How Many People Does It Take To Form An NFT Marketplace Development Team?
Are you wondering how many people are required for NFT marketplace development?
NFTs are unique digital assets, including digital art, audio, gaming collectibles, etc. The global sales for NFT (non-fungible tokens) are expected to reach a value of 122.43 US dollars in 2028.
The latest trends in the NFT marketplace, like multi-chain NFT platforms, celebrities taking an interest in launching their own NFTs, online ticket NFTs, etc., are making the NFT marketplace popular among both individuals and big businesses.
For example, recently, Coca-Cola launched an NFT loot box to celebrate International Friendship Day. Coca-Cola NFTs were sold for more than $575K.
The statistics show promising potential in the NFT landscape. However, it also shows a competitive market for NFT marketplace development. There are multiple services out there, and you will have to reach the target audience with something unique.
The key to attracting your target customers is to build a feature-rich, secure, and robust software product. The same is the case with NFT marketplace development. At this point, we assume that you have set up your initial business plan and goals and that your next task is to build a great NFT marketplace.
Great products are built by great developers. Through this blog, we will help you form a great team for your NFT marketplace development project. So, let’s start.
NFT Marketplace Development
Developers and other team members required to build an NFT marketplace successfully will depend on different NFT marketplace components and third-party service integrations to present a complete user experience on your blockchain platform.
You will likely go through the following stages for NFT marketplace development and will require people to accomplish the tasks accordingly:
Marketplace application development :
You will need one or two developers to develop a web application that users will access to interact with your marketplace, buy and sell NFTs, etc. You should hire software developers proficient in programming languages such as Node.js and Golang for the application backend.
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Golang has numerous benefits. For example, it is a compiled language that makes it faster and easily scalable. Moreover, it is easy to learn and use. It may depend on other languages for complex functionalities.
Therefore, blockchain development also requires expertise in C++ as it gives more control to developers while programming.
Therefore, you should look for a developer proficient in C++ and a general-purpose programming language like Golang.
User experience is also important for blockchain applications. Your software developers should have the knowledge to create a user-friendly NFT marketplace design that is easy to navigate and visually appealing too.
You can either hire a full-stack developer with experience in both front-end frameworks and backend development or hire a front-end designer separately to build a unique and industry-standard NFT application layout.
You can read our blog to read more on how to undertake a UX design process.
Smart contracts development :
An NFT marketplace runs on smart contracts. These are programs stored on blockchain networks and run when specific conditions are met. Smart contracts are immutable, which makes them more secure.
You will need a blockchain developer experienced in smart contract development. Your developers should be able to work with the required blockchain technology standards like ERC-721 to create non-fungible tokens.
Moreover, your software developers should know a programming language like Solidity to create smart contracts.
Database development:
Blockchain is a distributed database to store information about NFT transactions. You can either opt for a ready-made solution like OpenSea SDK for your NFT marketplace or you can build your own custom NFT marketplace solution.
A custom solution will give you more control over features and functionality. For custom NFT marketplace development, you should look for developers proficient in Ethereum, a blockchain technology to store NFT identifiers and run them smoothly.
You will use technologies like LevelDB to access the blockchain faster or Infura.io service to access Ethereum blockchain.
IPFS (Interplanetary File System) is another service for data storage management on distributed databases like the blockchain. They can be used to avoid the storage of digital assets on the blockchain with the metadata that makes the storage power-consuming.
You can also explore other technologies for blockchain development, like Solana and Cordano, and hire developers accordingly. There are also various tech stacks available for different types of NFT marketplaces.
For example, Flow is a popular ecosystem for NFT games and collectibles, Tron for social media apps, etc.
Cloud Computing:
Cloud infrastructure changes software development practices significantly. Cloud software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and infrastructure-as-a-service help businesses use software development, computation, storage, and maintenance resources on the cloud.
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Cloud service providers install, configure, and manage these resources, while software developers focus solely on the development of the application. For instance, you can use a cloud data storage service to store huge volumes of data.
Amazon S3 is a leading example of a cloud database.
To make use of cloud computing technologies in your software development and deployment process, you will require people who have experience in working with cloud computing services and integrating them seamlessly into your software development process.
Read our blog for more on best practices for cloud integration into your business processes.
API Integrations:
APIs form an integral part of software applications today. APIs help to provide a lot of features through your software without having to develop them from scratch. You will need to integrate third-party services like a digital wallet, price tracking service, etc., into your NFT marketplace.
However, increased external dependency, especially for your core features, can cause performance and security issues. You may want to build your core NFT marketplace features in the form of APIs.
For custom API development, you will need API developers who have knowledge of API architectures like REST, GraphQL, etc. API documentation software like Postman, etc.
Read more on API development in our blog here.
