In general, many startup software development companies aspire to attain two things. First, achieve a crucial investment to meet its target growth. Second, as the company grows, it will soon be acquired by one of the global giants. However, the path toward the finish line is a long journey full of obstacles and challenges. One of them is securing technical due diligence to succeed as a company. This article serves as a guide with the best recommendations to make the company succeed with a dedicated team to achieve the software project’s endeavors.
Factors to consider in technical due diligence
2. People
It is no secret in the technical field that a dedicated team is key in successfully developing and maintaining the product. This applies to investors. With your development team, create an organizational chart with roles, with emphasis on the key players. Also, provide a list of independent contractors and outsourced staff and their roles.
Always have an updated organizational chart. Document all records of the staff and contractors, including their contracts. This includes potential employees and contracted expenses for the current year.
Keep a list of people and their skills. Identify their roles and functions on developing the different product parts, including their involvement in various facets of the operations such as development, maintenance, and support roles. Also, it is vital if you can provide staffing information or contracted roles that you plan to invest in and how you think they could assist your organization.
3. Processes and workflows
Managing the staff to develop and keep your best-in-class innovative product needs a plan and a system. This helps you provide details about your company’s software development, quality assurance, and security testing methods, including deployment, operations, and support systems. You need to show that your current systems are effective, cost-efficient and can support product development processes.
4. Intellectual property and software licensing
Many consider intellectual property as one of the vital assets in any acquisition or investment. Being part of the technical due diligence procedure, it’s essential to exemplify the strength of the technology that you are developing.
Present the patents that safeguard your IP, along with the capacity to operate. This shows that you are not infringing on intellectual property that you do not own. You may be requested to provide a complete list of the third-party components of your existing software such as free and open-source components and commercial libraries. Licensing compliance of all your third-party and open source components is always required. You need to ensure that your dedicated team is compliant with external licenses.
5. Roadmap: What the future holds
Your potential investor wants to know your future plans about the company, specifically new products and features you consider essential for the continued growth and success as a software solution provider.
Success in any field requires hard work and tedious preparation. The details above are simply the tip of the iceberg how to be a technical due diligence ninja and be able to close a good deal with huge investors. It may appear getting piles of documentation. In reality, keeping your eye on the prize, it’s just a matter of complying to the requirements to stay competitive in your operations and documentation.
Currently, more tools are used for managing, monitoring, and reporting regarding your software’s bugs, releases, versions, licenses, vulnerabilities, and compliance reports. By ensuring the right tools and practices are in place, evaluate your companies’ due diligence processes and you can be one step closer to making a good deal with your investors.
