- We offer certified developers to hire.
- We’ve performed 1500+ Web/App/eCommerce projects.
- Our clientele is 1000+.
- Free quotation on your project.
- We sign NDA for the security of your projects.
- Three months warranty on code developed by us.
A promising app idea is only the beginning of a digital product journey. Turning that idea into a reliable, scalable, secure, and commercially viable application requires much more than writing code. It requires product thinking, technical planning, user experience design, quality assurance, infrastructure management, security, analytics, and continuous improvement.
This is why finding the right technology partner for your next app idea can be one of the most important decisions you make before development begins.
Many founders initially approach app development with a simple assumption: find developers, explain the idea, build the application, and launch it. In practice, successful app development rarely follows such a straight line. A technology partner can influence what gets built, how quickly it reaches the market, how much it costs to maintain, how well it performs under real-world traffic, and whether the product can evolve as customer expectations change.
The wrong development partner can create technical debt before the first version reaches users. Poor architecture can make future features unnecessarily expensive. Weak communication can cause requirements to be misunderstood. Inadequate testing can result in crashes and negative reviews. An unsuitable technology stack can limit scalability. A development team without product experience may build exactly what was documented while missing what customers actually need.
The right technology partner takes a broader view.
Instead of acting only as a coding resource, the partner becomes an extension of the product team. They can help evaluate the original concept, challenge assumptions, identify technical risks, prioritize the minimum viable product, select appropriate technologies, establish development processes, and prepare the application for long-term growth.
This distinction is particularly important for startups and businesses developing their first major mobile or web application.
A technology partner is not simply someone who builds an app.
A strong technology partner helps transform an idea into a product that can survive contact with the market.
That means the selection process should begin well before comparing hourly rates or requesting development estimates.
A technology partner is a software development company, product engineering team, specialized development firm, or technical organization that works with a business to plan, build, launch, maintain, and evolve a digital product.
For an app project, the relationship can cover some or all of the following:
The exact responsibilities depend on the engagement model.
Some businesses hire a technology partner for a single MVP. Others establish a long-term product engineering relationship in which the same team continues working on the application for years.
The second model can be particularly valuable when the application is expected to evolve rapidly.
For example, a startup might initially need:
After launch, customer feedback may reveal the need for:
A technology partner familiar with the original architecture can often implement these changes more efficiently than a completely new team that has to understand the entire system from scratch.
The terms “technology partner” and “app development company” are sometimes used interchangeably, but they can represent different expectations.
An app development company may focus primarily on delivering software according to an agreed specification.
A technology partner generally implies a broader relationship.
The distinction can be understood through the scope of responsibility.
| Development Provider | Technology Partner |
| Primarily focuses on implementation | Combines implementation with technical strategy |
| Works from defined requirements | Helps refine requirements |
| May focus on project delivery | Focuses on long-term product outcomes |
| Often measured by deliverables | Often measured by product and business goals |
| Can provide specialized development | Can provide broader product engineering capabilities |
| May end involvement after launch | Can support continuous product evolution |
| Often follows client architecture | Can advise on architecture |
| May execute assigned tasks | Can identify risks and opportunities |
Neither model is automatically better.
The appropriate choice depends on your project.
If you already have an experienced internal product and engineering organization and simply need additional developers, a specialized development provider may be sufficient.
If you have a strong business idea but need technical guidance, product engineering, architecture, development, launch support, and ongoing optimization, a technology partner may be a better fit.
Finding developers is relatively straightforward.
Finding developers who are appropriate for your particular product is much harder.
The challenge comes from the number of variables involved.
You are not merely selecting people who know a programming language. You are evaluating whether a team can understand your business model, anticipate technical challenges, communicate clearly, protect your intellectual property, work within your constraints, and build a product capable of evolving.
Consider an application that handles payments.
A team might know how to create screens and connect a payment API. That does not necessarily mean the team understands:
Similarly, a healthcare application requires more than basic mobile development knowledge.
A logistics application requires more than maps integration.
A social application requires more than chat functionality.
An AI application requires more than connecting an AI API.
The deeper question is whether the technology partner understands the technical and operational realities surrounding the product.
Before contacting development companies, define the role you expect the partner to play.
This is one of the most overlooked steps in the app development partner selection process.
Businesses often send a short description such as:
“We want to build an app like X. Please provide cost and timeline.”