Number of people required to form an NFT marketplace development team
The above discussion gave you an idea of the skills and expertise you will require for your NFT marketplace development process, and you will need to hire people accordingly. At a minimum level, you will require the following roles in your NFT development team:
- Project manager – you will have to adopt a software development methodology like Lean, agile, etc. for developing a blockchain-based software solution. A project manager will help you implement the relevant project management framework and tools for task assignment, tracking, etc., to meet the time and budget deadlines successfully.
- Designer – to help develop a visually appealing user interface according to industry standards.
- Backend developer – for client-side application development with features like NFT tokens search, token filter, user dashboard, crypto wallets, admin panel, bidding process, etc.
- Blockchain developer – for setting up blockchain infrastructure, smart contract development, API integrations, etc.
- Tester – to perform extensive testing of NFT marketplace solution, including rigorous smart contract testing, application penetration testing, security testing, etc.
- Business Analyst – to help you outline the business requirements, document the processes in the product development, and ensure the software is built in accordance with the business model.
These roles show you can start your NFT development with a team of 6 people. One thing to note is that this is the minimum number of NFT developers to start your development process.
You can increase the number of developers by hiring two NFT marketplace developers to accelerate the development process. You can also hire a separate developer for API development and testing.
Also, if you want to ensure increased application security, you can hire a separate cybersecurity specialist to help you adopt the latest security practices during development and apply preventive security measures.
Similarly, if you plan to adopt the latest software industry practices like DevOps, you will need to hire a developer expert to build a DevOps pipeline and integrate the relevant DevOps tools into your development process.
You can read more on how to build a DevOps pipeline on our blog here.
Where can you hire people for blockchain NFT development?
All these skills and expertise raise the question of where you can hire such a development team from. You will want to hire a developer who is proficient in the leading industry practices and the latest technologies.
Management of these developers is another important factor. The nature of the NFT marketplace development project is going to be complex as it is developing technology and requires a niche development skillset.
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You may want to rule out the idea of an in-house development team as it comes with an expensive hiring process that requires you to select developers from a limited regional pool of candidates. You may have to spend on their training and development. There are also office space expenses, including utilities, hardware maintenance, software licensing, etc.
The freelance market may attract you at first, given the range of software developers you find there. However, it is a risky route to take. There is no surety of the developer’s qualifications.
You have to vet and manage the selected developer yourself. If you are hiring more than one developer, as you would be, project management can get more tough with developers geographically dispersed in different time zones.
Therefore, we would advise you to partner with a reputed software development agency for your NFT development project. Software development companies let you outsource your complete development project or hire software developers according to your project requirements.
Moreover, these software developers are managed by the NFT development company itself through senior software engineers, and the project is managed by an experienced project manager with experience in building such software products.
Final Thoughts
NFT marketplace development requires software developers with a thorough understanding of the blockchain domain. You will need people with hands-on experience in NFT trading, smart contract development, etc.
These skilled individuals may come at a higher budget. However, the ROI you can expect from a secure, reliable, robust, and feature-rich NFT marketplace is quite promising.
The reports predict that the global NFT market is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 35.27% and will reach the value of USD 147.24 during the next 5 years (2021 – 2026).
A high-performance and niche-expert software development team is the key to building a market-competitive and revenue-generating software product. If you are still looking for an experienced software development partner, why not look at the field-expert blockchain developers community at DevTeam.Space.
All the software developers at DevTeam.Space are vetted for their skills and managed by the company. The company also trains its developers on AI-powered project management software that facilitates easy communication between the client and the developers working on their projects.
You can easily outsource your NFT development project or hire these software engineers according to your project needs by writing to us your initial project specifications.
One of our account managers will get back to you for further help and to answer any questions you may have on onboarding, hiring developers, signing NDA, project planning, etc.
Frequently asked questions on people required for NFT marketplace development
You will require a project manager, client application designer, developer, blockchain developer, tester, and business analyst to build an NFT platform, including NFT smart contract development, testing of the decentralized platform, third-party service integrations into your blockchain network, etc.
On average, it may take 4 to 6 months to create an NFT marketplace. However, a more realistic estimate can be made by an NFT marketplace development company after reviewing the features you want to develop, the complexity of these features, the number of people you hire on your team, etc.
There are various NFT marketplace development services available, like OpenSea, Atomic Hub, etc., that let you create an NFT marketplace quickly. However, to have more control over marketplace features and security, you will need to go down the custom development road. There are various software development companies that can help you build your own NFT marketplace platform, such as DevTeam.Space specializes in NFT marketplace development services via its expert software developers community.
Alexey Semeney
Founder of DevTeam.Space
Hire Alexey and His Team To Build a Great Product
Alexey is the founder of DevTeam.Space. He is award nominee among TOP 26 mentors of FI's 'Global Startup Mentor Awards'.
Alexey is Expert Startup Review Panel member and advices the oldest angel investment group in Silicon Valley on products investment deals.
