of companies that offer everything from pre built components to specialized labor to digital assets that you can easily incorporate to your project. What used to take years to create from scratch can be done in weeks using these three readily available assets.
1) Outsourced Labor
One of the most widely-used ways to accelerate your time to market is outsourced labor. More than one-third of companies use some form of outsourcing. This labor can be for everything from basic data entry or administrative tasks to those that are highly technical. This outsourced help saves you a tremendous amount of time and money. You don’t need to spend weeks or months finding talent. You hire on demand and only use the number of hours that you need.
This outsourced labor also allows for geo arbitrage wherein you can hire equally qualified talent for much cheaper due to differences in economies across the globe. Through the power of the today’s internet, very few applications require the entire team to be on site. Team members can work remotely without issue.
2) Modular Components
Even if you are creating a physical, technical component, you don’t need to create everything from scratch. There are many companies today that offer practically any kind of modular component you can think of. You can buy everything from highly-advanced mechanical components to various electronics for most any type of application. Even industrial circuit boards and advanced modules are easy to find.
If you can’t find pre-made components that you need on the market, many of these same companies that sell pre-made components offer customization. In many cases, you don’t even need any level of technical expertise to have the modifications made. If you can describe the function you need, they can handle the technical details.
3) Open Source Code
Many technical products require some form of programming. Whether it’s an actual piece of software or some code that controls a minor function of the product, somebody has to write the code. Depending on the complexity of the project, this code can be time consuming and expensive to create.
There are volumes of open source code on the internet that can be freely used in your project. Some may require certain attribution, but you are free to use it nonetheless. Even if it doesn’t fit your needs exactly, it can be modified for a much lower cost than creating it from scratch. Even enterprise-level companies acknowledge this with 98% using open source in some capacity within their organization.
Ship Faster and Smarter
With the resources available to entrepreneurs today, there’s no excuse for a product idea to take years to come to market. By using outsourced labor, modular components and outsourced code, you can take your idea to market within just a few short months.