The responses may look useful, but they are difficult to compare because each vendor may make different assumptions.
A better approach is to define your expectations.
Ask yourself:
The answers create a clearer partner profile.
You do not need a complete technical specification before speaking with technology partners.
However, you should have enough information for them to understand the product.
A useful initial app brief can include:
Explain the problem the application is designed to solve.
Avoid starting with technical features.
Instead of saying:
“We want an app with AI recommendations, chat, profiles, search, and notifications.”
Explain:
“Our product helps independent professionals find relevant clients without spending significant time manually searching through opportunities.”
The second explanation gives a technology partner more context.
Identify who will use the product.
Potential user groups might include:
If the application has multiple user types, describe each separately.
Explain what you want users to accomplish.
For example:
This gives prospective partners a much better understanding of the product than a list of isolated features.
Explain how the application is expected to generate revenue.
Possible models include:
Revenue mechanics can influence architecture and integrations, so this information should not be hidden from the technical team.
Specify whether you need:
A technology partner can then recommend an appropriate development strategy.
One of the strongest ways to improve partner conversations is to separate the product vision from the feature inventory.
Your vision explains why the application exists.
Your feature list explains how users interact with it.
Both are necessary.
For example, an online education platform may have the vision:
“Create a personalized digital learning environment where students can access instructors, lessons, assessments, resources, and progress insights from one application.”
The feature list may include:
A capable technology partner should be able to translate the feature list into technical requirements while still understanding the larger product objective.
An MVP, or minimum viable product, is an initial version designed to test the core product proposition with real users without unnecessarily building every planned feature.
The purpose is not to create a low-quality application.
The purpose is to reduce unnecessary investment before product-market assumptions have been validated.
A well-designed MVP contains enough functionality to deliver the core value proposition.
For example, a marketplace MVP might need:
It may not initially require:
A technology partner should be willing to discuss prioritization.
Be cautious if a prospective vendor immediately encourages you to build every feature without discussing validation, sequencing, technical risk, and user value.
A valuable technology partner should not agree with everything automatically.
That does not mean they should unnecessarily criticize your idea.
It means they should ask intelligent questions.
For example:
These questions demonstrate engineering maturity.
A vendor that simply says “yes, we can build that” may be easier to work with during the sales process, but that does not necessarily indicate strong product engineering capabilities.
The technology partner should demonstrate expertise appropriate to your application’s complexity.
Relevant areas can include:
Look for experience with:
Evaluate experience with:
For applications expected to grow, assess capabilities around:
If your application depends on data, examine whether the team understands:
For AI-enabled applications, look beyond simple API integration.
A capable AI technology partner should understand concepts such as:
Not every AI application needs all these technologies. The right architecture depends on the product.
Industry experience can be useful, but it should not become an automatic requirement.
A company does not need to have built an identical application to deliver a successful product.
However, experience with similar technical or operational challenges can significantly reduce learning curves.
For example:
A fintech application may benefit from a partner experienced with payments, transaction workflows, authentication, security, and financial integrations.
A healthcare application may benefit from a team familiar with sensitive data, healthcare workflows, integrations, and security requirements.
A logistics platform may benefit from experience with location services, routing, real-time tracking, dispatching, and operational dashboards.
An eCommerce application may benefit from experience with catalogs, inventory, payments, order management, promotions, shipping, and customer accounts.
An education platform may benefit from experience with video, live classes, assessments, subscriptions, user roles, and learning analytics.
The important question is not simply:
“Have you built this exact app?”
A stronger question is:
“What similar technical and business challenges have you solved, and how did you solve them?”
A portfolio is useful, but do not evaluate it only by appearance.
A beautiful application screenshot does not prove engineering quality.
When reviewing previous work, investigate:
If possible, request case studies rather than generic portfolio screenshots.
A meaningful case study should explain:
This gives you far more insight than a list of logos.
When evaluating potential technology partners, ask for two or three projects that resemble your situation.
The similarity does not need to be exact.
Look for similarities in:
For example, if you are developing a multi-sided marketplace, a previous marketplace project is relevant even if it operated in a different industry.
The underlying engineering problems may overlap significantly.
One important question is often overlooked during vendor selection:
Who will actually work on my application?
A company may showcase senior engineers during the sales process but assign a completely different team after the contract is signed.
