Notes / Advice · 12 October 2026
Five things to write down before you hire a developer
You do not need a specification. You need five short answers, and you already know all of them.
Most projects that go wrong were unclear at the start. These five answers take twenty minutes and save weeks.
1. What happens today
Describe the job as it is done now, step by step, including the annoying parts.
2. What you wish happened instead
Not the software. The outcome. "The invoice goes out the same day" is better than "an invoicing module".
3. Who will use it
How many people, how comfortable they are with computers, and where they are when they use it.
4. What it must connect to
Your accounting package, your store, your bank, a spreadsheet someone refuses to give up.
5. What happens if it is down for a day
This decides how much to spend on monitoring and backups. Be honest about it.
Send those five answers to anyone you are thinking of hiring. A good developer will reply with questions. Be careful with the ones who reply with a price.