I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by vasco » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:29 AM UTC

prodigal_erik wrote: post #50

vasco wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are not paid based on these metrics, they are there so that the employer can have an idea of what's happening. I'm sure everyone will be very pleased when you deliver a project update on time even if you record 0 key strokes.

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

#62

Post by mkramlich » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:30 AM UTC

aymeric wrote: post #31

sanj wrote: post #29

Brilliant. I did the same thing -- http://outletmapper.com Some learnings: 1. It really does free up your head to think about harder issues (read: getting in front of the right market) if you're not distracted by code. For me, code is "my happy place", so it is too easy to spend too much time there. 2. I asked hard questions when picking someone to work with. Not just "have you used MapKit" but "how would you do hit…

#4 How detailed are your test cases? Do you have a sample document, I am interested to have a look at it. #6 If you're in the US, hire US. Mmm I disagree with this. I think the risk that someone decides to steal your idea or code and go run their own business are fairly low. I accept to take this risk to be able to reach developers that I will pay 4 to 5 times less than the local developers in my country.

> I accept to take this risk to be able to reach developers that I will pay 4 to 5 times less than the local developers in my country.

And you'll typically need 4-5x as many of them, and/or they bill 4-5x as many hours. This is not theory. I've seen this happen in reality, over and over again. Does this happen in all cases? No. But I've seen it happen enough that I make decisions based on it. And look at Mythical Man Month for a primer on why larger teams tend to be worse than smaller ones (worse efficiency, more communication overhead, more cheese-moving, etc.)

Having flashbacks to the worse quality startups I've seen that had 5+ person teams in Uruguay, Pakistan, etc. when they could have had the same work accomplished by 1-2 more elite, and local, same timezone, same culture/language, more "expensive" (nominally, but not overall) Americans or Europeans.

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

#63

Post by xpose2000 » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:36 AM UTC

oz wrote: post #56

xpose2000 wrote: post #51

Sorry but I disagree with this post completely. In fact, I hate articles like this. A real developer who loves his project would never outsource major aspects of the project. One might outsource the design, only because its incredibly difficult to create a great UI and have the know-how to code it as well. One might outsource the slicing of a layout to CSS/HTML or something simple like that while dealing with IMPORTA…

I'm really wondering if your post is sarcasm. But I'll bite. To wit: >A real developer who loves his project would never outsource major aspects of the project. Excuse me, but that's just the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. You don't get to decide what makes someone a 'real developer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman >while dealing with IMPORTANT issues such as database architecture, setting up the server, e…

Excellent viewpoint. The business aspect and getting paying customers is important. A marketers job is important as well. I don't mean to step on toes. However, keep in mind that the author of this post refers to himself as a developer.

It's like Steve Jobs saying he is a great salesman but wants to outsource selling his vision. It makes no sense to me.

Therefore that is why I wrote what I wrote.

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

#64

Post by balloot » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:39 AM UTC

campnic wrote: post #47

brandall10 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

This is exactly why the outsourcing craze fizzled out for the most part. I remember when I was in school for CS in 2002/2003 there were people who would tell me that I was earning a useless degree, as all programming jobs would end up overseas.

The bottom line is that outsourcing looks great on paper but then just murders you with hidden costs. Delays to market, code maintainability, number of bugs, etc all go the wrong way once you outsource, but none of that is quantified on any C-level report.

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

#65

Post by stonemetal » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:39 AM UTC

balloot wrote: post #59

xpose2000 wrote: post #51

Sorry but I disagree with this post completely. In fact, I hate articles like this. A real developer who loves his project would never outsource major aspects of the project. One might outsource the design, only because its incredibly difficult to create a great UI and have the know-how to code it as well. One might outsource the slicing of a layout to CSS/HTML or something simple like that while dealing with IMPORTA…

I think you're underselling the challenge in the parts of the business that aren't coding. Which is exactly why this guy's decision is such a bad one. He's basically said "I have skill set X, which I'm trained in and have been honing for years. For my company, I need skill sets X and Y. So I'll do Y and find someone else to do X." No matter what X and Y are, that's just the wrong way to solve that problem. The key is…

No matter what X and Y are, that's just the wrong way to solve that problem.