Ask about:
Also determine whether the team is:
The structure itself is not automatically good or bad.
The important thing is transparency.
Before signing a major development agreement, request a conversation with the person who will lead the technical implementation.
This meeting can reveal more than a sales presentation.
Discuss:
Pay attention to how the technical lead explains complex subjects.
Strong technical leaders can usually explain difficult concepts in understandable language without hiding behind unnecessary jargon.
Communication problems rarely improve automatically after a contract is signed.
If communication is already confusing during the sales process, treat that as a warning sign.
Evaluate:
You should know:
A technology partnership depends heavily on communication because app development involves hundreds of decisions.
Requirements inevitably change.
That does not mean the project is poorly managed.
Market feedback can change priorities. Technical discoveries can change implementation plans. Platform updates can introduce new constraints. Customers can request new functionality.
The important question is how changes are handled.
Ask:
A mature partner should have a clear change management process.
Most modern software teams use an iterative development methodology, often involving Agile principles.
The exact framework is less important than whether the process provides visibility and control.
Ask how the partner handles:
You should be able to see progress throughout the project.
Avoid situations where the development team disappears for several months and returns with a supposedly finished application.
Iterative development reduces risk because problems can be discovered earlier.
Product discovery should happen before extensive implementation.
A discovery phase can help answer:
Discovery can include:
This stage can save significant time later.
Cost matters.
However, choosing the cheapest technology partner can become expensive if the project requires extensive rework.
Suppose one vendor quotes a low initial price but produces:
The initial savings may disappear quickly.
The better evaluation is total cost of ownership.
Consider:
Initial development cost + infrastructure + maintenance + bug fixing + future development + scaling + technical debt + opportunity cost.
A partner with a higher initial estimate may produce a more maintainable application that costs less over several years.
If you ask five companies for proposals, you may receive five completely different estimates.
That does not necessarily mean someone is overcharging.
The vendors may be making different assumptions.
One proposal may include:
Another may include only mobile development.
Before comparing prices, normalize the scope.
Create a comparison framework covering:
Then compare what each proposal actually contains.
Two common commercial approaches are fixed-price and time-and-materials.
A fixed-price agreement defines a specific scope and price.
It can provide predictability when requirements are stable.
However, app products often evolve during development.
A time-and-materials model charges according to actual effort.
It can provide greater flexibility when requirements are expected to change.
Neither approach is universally superior.
The right model depends on:
Some projects combine models, using fixed pricing for discovery and defined deliverables while using a flexible model for ongoing product development.
The cost of building the first release is only one component of the financial equation.
Your long-term technology budget may include:
For AI-enabled applications, additional costs may include:
A responsible technology partner should help you understand these ongoing expenses.
The technology stack should serve the product rather than follow trends.
Common components may include:
The correct combination depends on requirements.
Do not ask:
“What is the most popular technology?”
Ask:
“Which architecture and technology choices best support this product’s requirements, team capabilities, security needs, expected scale, and long-term roadmap?”
A technology partner should be capable of explaining why a particular technology is appropriate.
Be cautious if the recommendation is based primarily on phrases such as:
Real engineering involves trade-offs.
Every technology choice has advantages and disadvantages.
A mature partner should explain those trade-offs.
Not every application needs massive infrastructure from day one.
Overengineering an MVP can waste money.
At the same time, architecture should not make reasonable growth impossible.
The right balance is evolutionary scalability.
The technology partner should identify likely growth points.
For example:
The system should be designed so that scaling can happen without rebuilding everything unnecessarily.
Security should not be treated as a final-stage feature.
It should influence architecture and development from the start.
Depending on the application, security considerations may include:
For sensitive applications, security requirements can become significantly more extensive.
Ask the technology partner how security is incorporated into:
Data ownership should be clearly addressed in your agreement.
Determine who owns:
Whenever practical, critical business accounts should be controlled by the business rather than being permanently dependent on the vendor.
This reduces vendor lock-in and makes future transitions easier.
Source code access should be clearly defined.
A technology partner may host code in a version-control system.
You should understand:
Do not wait until a disagreement occurs to discover that your team does not have access to critical assets.
Your agreement should clearly define intellectual property ownership.
Depending on the engagement, this may cover:
Also distinguish between your project-specific intellectual property and a partner’s pre-existing reusable components.
