Judge whoever builds your software on five things: do you own the code and the accounts, is the work written down, who runs it after launch, can you leave, and will they tell you something true that costs them the sale. None of those require you to read code. All of them predict whether you will still be happy in year two.
Do you own the code and the accounts?
The repository should be in your organisation, the servers and third-party services in your name, from the first day of the project. Not handed over at the end, not “we’ll sort that out later”. If the answer is anything other than yes, you are renting your own business system, and the rent goes up when you try to leave.
Is the work written down?
Not a manual nobody reads — enough that a competent engineer who has never seen your system could find their way around it. How the pieces fit together, where things run, what breaks when. This is the thing that makes every other risk survivable, and it is the thing most often skipped because nobody is paying for it directly.
Who runs it after launch?
Ask the question plainly, and listen for whether the answer includes a Sunday. Building software and keeping software alive are different jobs, and the second one is where most business systems quietly rot. Platforms shift under an app every month. An app nobody maintains does not stay frozen at “works” — it degrades until one day it does not open.
We build and run. Givore is the proof we can point at: we designed it, wrote the apps, built the backend, and we still run production for it today.
Can you leave?
Good work is portable. The code lives somewhere you control, it is built on standard tools another developer would recognise, and nothing about it is designed to make you stay. Lock-in is rarely a clause in a contract. It is usually a system only one party understands, on accounts only one party can reach.
Will they tell you something that costs them the sale?
“You don’t need a rebuild, you need three weeks of cleanup” is worth more than any portfolio. So is “that feature can wait” and “you don’t need AI for this yet”. Someone protecting your budget against their own invoice is telling you what they are like to work with for the next two years.
The short version
Own everything. Get it written down. Know who answers on a Sunday. Keep it portable. Trust the one who talks you out of things. If you want a straight opinion on your specific case, tell us about it — including if the honest answer is that you should do nothing yet.
Related reading: how to choose who builds your app, what it costs to build one, what it costs to keep one running, and — if your problem is manual work rather than a new product — how to automate your business.