Hiring a software agency is a bet on people you may have only met in a few meetings. A polished presentation does not tell you how a team behaves when a deadline slips or a requirement changes. Good questions do. These ten questions come from the other side of the table: they are the ones we would want a client to ask us. We try to answer them plainly, and you should expect any agency to do the same.
About how they work
1. How will you understand our business before you build anything?
A good agency begins with questions, workshops and a short discovery phase, not with a price. Listen for how they talk about your users, your process and your goals. If the first proposal arrives without any conversation about how your business works, it is a template.
2. What does your delivery process look like week to week?
Look for a clear rhythm: short cycles, regular demos of working software, a visible backlog and one person responsible for coordination. You should see progress on a screen every couple of weeks, not hear about it in a report at the end.
3. Who exactly will work on our project?
Ask who the designer, developers and project lead are, how experienced they are, and whether they will stay on the project. Be cautious if the people you meet in sales are not the people who will do the work. A team that offers strategy, design, development and support under one roof also tends to avoid hand-off problems.
4. Can we speak to past clients and see comparable work?
Ask for examples of similar projects, ideally live products you can use. Look at the portfolio with a critical eye: Is it relevant to your size and industry? Does the work look maintained? A confident agency will gladly connect you with clients.
About money and ownership
5. How do you estimate, and what happens when the scope changes?
Honest estimates come with assumptions, ranges and clear exclusions. Ask whether the price is fixed, time-and-materials or phased, and how changes are requested, estimated and approved. Be wary of a very low quote for a vague brief: the difference usually returns later as change requests.
6. Who owns the code, the design and the data?
You should own the source code, designs and data you paid for, with a clear licence for any third-party components. Ask whether you receive access to the repositories, hosting accounts and documentation, so that another team could take over if needed. Avoid arrangements that make you dependent on one vendor to touch your own product.
About quality and risk
7. How do you test and secure what you build?
Ask about automated tests, code review, staging environments, security practices and how they handle personal data. A serious team can explain how it protects against common vulnerabilities, how it manages secrets and how it handles backups. Answers like "we are careful" are not enough.
8. What technology will you use, and why?
Good agencies choose technology for your needs, not their comfort. Ask for the reasoning and the trade-offs. Mainstream, well-supported frameworks reduce risk because talent is widely available. Our own default for business applications is Laravel, Inertia and React with MySQL, chosen for maintainability and a deep local talent pool, but we explain alternatives when a project calls for them.
9. What happens after launch?
Software needs hosting, updates, monitoring and fixes. Ask what support is included, how issues are reported, what response times to expect and how ongoing work is priced. A launch is the beginning of the product's life, and an agency that disappears after go-live leaves you exposed.
About the relationship
10. How will we communicate, and what do you do when things go wrong?
Every project hits problems. What matters is how quickly you hear about them. Ask who your main contact is, how often you will meet, which tools you will use, and what the agency does when a milestone is at risk. Look for language, time zone and style that fit your team. For many Egyptian companies, working with a local team that communicates in Arabic and English removes friction.
Turn the answers into a decision
- Send the same written brief to two or three agencies, so the proposals are comparable.
- Score each answer to the ten questions, and give extra weight to ownership, communication and support.
- Ask for a paid discovery phase or a small first milestone before committing to a large project.
- Trust the way they behave during the sales process: responsiveness, honesty about limits and willingness to say no are signs of how the project will go.
The best agencies are glad to be questioned, because they would rather work with informed clients. If you would like to put these questions to Narmar, we are ready for them. Learn about our services, see our work, and then contact us to start the conversation.