A well-drafted agreement can prevent confusion later.
Many applications rely on external services.
Examples include:
Ask:
This is especially important for applications that depend heavily on external platforms.
QA should not mean simply clicking through the application once before launch.
A serious app development process may include:
Ask how defects are:
Also ask whether developers are responsible for testing their own work or whether an independent QA process exists.
Mobile applications must operate across different:
A partner should have a practical device testing strategy.
You do not necessarily need to test every device on the market.
Instead, the partner should identify meaningful device and operating system coverage based on your target audience.
Users expect mobile applications to feel responsive.
Performance problems can affect:
Performance engineering can involve:
Ask how performance will be measured rather than simply asking whether the application will be “fast.”
Analytics should not be added randomly after the application is already live.
Decide what you need to measure.
Potential metrics include:
The specific metrics should reflect your business model.
A technology partner should be able to implement the required event tracking and ensure that analytics data is meaningful.
The launch is not the end of app development.
It is the beginning of real-world product learning.
After launch, you may discover:
Ask prospective partners about:
A good technology partner should be able to support the product beyond version one.
Discuss how they handle:
This conversation helps determine whether the partner is thinking about the product’s lifecycle rather than only the initial contract.
References can provide information that sales presentations cannot.
Ask prospective partners whether they can introduce you to relevant previous clients.
Useful questions include:
The final question is particularly useful because it may reveal hidden weaknesses.
Testimonials displayed on a vendor’s own website naturally represent selected experiences.
Independent reviews can provide another perspective.
When researching a potential technology partner, consider:
Do not judge a company solely by one positive or negative review.
Look for patterns.
A technology partnership can last years.
Therefore, evaluate whether the partner appears capable of supporting a long-term relationship.
Consider:
Company size alone is not a quality indicator.
A smaller specialized team can sometimes provide more focused attention than a very large organization.
The question is whether the partner has sufficient capability for your project’s requirements.
The sales process itself provides useful evidence.
Strong partners generally communicate:
Be cautious about promises such as:
Software engineering involves uncertainty.
Trustworthy partners manage uncertainty rather than pretending it does not exist.
A structured scorecard can make partner selection more objective.
You can score each candidate from 1 to 5 across categories such as:
| Evaluation Area | Suggested Weight |
| Relevant technical expertise | 15% |
| Product understanding | 10% |
| Portfolio and case studies | 10% |
| Communication | 10% |
| Architecture capability | 10% |
| QA and security | 10% |
| Team quality | 10% |
| Development process | 5% |
| Post-launch support | 5% |
| Pricing and commercial fit | 10% |
| Long-term compatibility | 5% |
The exact weights can change according to the application.
For a highly regulated product, security may deserve a larger weighting.
For an early-stage startup, product discovery and MVP strategy may be more important.
For an enterprise application, architecture, integration capabilities, governance, and support may carry greater weight.
You generally do not need to evaluate dozens of companies in depth.
A practical process is:
A shortlist of several qualified partners creates competition without making the process unnecessarily complicated.
Consistency improves comparison.
Useful questions include:
Price is easy to compare.
Reasoning is harder.
Suppose two technology partners recommend different approaches.
Instead of asking only which one is cheaper, ask:
“Why do you recommend this architecture?”
Then ask:
“What trade-offs does this approach introduce?”
Then:
“What would you choose if the application reached ten times the expected user volume?”
Then:
“What would you change if our budget were reduced?”
The quality of these answers can reveal engineering maturity.
Before signing a large development agreement, consider conducting a structured discovery workshop.
A workshop can cover:
The outcome can include:
This provides a stronger basis for commercial decisions.
A 100-page proposal is not automatically better than a 15-page proposal.
The quality of the proposal matters more than its length.
A strong proposal should clearly communicate:
A proposal filled with generic marketing language but lacking technical specifics is less useful.
Your MVP should have a measurable purpose.
Possible goals include:
The technology partner should understand this objective.
If the goal is validation, speed and learning may be more important than building a huge feature set.
If the goal is enterprise deployment, security, integration, reliability, and governance may carry greater weight.
Not every feature has equal importance.
A useful classification can include:
The application cannot deliver its core value without these features.
Important features that improve the product but are not essential for the initial release.
Useful enhancements that can be introduced later.
Features that may eventually be valuable but should not be part of the initial development cycle.
