In the world of startups, it's entirely common to find the so-called "big ideas" founder in a constant search for their "technical co-founder," also known as the someone who can develop an envisioned software product. Lately, these individuals are in especially high demand.
Lack of coding talent is an increasingly big issue across the tech industry, making the task of finding talent not only difficult but also an expensive endeavor. As a result, development shops—typically started by coders, themselves—are popping up to sell their services as contractors. That's where Dupont Circle-based NotionTheory comes into play.
"To put it bluntly, there’s a limited pool of talented developers and so you’re generally left competing against others for whomever is left after the tech giants (Google, Apple, Amazon, Tesla) have had their first serving. It’s a tough place to be in because the quality and standard of your work reflects the team behind it; if you hire subpar talent, you’ll deliver subpar products," said Kristian Bouw, the co-founder of NotionTheory.
"To put it bluntly, there’s a limited pool of talented developers"
Bouw and fellow co-founder Michael Keung established NotionTheory, a small software development studio, in the heart of D.C. in 2014. Since then, they've helped create apps for the likes of rising startups KlowdTV, SuperCook and GlamHive, among others.
Keung tells me his company is now expanding to cover not just software development but also small batch hardware (via 3D printing) and virtual reality for clients. "We really just want to be ahead of the curve ... something more than web and mobile," he explained.
Bouw, formerly a strength and conditioning coach that helped train FBI agents and models for project runway, and Keung, who previously founded a failed startup, aren't your typical coders-turned-executives.
In fact, neither left college as an experienced developer, programmer, coder or anything of the sort. Instead, they had vastly different plans that were then disrupted by what Keung described as an obvious business opportunity—while corporations could shell out money for contracted development work, most startups were left without an option to get off the ground.
Bouw described how he first launched the company in an email, "I stopped all my training, coaching, writing and got a one bedroom apartment where my co-founder Mike and I shared a bunk bed ... we spent 12 hours a day 7 days a week teaching ourselves how to code before starting NotionTheory."
Today, NotionTheory's 5-person team is cranking out roughly 15 products every 6 months. They primarily work with startups, with a particular focus on the D.C. region. In the coming year, they'll be hiring and expanding their customer portfolio. While the company has been fed on referrals, spurring new business through old clients' recommendations, that too may be changing in the future due to a new, outward marketing strategy.
What makes NotionTheory truly unique from other software development firms is that they sell their services on a fixed cost with a fixed timeline. And for those unfamiliar with the space, that's a really odd way of doing things.
'Mercenary'-style developers typically work on a sort of retainer, similar to lawyers, where they are paid by hour and fully until the project is completed.
Keung and Bouw explained that they decided upon a different approach so as to streamline and simplify the ordering process as much as possible. This mindset is ultimately used to build a core product, with all the necessary features and design that"cuts out the fat," for a customer. What this translate into is a base piece of software that is efficient, reliable and clean, but perhaps doesn't carry all the bells and whistles.
"No company provides a high quality cost-effective solution to get a product to the market in only 6 weeks. The decision we made to provide fixed cost fixed timeline product development created an incredibly clear message for our brand and allowed us to scale rapidly because we do one thing, and we do it incredibly well ... [that] explicit value proposition gave us the opportunity to create a very successful company in an overly saturated product development market," Bouw wrote to me in an email.
The company is entirely bootstrapped to date while Keung said NotionTheory has been "profitable since day one."
