A software project brief is a written document that explains what you are trying to build, why, and for whom — detailed enough that two different developers reading it would scope the project the same way. Most Nigerian founders skip this step and go straight to "how much to build me an app like Uber," which is exactly why quotes for the "same" project can range from 500,000 naira to 15 million naira. The developers are not pricing the same thing; they are each guessing at a different version of your idea.
Writing a proper brief takes an afternoon and saves you weeks of back-and-forth, mismatched expectations, and inaccurate quotes. Here is what a brief that actually works includes.
The Business Problem Statement
Start with the actual problem, not the solution you have already decided on. "Our sales team spends three hours a day manually reconciling WhatsApp orders against inventory" tells a developer far more than "we need an app." The problem statement gives context for every decision that follows, and it lets an experienced developer suggest a simpler solution than the one you walked in with — which sometimes saves you money before the project even starts.
Target Users
Who will actually use this software, and how technical are they? A system built for your internal warehouse staff has very different design and training needs than one built for the general public. Be specific: how many users, what devices they use, what their comfort level with technology is.
Must-Have Features vs Nice-to-Haves
Separate your features into two honest lists. Must-haves are what makes the software useless to you if missing. Nice-to-haves are what you would like eventually but could launch without. Developers who receive an undivided wishlist either quote for everything (expensive and slow) or guess at what matters (risky). This single distinction is often what determines whether your project ships in two months or eight.
Existing Systems and Integrations
List every tool your business currently uses that this new software needs to work alongside — your accounting software, your payment gateway, your CRM, your WhatsApp number. This single section prevents the most common source of scope creep: discovering three weeks into a project that "oh, it also needs to talk to our inventory system," which nobody mentioned at the start.
Budget Range
Nigerian founders are often reluctant to share a budget, worried they will be quoted exactly that amount regardless of scope. In practice, the opposite happens more often: without a budget range, developers scope in the dark, and you end up comparing a template quote against a fully custom quote as if they were interchangeable. A range, even a wide one, lets a serious developer tell you honestly what is achievable within it.
Timeline
State your real deadline and why it matters — a trade show, an investor demo, a regulatory deadline. If there is flexibility, say so. Artificial urgency ("I need this in two weeks" with no actual deadline behind it) tends to produce rushed, expensive work.
Success Metrics
How will you know the project worked? "Reduce order processing time from 3 hours to 30 minutes" or "handle 500 concurrent bookings without slowdown" gives the development team something concrete to build and test toward, rather than a vague sense of "make it good."
A Simple Brief Checklist
- The business problem, in one or two sentences
- Who will use it, and how many of them
- Must-have features, listed separately from nice-to-haves
- Every existing system it needs to connect to
- A realistic budget range
- Your actual deadline and why it matters
- How you will measure whether it worked
A brief like this does two things at once: it gets you accurate, comparable quotes from any agency you approach, and it filters out developers who are unwilling to engage with specifics — which is useful information on its own.
If putting this together feels daunting, that is what a discovery call is for. Harzotech runs every custom software project through a structured discovery phase precisely because a brief like this, done properly, is worth more than any amount of guessing later. Start your project brief with us and we will help you shape it into something that gets you an accurate quote the first time.