Ask HN: How do you find a software development company for your startup idea?

you don't hire a company, you build a team. you bring on a lead developer as a CTO and part founder, then you build overtime a development team to build your idea. Otherwise you are going to waste money, because once your company gets going you'll have to try to find people that will work with the MVP that was bought instead of built. also VC or Angel investors are going to see the fact you don't have a Development team in-house as a red flag and a risk.

Your also taking a huge risk by hiring out the development to a development house as that you won't know what kind of quality you'll get. You won't know if the development language is the right one for the job, if it was developed in a manner that features can be added later by your team once you have a team, etc... You might have to do a complete re-write later, which can sink a startup.

Figure out how much stock you can afford/willing to give to a partner, if you can pay a salary now that's a bonus. Look at your current connections, I'm sure you can find someone. I'm assuming you can as that you want to hire a development company. You might want to just figure out what you can pay now, and hire a lead developer if you can not find someone in you inner circle already. put together a offer, X a year to start, plus Y% Equity, etc...

toptal - higher price/quality

upwork - get just about anything done. would break it up into smaller pieces.

fiverr for smaller things

I'd need a lot more information about what you want to build and what your context is to give you real help.

Click on my HN profile link and I'd be glad to talk about this offline.