Own your infrastructure from day one. Future-you will thank you.

Too often, I see founders outsourcing their software development to a freelancer or an agency—only to let them create infrastructure on their accounts. At the start, it seems convenient. But down the road, it can be a painful mistake.

It doesn’t matter if you’re using AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, or a hosting provider—you should always own the account and grant access to your development partner instead of vice versa. Why? What happens when you want to change your technical strategy? What if your product takes off and you build an in-house team or switch development partners? While passing along the codebase is usually straightforward, handing over the infrastructure is a completely different story. Now, you’re dealing with a full migration, and worse, your production data is in the hands of a third party. I’ve seen cases where this was used as leverage, putting founders in a difficult position they never expected to be in.

Even if setting up an account isn’t your comfort zone, you shouldn’t ignore it. Create the accounts yourself. If you need help, your development partner should assist you in setting them up, not push back. If they resist, that’s a red flag.

The external engineers can be granted access, and if you ever switch development partners, you can revoke their access without hassle. No risk, no unnecessary complications. Just control over what's rightfully yours.