Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?

Having the assets made in house for IT is only going to grow the value of your company. The software ends up being worth more than the sales of the business. t. former logistics company partner, sold to vanguard for IPI shipment rating software alone.

Do you know what a freelancer is?

You don’t make tax contributions for them. They bring their own hardware and usually software unless otherwise agreed.

The rest of the stuff is just a laundry list you made up to try and blow costs way past what they actually could be if you’re prudent. Come on

OP, my 2-cents having done this in a different industry within a company ~1/10th of yours: - as other comments mentioned, going slow and sticking to a solid vision of what “success” would look like in these efforts is important - most implementation challenges will be cultural, not technical - with the previous point, (and this may go against every other comment here) I have found it’s easier to teach someone software development basics than it is to teach the intricacies of your business/industry

with that said it has been my experience that a key first member in this is to find a passionate person within your org, whom you consider an expert or very knowledgeable in your business, and convince them to transition their full-time role to build these types of solutions. Find this person, convert them, and give them complete creative autonomy to pursue these efforts head-on. This person will implicitly possess an intrinsic understanding the problems with the highest value:effort ratio for the company, and when necessary, be able to fill the (many) necessary assumptions it takes to make functional apps that provide real value. You would be surprised at the simplicity and crudeness of what a smashingly successful app can have (and most importantly, what others will actually use) - so long as it addresses the right problem.

I run a software consultancy (http://www.afi.io) that specializes in transportation and logistics software. Please get in touch with me at afian at alum.mit.edu.

Here's a recent case study from one of our clients: https://www.mapbox.com/showcase/sotargruppen

I also write widely on anything related to software and logistics: https://afi.io/blog

I won't tell you whether you should build or buy, but I'll tell you what to avoid.

Avoid - large system integrators like IBM. They will charge you a lot of money and then just outsource it to someone else (source: me, we occasionally do subcontracting work). - freelance engineers from a website like Fiverr. You want someone who's done this before, many times, and has seen what worked and didn't work. Logistics is very niche, and outside of a few speciality dev shops you won't find engineers who have experience solving real world customer problems. There are really good engineers at Waymo for example, but they won't work for you (or me).

There a quote attributed to the late Charlie Munger. When asked how he would select a future investment manager for Berkshire Hathaway, he replied, "It reminds me of the young guy who went up to Mozart and said, 'I'd like to write symphonies.' When Mozart said, 'You're too young,' the young man replied, 'But you were young when you started.' Mozart pointed out, 'Yes, but I wasn't asking anyone else for advice on how to do it.'"

You want someone who's done it before.