Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

aymeric.gaurat.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 117 posts

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

#71

Post by oz »

xpose2000 wrote: post #63
oz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you. However:

>author of this post refers to himself as a developer.

It doesn't matter what he calls himself. If you can pass FizzBUzz, you're a developer. Maybe not a John Carmack, but a developer nonetheless.

There is no sacred law written on tablets of stone and handed down from volcanic mountains that states "Developers who found startups must code or face eternal damnation." Rather, there is a holy precept that does state "The founder (whether a dev, UX guy or bizev guy) shall find the most efficient path to profitability, or be condemned to the lake of failure."

So if a founder is from a UX background, but in his particular context, it is more efficient (faster to profitability) for him to outsource the UX and read 'MBA for Dummies', I would argue that that is the rational course of action.

Again: Your priorities as a founder are not whatever background you are from. Your priority (and you must accept it :)) is to become profitable. When that is achieved, THEN you can go up the Maslow Heirarchy of business-actualization.

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

#72

Post by oz »

arn wrote: post #66
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…

You're doing it right, and that's exactly where I'm headed. Mind if I email you?

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

#73

Post by balloot »

oz wrote: post #71
xpose2000 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you. However: >author of this post refers to himself as a developer. It doesn't matter what he calls himself. If you can pass FizzBUzz, you're a developer. Maybe not a John Carmack, but a developer nonetheless. There is no sacred law written on tablets of stone and handed down from volcanic mountains that states "Developers who found startups must code or face eternal damnation." Rather, there is a holy precept…

Again, you are repeating this idea that all these other non-coding skills can be mastered on a whim. If you truly need an MBA type doing MBA things for your company, then you should go get one. Lord knows there's a zillion of them out there, almost all of which have a better resume than "I read MBA for dummies".

Or to put this differently. If I was working for some larger company as a developer, and I went to management and said "I have decided that I want to quit development and work in marketing", they would turn me down. And rightly so, because A) it would be bad for the company to lose my development skills, and B) there is no reason to hire me as a marketing person when there's many more out there far more qualified and experienced in marketing.

So...if this would be quite clearly the correct course of action if I worked for someone else, why would I not follow the same thought process for my own company?

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

#74

Post by dools »

This is really similar to the story that Ruben Gamez tells in his mixergy interview about Bidsketch. He started off building it in Grails (IIRC) but later switched to outsourcing to a Ruby dev.

He was then able to focus completely on the marketing side of things.

I think that one of the biggest problems that developers have when launching a business/product is that we know how to code, so we assume we should do everything.

I see this repeatedly with friends of mine who have an app idea or an idea for a website that they could get made for a couple of grand but insist they need to learn to do it themselves even if they're not already app/web developers.

People that can't code lament it - they look for technical co-founders and whatnot but the stories I hear from non-technical (and technical!) folks who either choose to (in the case of techies) or are forced to (in the case of non-techies) outsource development they generally get something released at all where as many of the technical people that I know personally are paralysed by the initial time investment required to learn a new technology and being unable to balance that with their full time job elsewhere.

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

#75

Post by dools »

coryl wrote: post #52
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…

That's kind of bullshit, you've focused more on what he decides to call himself rather than what he has accomplished. Are Eric Scmidt / Larry Page are no longer "real engineers" because they manage, and not code anymore? And yes, blogging and marketing is very tough. User acquisition is tough. A good on-boarding process is very tough. User experience is tough.

> A good on-boarding process is very tough

a-fucking men to that!

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

#76

Post by skrish »

balloot wrote: post #73
oz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. However: >author of this post refers to himself as a developer. It doesn't matter what he calls himself. If you can pass FizzBUzz, you're a developer. Maybe not a John Carmack, but a developer nonetheless. There is no sacred law written on tablets of stone and handed down from volcanic mountains that states "Developers who found startups must code or face eternal damnation." Rather, there is a holy precept…

Again, you are repeating this idea that all these other non-coding skills can be mastered on a whim. If you truly need an MBA type doing MBA things for your company, then you should go get one. Lord knows there's a zillion of them out there, almost all of which have a better resume than "I read MBA for dummies". Or to put this differently. If I was working for some larger company as a developer, and I went to managem…

I disagree. IMHO, there is no better person than the founder to market your startup passionately.

I am not saying MBA skills are not valuable. But what is more important is ability to write pithy blogs, write tons of emails to your potential customers, investors and do lot of other routine activities to keep your startup afloat. None of this requires MBA as such in the initial days.

Your passion, reading some of the best blogs out there on specific topics is more than enough provided you take all the advice as just that 'advice' and tweak it to apply as per your situation & needs.

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

#77

Post by zura »

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.

Not necessary. It is more like he billed 20hr/week rather than full 40hr/week.

Working from home "full-time" is extremely hard, especially when you have a family, little children at home...

I'd say 40hr/week at home is equivalent to 60hr/week at office, if not more.

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

#78

Post by uniclaude »

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…

> A local guy in your office might have gotten things done in half the time and cost you just as much.

Are you implying than developers working on site are never late? This is far from true.

Edit: To the downvoters, please explain, I may be misguided.

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

#79

Post by adrianmsmith »

rubeng wrote: post #18
vibrunazo wrote: post #6

I've considered outsourcing part of development before. But always gave up after thinking how hard would be to find someone who is actually good. And to be honest, after reading that the author had to first hire two girls just to look for a developer. It doesn't really gets me any more excited. Just thinking about all the useful developing time that I'd wasting looking for a good developer. It just doesn't seem worth…

Like anything else, the more you do it the easier it gets. I have two part time developers working for me (one from Nepal and the other from Ukraine. They're both great. Much better than the 80-90k/year developers I worked with when I had a day job. Initially I start by posting the job, then filtering in stages before asking them (and paying them) to complete a small 1 to 2 hour coding project. The coding exercise ca…

I agree, but would add "evaluate their communication skills" to that.
Post reply on HN