Main problem is that someone in US just can't get the relevant info on 99% of the overseas teams out there. The ones that you first google out are usually the ones who advertise the most and who generally always oversell their resources, and thus produce really bad results. Experienced small teams usually already have a number of clients, work hard and are not that visible or fast growing. So try playing smarter and avoid corporate outsourcing channels, and instead reach out to overseas developers' communities on twitter and conferences and contact developers and teams directly. You'll get much better results.
The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#22I don't think you can over-emphasize the challenges in communication with off-shore teams. I have worked with several in corporate IT and just reaching a minimal baseline of understanding has proven difficult. Some of this is basic talking and listening; phone conferences will suck! Think about your typical (dysfunctional) phone conf and then slash the quality of the phone line/Skype connection. Add in the variable a…
I'm always confused why companies don't invest more in better teleconferencing tech. I mean, for a small fraction of the money being saved with offshore work you could have a meeting room full of screens and networked whiteboards and wearable high-quality mics and wall-mounted cameras and crystal-clear VOIP and whatnot, to put you "in the room" with your counterparts. None of this technology is science fiction.
But yeah, the inability to extract the words "I don't understand" or "I don't know" from foreign workers drives me utterly batty.
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#23Benefits to physical co-location at a startup stage (where you want to be moving very fast) are not to be overlooked. There's a reason people go to the lengths of living in the same house when working on a startup.
If you really have to outsource then try to find the best engineers and hey, why not offer them equity if they are really good? Nothing like long term incentives to motivate people think long term.
Avoid outsourcing houses where you never get to speak to the guy who is actually doing the work, just find talented individuals. Appreciate this might be tricky for startups who don't have a clue about code reviewing but generally HN freelancing threads would be a good start.
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#24Nobody wants to come into a team with five overseas developers, two servers, and no version control, but I’ve been there before. If the article author has been there before, wouldn't that mean someone does want to come in to a team like that?
I don't want to go to work sometimes, but I still do it.
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#25Main problem is that someone in US just can't get the relevant info on 99% of the overseas teams out there. The ones that you first google out are usually the ones who advertise the most and who generally always oversell their resources, and thus produce really bad results. Experienced small teams usually already have a number of clients, work hard and are not that visible or fast growing. So try playing smarter and…
Completely agree! Please watch out for some of these companies that will email/call you repeatedly and say "we can do Java, Python, C, COBOL anything ANYTHING!" usually they can't. With the prices they offer, it's often pretty tempting but don't be fooled that easily. Do some research into finding good shops.
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#26Nontechs like outsourcing because they think it's cheap. This makes them bad at playing the outsourcing game to win. If you go for the cheap, you lose. If you optimize for cheapness, you get poor work, abroad just as here. It's not that the talent level is the problem. There's plenty of underemployed talent overseas. It's engagement. There are a zillion sleazy outsourcing shops that charge U.S. clients $30/hour and p…
yea i think this is the point that shadeless's comment misses. it's not like there is no talent in the world at large, but businesses have a hard enough time deciphering talent when they have 2 in-house developers and can read their entire code portfolio... these rubes are doomed as soon as they descend into no-man's-land. Personally I'd much rather have 1 ace developer than 10 of questionable value. at the corp I wo…
Completely agree - I've been at startups with 20-40 people where I was the best developer in the company...with 1 1/2 years of experience. I left those places quickly, it reeks of not knowing what they are doing.
These places all had in common heavy interest in outsourcing when timelines were tough. They just wanted stuff done quickly, and didn't put importance on the execution. What that does is frustrates the developers that have to fix the bugs and refactor the heavily coupled code, and ultimately makes good developers want to leave.
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#27if u have to send your startup offshore should you really be founding a tech company?
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#28I don't think you can over-emphasize the challenges in communication with off-shore teams. I have worked with several in corporate IT and just reaching a minimal baseline of understanding has proven difficult. Some of this is basic talking and listening; phone conferences will suck! Think about your typical (dysfunctional) phone conf and then slash the quality of the phone line/Skype connection. Add in the variable a…
I'm always confused why companies don't invest more in better teleconferencing tech. I mean, for a small fraction of the money being saved with offshore work you could have a meeting room full of screens and networked whiteboards and wearable high-quality mics and wall-mounted cameras and crystal-clear VOIP and whatnot, to put you "in the room" with your counterparts. None of this technology is science fiction. But y…
> But yeah, the inability to extract the words "I don't understand" or "I don't know" from foreign workers drives me utterly batty.
That's a cultural thing, and you're doing it wrong if you are trying to extract admissions out of people. That's the totally counter-productive approach. I understand that from a 'western' background admitting to failure, a lack of knowledge or even downright incompetence does not have to be a problem but in other cultures this can be a near impossibility.
I would like to suggest a different approach. Assume the "I don't know" or "I don't understand". Simply go over the thing for your understanding. This will take care of the problem in an elegant and face-saving way without having to torture co-workers.
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#29I don't like how this article makes offshore development equal to hiring developers that make spaghetti code full of technical debt, like having someone in-house magically stops that from happening. Also, if you hire cheapest programmers you can find, they will be crappy no matter what country they're working from.
There are three key factors (location isn't one):
- If the product is a success, I'm going to get some money/benefit?
- Do I need to maintain the software?
- I got a good salary?
Usually offshore developers don't have stock in the company, don't have to maintain it and they are poorly paid. So their incentive is to finish the product as fast as they can and just get the money.
If you work in-house you are more aligned with the interest of the company. You'll have to deal with this software every day(nobody wants to maintain spaguetti code) and problably you have some stock, also if the company does well you can get a raise.
It's about incentives, people optimize for its own hapinness.
Re: The Risk in Sending Your Startup’s Technology Offshore
#30I don't think you can over-emphasize the challenges in communication with off-shore teams. I have worked with several in corporate IT and just reaching a minimal baseline of understanding has proven difficult. Some of this is basic talking and listening; phone conferences will suck! Think about your typical (dysfunctional) phone conf and then slash the quality of the phone line/Skype connection. Add in the variable a…
I'm always confused why companies don't invest more in better teleconferencing tech. I mean, for a small fraction of the money being saved with offshore work you could have a meeting room full of screens and networked whiteboards and wearable high-quality mics and wall-mounted cameras and crystal-clear VOIP and whatnot, to put you "in the room" with your counterparts. None of this technology is science fiction. But y…
Many offshore teams don't have anywhere to put that teleconferencing equipment. They're often totally slammed for space as it is, they have relatively poor IP connectivity, sometimes they don't even have reliable power. So the cost is really the equipment plus the infrastructure upgrades, to solve only one part of the problem. It might still be worth it, but it's not a slam-dunk by any means.