This approach helps prevent scope expansion.
A common mistake is measuring the quality of an MVP by the number of features.
A better measure is whether users can complete the most important task successfully.
For example, a food delivery application does not become valuable because it contains 100 features.
Its fundamental value depends on whether users can:
Additional features can improve the experience, but they do not replace the core journey.
Technology and user experience are connected but distinct disciplines.
A partner should understand:
Ask to see actual design work, not only polished final screenshots.
Understanding the design process is often more valuable than seeing the final visual output.
For many applications, onboarding strongly influences activation.
Ask the technology partner how they would approach:
Avoid asking users for unnecessary information before they experience the application’s core benefit.
A technology partner with strong product thinking should be able to discuss this.
Accessibility should be considered during product design rather than treated as a last-minute checklist.
Depending on your audience and platform, this may include:
Accessibility can improve usability for a broader range of users.
If you expect the application to operate internationally, discuss localization before development becomes deeply established.
Potential considerations include:
Internationalization decisions can affect architecture.
Technical debt is not always avoidable.
Sometimes a business deliberately chooses a simpler implementation to validate an idea quickly.
The problem occurs when technical debt becomes invisible.
Ask the technology partner:
A mature engineering team recognizes that software needs continuous care.
Documentation is especially important for long-lived products.
Useful documentation may include:
Without documentation, changing developers becomes unnecessarily difficult.
Professional development should generally include disciplined source control.
Ask about:
The specific workflow can vary.
What matters is that changes are traceable, reviewable, and reproducible.
Development does not end when code is written.
The application must be built, tested, deployed, monitored, and updated.
A technology partner should understand:
This becomes particularly important for applications that require frequent releases.
Production problems will eventually happen.
The key is how the team responds.
Ask:
A partner that has never discussed production operations may be less prepared for a business-critical application.
Technical capability is only one dimension of partnership.
You also need cultural and operational compatibility.
Consider:
The ideal partner should fit the way your organization works.
A strong candidate often demonstrates several characteristics:
These signals do not guarantee success, but they can help identify mature organizations.
Some warning signs deserve additional attention.
A very low price may indicate:
Always investigate the assumptions behind the estimate.
Complex applications require time for:
A vendor promising to build a complex platform in an unusually short period should explain how.
If you ask about architecture and receive only marketing terminology, ask follow-up questions.
If you cannot meet anyone responsible for delivery before signing, understand why.
Unclear source-code and intellectual-property ownership can create serious problems later.
If requirements and decisions are not documented, misunderstandings become more likely.
Quality assurance should be visible in the proposal and development process.
An application without maintenance planning can become difficult to operate after launch.
If the entire project depends on one developer, continuity risk increases.
A portfolio containing only screenshots without context provides limited evidence.
A trustworthy technology partner should be comfortable discussing risks, limitations, trade-offs, and uncertainties.
A structured interview can reveal more than a sales presentation.
Start with the business problem.
Ask:
“How do you understand the problem we are trying to solve?”
Then ask:
“What would you change about our initial concept?”
This question can reveal whether the team is willing to think strategically.
Next ask:
“What would you build first and what would you postpone?”
Then:
“What do you consider the biggest technical risks?”
Then:
“What assumptions are you making in your estimate?”
Then:
“How would you know whether the first release is successful?”
These questions shift the conversation from selling development hours to solving a product problem.
After the technical team presents an architecture, ask them to explain it without jargon.
If the explanation becomes clearer, that is generally a positive signal.
You want to understand:
You do not need to become an engineer.
You need enough understanding to make informed business decisions.
One useful evaluation method is to provide a hypothetical challenge related to your application.
For example:
“Suppose the application suddenly receives five times the expected traffic. What would you investigate first?”
Or:
“Suppose payments are completed but the application does not receive the expected callback from the payment provider. How should the system behave?”
Or:
“Suppose users report that notifications are arriving several minutes late. How would you investigate the problem?”
You are not necessarily testing whether they produce the perfect answer.
You are evaluating their reasoning.
Strong teams tend to break complex problems into manageable components.
One of the best interview questions is:
“Tell us about a project where something went wrong.”
Then ask:
A partner that openly discusses lessons learned may be more trustworthy than one that claims every project has been perfect.
If the project is complex, a paid discovery phase can be a sensible investment.
