An important piece of planning to do in your startup or scaleup is when you stop using an agency and start using your own developers. You are – or will be -- a software company, you need your own developers, although most software companies start by having to use an agency to bootstrap the first version of their products.
You want to look at a phased approach, and over quite a long period of time, because when you start to employ developers you need to be big enough to give them something to do – you can’t just hire “a developer”, you need to build a team.
Years 1-2 you should look at using the agency exclusively. Towards the end of that period, start to build your own team. A good way to do this is to start building out software related to marketing, sales, and customer success functions, then segue into core product.
Year 3, you should aim for 1/3rd you, 2/3rd agency, but adjusting constantly throughout the year downwards so that in…
Year 4 you’re looking at 2/3rd you, 1/3rd agency, aiming to complete wean off the agency by the end of Year 4.