How to use Follow the Sun to Develop your Health Tech App

This week for the first time in over a year I boarded a plane in Frankfurt to fly to the US. I took this trip (following all the COVID safety rules) to work directly with a strategic health tech partner on a global  24/6 (24 hours, six days per week) health tech software development project.  As the plane flew west into the setting sun, I noticed something that many of us who fly west to the US see often. As we flew, following the sun, I watched as the setting sun appeared to freeze in the sky neither setting further nor rising back up. Of course, by flying towards the setting sun at 1,000 KPH, we were chasing the sun and prolonging the day.

In business, figuratively following the sun isn’t really a new concept. For years call centers and customer support teams have handed off responsibilities time zone by time zone to guarantee 24-hour support. When the US east coast teams went home at 6PM EST, the teams on the west coast took over before handing off to the Asian team who in turn passed off to Europe who passed it back to the US east coast the next morning.

Three times faster: Following the Sun (FTS) Means 3 Days of Work in one 24 Hour Period

However, with the rise in remote working, secure cloud computing, and faster and more secure internet, following the sun is now the gold standard in software development as well.

In software development, we often talk about the number of days of work a project will be. That means 1 developer working 8 hours per day. But with the FTS approach, you can get three days of work done in one 24-hour period.

Collaborative Development Catches Mistakes & Means Clean Code  

By its nature, the FTS approach means that developers need to constantly work on clean code because that code has to be handed off to someone else at the end of the day who will work on it overnight. Only the most disciplined and organized developers can handle the breakneck pace without an issue. This discipline also has the advantage of stopping common mistakes in development that lead to bugs and problems in future. Coding, QA and Documentation are delivered in real time.

Conventional development often means one person or one team owning a project. Developers can write sloppy code because they know “what it means”. However, this leads to major problems down the road when other developers try to work on the software. In contrast, the follow the sun approach involves a clean code mindset since developers work collaborative on projects.  

Faster, More Affordable Compliant Development

By following the sun, health techs can develop software faster, more effectively and save money in the long term. This flexibility allows your health startup to onboard customers faster, deliver new features more efficiently and reach your milestones in quarters rather than years. When time is money, FTS is the only way to take your startup to the next level.

I believe so much in this approach that my company, Vertrical, recently opened a US subsidiary and brought onboard developers on California time to augment those we already have in Europe and India. Our mission is to support Health Tech companies with compliant software development and now, with our new subsidiary, we are truly ready to implement a follow the sun approach.