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I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

aymeric.gaurat.net

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Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#41

Post by brandall10 »

maratd wrote: post #36
nlh wrote: post #21

I'll share a similar (positive) experience I had a few years ago. I'm not quite what I'd call a developer, but I'm a company founder who's "code savvy". I made the decision to outsource the development of a moderately big PHP project a few years ago -- I went through a LOT of profiles on oDesk and finally settled on a guy (who billed about $30/hr, which was on the high end for non-US guys on oDesk). He was _terrific_…

> My only frustrations were things that, unfortunately, can happen with outsourced work -- timing. My guy was an A developer, but a B/C time manager. So the project took about 2x as long as it should have. So technically, he billed at $60 an hour. And that is the issue with outsourcing. A local guy in your office might have gotten things done in half the time and cost you just as much. There is another issue with tim…

"So technically, he billed at $60 an hour"

I would say the cost goes way beyond that... the cost of doubling your time to market can be brutal. Not to mention extra strain on other resources (including your own time) having someone consistently missing deadlines.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#42

Post by dustyreagan »

aymeric wrote: post #33
dustyreagan wrote: post #4

I wonder what the general opinion is on legal protection (such signing a contractor agreement) when working with someone in another country. I figure it must be hard to enforce, and you'd mainly be working based on trust. But, it seems like having some sort of legal agreement in place, regardless of how difficult it would be to enforce, would be prudent. Anyone have experience with this?

If you go via oDesk, each contract automatically incudes an NDA agreement. What kind of protection are you talking about?

The typical things, IP protection, confidentiality, code ownership rights, payment terms.

Do you use oDesk for all your development work? The "timeclock" feature they have seems valuable. Is it worthwhile enough to bring an outside developer, one you haven't worked with before, into oDesk to work together?

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#43

Post by mmahemoff »

dustyreagan wrote: post #4

I wonder what the general opinion is on legal protection (such signing a contractor agreement) when working with someone in another country. I figure it must be hard to enforce, and you'd mainly be working based on trust. But, it seems like having some sort of legal agreement in place, regardless of how difficult it would be to enforce, would be prudent. Anyone have experience with this?

ODesk has some default protections, but I think it's safest to execute an additional contract for a development job. IANAL but my own approach is to at least include explicit terms in the contract. I don't believe oDesk's default terms cover as much on IP protection as a contract like this. For example, depending how hands-on you are, you might need to specify the contractor needs to get your permission to use any GPL or similar licenses.

I forked a consultancy agreement on Docracy [1] recently to specify any notices take place over oDesk, then requested the contractor agree to it via oDesk's messaging system.

https://www.docracy.com/5642/consulting-agreement-for-hourly...

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#44

Post by mmahemoff »

With outsourcing, it helps a lot to break things down into small steps - it cuts out a lot of the risk upfront if you can build a complete "Hello World" early on, for example. You'll find out right away if the contractor can program, deal with version control, build automated processes, etc.

And this is where it helps if the client is a developer. A developer who understand agile processes should be well placed to break tasks down into vertical slices in this way.

On a related note, I highly recommend Trello for co-ordinating with remote workers. I just invite them to a board and send a "welcome" notification to them from a special "Message Card". They immediately get how the whole thing works even if they've never seen Trello or Kanban before, and you can spend most of the time co-ordinating on tasks by messaging on their cards. This is from my experience with researchers/admins and I'm planning on the same for working with a developer.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#46

Post by jzukoff »

TheBiv wrote: post #12
jzukoff wrote: post #10

I just have to question the quality of the code one risks receiving when outsourcing; sure you can get lucky and find a great guy but in all likelihood it would take a few iterations to find someone worthwhile. All the while you'd be spending time and money finding a developer & losing precious time working on the product at hand.

The quality of the code is up to your requirements as a developer. Have the outsourced developer code exactly to the requirement and accept nothing less.

sure to a certain extent, but you could have all the requirements in the world and not have the outsourced developer ever turn in "quality" code, or if anything take way longer than it should take.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#47

Post by campnic »

brandall10 wrote: post #41
maratd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My only frustrations were things that, unfortunately, can happen with outsourced work -- timing. My guy was an A developer, but a B/C time manager. So the project took about 2x as long as it should have. So technically, he billed at $60 an hour. And that is the issue with outsourcing. A local guy in your office might have gotten things done in half the time and cost you just as much. There is another issue with tim…

"So technically, he billed at $60 an hour" I would say the cost goes way beyond that... the cost of doubling your time to market can be brutal. Not to mention extra strain on other resources (including your own time) having someone consistently missing deadlines.

One additional concern on this: the cost is hidden.

My current company sometimes misses this issue. The developer you've outsourced to can take 1.5x but if that slows down not just his items but dependent work, the cost can be very difficult to determine.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#48

Post by aymeric »

dustyreagan wrote: post #42
aymeric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go via oDesk, each contract automatically incudes an NDA agreement. What kind of protection are you talking about?

The typical things, IP protection, confidentiality, code ownership rights, payment terms. Do you use oDesk for all your development work? The "timeclock" feature they have seems valuable. Is it worthwhile enough to bring an outside developer, one you haven't worked with before, into oDesk to work together?

Probably not. I think it depends on where you find the developer from. If it is a recommendation from someone, you might not need to get yourself protected via oDesk.

I think it really depends on how comfortable you are with taking this kind of risk, and how much effort/money you want to put into mitigating them.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#49

Post by damian2000 »

"Being a developer myself it is easy for me to explain what I want to a developer. We talk the same language."

I've always thought that myself - in terms of outsourcing programming - the experienced developer can actually make better use of other devs more than anyone else.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#50

Post by prodigal_erik »

vasco wrote: post #16
dustyreagan wrote: post #4

I wonder what the general opinion is on legal protection (such signing a contractor agreement) when working with someone in another country. I figure it must be hard to enforce, and you'd mainly be working based on trust. But, it seems like having some sort of legal agreement in place, regardless of how difficult it would be to enforce, would be prudent. Anyone have experience with this?

Hey, I've been doing some gigs in oDesk and when you're working on an hourly billed project it's quite safe. They have a piece of software you install that randomly takes print screens while you're working, and makes sure you're active by measuring keystrokes and mouse clicks. You also do daily reports and so the guy who is paying you basically knows everything that is going on. If things eventually don't check out t…

To me that environment sounds awful. If getting up to think hard about what I'm developing would tend to get me dismissed from an oDesk project, they're implicitly selecting for willingness to just sit and type relentlessly even when that's not in the best interest of the project. It might be appropriate for data entry, but creative work with complex requirements is not well served by a WPM metric.
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