I don't know, If I can't do Y how am I going to hire an A player at the Y game. Being good at X means I can evaluate others in skill X.

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

#66

Post by arn » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:44 AM UTC

xpose2000 wrote: post #51

Sorry but I disagree with this post completely. In fact, I hate articles like this. A real developer who loves his project would never outsource major aspects of the project. One might outsource the design, only because its incredibly difficult to create a great UI and have the know-how to code it as well. One might outsource the slicing of a layout to CSS/HTML or something simple like that while dealing with IMPORTA…

This seems ridiculous. This belief doesn't scale past a few programmers/employees.

If you are "doing it right", your time should be worth far more than a programmer's salary.

I run several websites/businesses. At one point I was doing all the coding, marketing, blogging, customer support, etc... I was crazy busy. Over time I've managed to hire for most of this, so I can work on bigger picture, managing what is to be done, architecture issues, and a lot more.

Every few months I try to reasses what things I'm doing that are not worth my time. Programming was one of the first to go. It's so incredibly time consuming and I can hire someone better than me.

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

#67

Post by balloot » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:48 AM UTC

oz wrote: post #56

xpose2000 wrote: post #51

Sorry but I disagree with this post completely. In fact, I hate articles like this. A real developer who loves his project would never outsource major aspects of the project. One might outsource the design, only because its incredibly difficult to create a great UI and have the know-how to code it as well. One might outsource the slicing of a layout to CSS/HTML or something simple like that while dealing with IMPORTA…

I'm really wondering if your post is sarcasm. But I'll bite. To wit: >A real developer who loves his project would never outsource major aspects of the project. Excuse me, but that's just the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. You don't get to decide what makes someone a 'real developer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman >while dealing with IMPORTANT issues such as database architecture, setting up the server, e…

None of this addresses the fact that the author has set up his company such that the person doing the marketing/blogging/sales/etc has zero experience doing any of those things. By attempting to do them himself the author is completely disregarding their value!

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

#68

Post by damian2000 » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:51 AM UTC

Part of me thinks this guy is a bit of a tight ass for choosing the absolute cheapest places to outsource, i.e. Philippines* then Ukraine, but then, that's just how global manufacturers work anyway, and why should coding be any different.

According to this infographic: https://www.staff.com/blog/web-developer-salaries-infographi... Philippines has the cheapest web developer salary in the world at an average of US$6874 per year.

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

#69

Post by balloot » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:52 AM UTC

stonemetal wrote: post #65

balloot wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're underselling the challenge in the parts of the business that aren't coding. Which is exactly why this guy's decision is such a bad one. He's basically said "I have skill set X, which I'm trained in and have been honing for years. For my company, I need skill sets X and Y. So I'll do Y and find someone else to do X." No matter what X and Y are, that's just the wrong way to solve that problem. The key is…

No matter what X and Y are, that's just the wrong way to solve that problem. I don't know, If I can't do Y how am I going to hire an A player at the Y game. Being good at X means I can evaluate others in skill X.

OK, but here are your outcomes if you are good at X and need X and Y:

You do X, hire Y - You have one skilled person, one question mark.

You do Y, hire X - You have one unskilled person, one question mark.

Seems pretty simple to me that the first is better. I suppose that you could make the argument that Y may be easy to pick up, but if that's the case it should be all the easier to just hire someone else with a proven track record.

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

#70

Post by a5seo » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:54 AM UTC

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…

Don't forget the time delay of finding someone local. You could easily spent weeks rummaging through responses to Craigslist ads, interviewing, verifying competence, etc.

The nice thing about outsourcing services is they tend to give you tools to screen along with a deep bench.

If a project is big, sure, look for someone local. But if its medium, I'll add oDesk/RentaCoder to the mix every time.