It allows both parties to determine whether the relationship works before committing to a large implementation.
Discovery can produce:
It also gives you an opportunity to observe:
In many cases, this provides better evidence than sales presentations.
The final decision should not simply be:
“Which company quoted the lowest price?”
Instead, ask:
“Which partner gives us the strongest combination of capability, reliability, communication, product understanding, technical quality, and commercial value for the risk we are taking?”
This changes the selection process significantly.
A slightly more expensive partner may be the better choice if it:
The cheapest proposal is not necessarily the cheapest path to a successful product.
Before making the final decision, review the following areas.
Once the evaluation is complete, create a final comparison.
For each candidate, record:
Then ask a simple question:
“If this application becomes successful, do we trust this team to help us operate and evolve it?”
That question captures the essence of a technology partnership.
The initial build may take months.
The relationship may last years.
Choosing a team only for the first release can therefore be short-sighted.
The strongest technology relationships evolve beyond development.
Over time, the technology partner may help you:
At this point, the relationship becomes less about “building an app” and more about building a technology capability.
That is where the concept of a true technology partner becomes especially valuable.
Once your application has demonstrated demand, priorities often change.
During the earliest stage, you may focus on:
After validation, priorities may shift toward:
Your technology partner should be able to evolve with these needs.
A team that is excellent at prototypes but weak at production engineering may not be suitable for the next stage.
Conversely, an enterprise-oriented team may overengineer a simple MVP.
The best partner is one whose capabilities match your current stage while also offering a realistic path forward.
No partner can eliminate all software development risk.
However, a strong partner can reduce preventable risk through:
The objective is not perfection.
The objective is controlled execution.
Once you select your technology partner, define shared objectives.
For example:
This is more productive than focusing only on developer output.
A team can complete hundreds of tickets without creating meaningful business value.
The relationship should therefore connect technical work with product outcomes.
A clear governance structure can prevent confusion.
Define:
For larger applications, consider regular:
Governance does not need to create bureaucracy.
Its purpose is to keep everyone aligned.
The roadmap should show more than development tasks.
A useful roadmap can include:
This helps both sides understand priorities.
Even when you outsource development, the business should retain ownership of product decisions.
Your technology partner can advise you.
They can challenge assumptions.
They can explain technical trade-offs.
But you should remain clear about:
This creates a healthy partnership rather than complete dependency.
Vendor lock-in is not always avoidable.
Some cloud services and specialized technologies create dependencies because they provide significant value.
The goal should not be to eliminate every dependency.
Instead, understand your dependencies.
Ask:
The better informed you are, the more options you retain.
There is an important balance between flexibility and overengineering.
You should not build a giant architecture simply because you might someday have millions of users.
At the same time, you should avoid decisions that make reasonable future changes extremely difficult.
A good technology partner identifies the likely future needs and builds appropriate extension points without unnecessarily increasing initial complexity.
The complete process can be organized into several stages:
Clarify:
Determine:
Research:
Evaluate:
Discuss:
Require:
Review:
Speak with previous clients when possible.
Clarify:
Use discovery to refine:
Develop:
Measure:
Use evidence to prioritize the next product improvements.
The search for a technology partner should begin with your product, not with programming languages.
Understand the problem you want to solve.
Define your users.
Clarify your business model.
Identify the minimum functionality required to test the concept.
Then look for a team that can understand those requirements and contribute meaningful technical and product expertise.
Do not select a partner solely because it has a large portfolio.
Do not select a partner solely because it offers the lowest quote.
Do not select a partner solely because it uses a fashionable technology.
Do not select a partner solely because its sales team communicates well.
Evaluate the complete relationship.
The right technology partner should be capable of discussing business objectives, product priorities, architecture, user experience, security, testing, scalability, deployment, analytics, maintenance, and long-term evolution.
Most importantly, the partner should be willing to tell you when an idea, feature, technology choice, or assumption needs to be reconsidered.
That level of honesty is valuable.
Your next app idea may begin as a concept in a document, a sketch, a customer complaint, an internal business process, or a market opportunity. Turning that concept into a successful digital product requires hundreds of decisions.
A capable technology partner helps you make those decisions with greater clarity.
The ultimate objective is not simply to launch an app.
It is to create a dependable digital product that users value, that the business can operate, and that the technology team can continuously improve as the market evolves.