The topic of development budgets in the early stages is often a matter of survival for a startup.

Founders expect developers to provide them with the ability to constantly change or even pivot their IT product quickly.

Speed at the expense of project quality, however, leads to significant additional costs due to numerous revisions and can even bring projects to a complete standstill and failure.

Modern strategies in IT development involve analytical research before the coding stage begins. Conceptualizing an IT product before developing it may not seem obvious, but it is not just another trendy gimmick – it has far-reaching technological- and business-consequences.

Conceptualizing an IT product not only makes the development and changes of the product manageable from a business perspective, but also reduces development budgets many times over.

At early stages, investors typically focus on several key aspects:

 - Team.
 - Software.
 - Technical requirements.
 - Business model.
 - Market.
 - Traction.
 - Due diligence process.

Investors usually seek equity in exchange for funding, so be ready to negotiate deal terms and ownership stakes.

A good strategy would be to create an MVP based on a well-thought-out concept. Then the MVP can be used for business purposes, starting with minimal functionality. Not to mention that development budgets are significantly reduced and better controlled in this case.

For self-financing, it is obviously useful to start earning money from the product with the very first release.

Other methods include outsourcing, partnerships, resource sharing, user focus, and crowdfunding.

A disadvantage of this gradual business growth approach is the limited availability of innovative solutions and the high probability that competitors could use your attractiveness research and easily replicate your long efforts quickly with the help of investors.