Promises stay attached to reality
The person making a commitment in a sales conversation can check it with the person who would have to build it. Usually within the hour, often within the same call.
A development company that also sells.
Mirai Apps is a software development and sales company with developer and sales team compatible for every type of customers.
The arrangement
Most software companies are one half of a company. They build, and then someone else sells. Or they sell, and someone else builds. The gap between those two people is where good products go quiet.
Mirai Apps keeps both halves in the same company. The developer who wrote the feature and the person who demonstrates it sit close enough that a question does not need a meeting to be answered.
It is not a complicated idea. It is simply harder to run than picking one half, which is why fewer companies do it.
What that changes in practice
Three consequences of keeping the two teams together, all of them practical rather than philosophical.
Feedback arrives while it is cheap
A demo every week means the customer sees the product while it is unfinished. That is the only point at which a change of mind costs almost nothing.
One person is answerable
When something goes wrong, there is no boundary to negotiate. One company answers for the build and for the relationship around it.
How we work when nobody is watching
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Say the difficult thing early
Before it becomes expensive.
If a deadline is not real, if a feature will not pay for itself, if the brief has two contradictory paragraphs in it — the cost of saying so rises every week it is left alone.
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Prefer the boring solution
Novelty is not a deliverable.
The best technology decision is usually the one a new developer can understand on their first morning. We save the interesting choices for problems that are actually interesting.
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Write it down
Memory is not a project artefact.
Decisions, assumptions, and the reasons behind both. A written record is the only thing that survives a change of staff on either side of the table.
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Ship something real every week
Demonstrable, not describable.
Progress that cannot be demonstrated is a claim, not a fact. A weekly build keeps everyone honest, including us.
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Leave the code better than the contract
The next person is also a customer.
A project should be easier to continue than it was to start. That means readable code, an honest README, and no trap left for the person who inherits it.
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Sell what we built
Not what we wished we had built.
The sales story has to match the product, including its limits. A customer who buys something slightly smaller than they expected is a customer who stays.
Talk to the people who would do the work.
There is no account layer between you and the team. The first conversation is with someone who builds or someone who sells, and usually both.