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Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

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Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#21

Post by artharrison »

vtanase wrote: post #19
sixQuarks wrote: post #12

I'm basically in the same situation. Here is the solution I found that is working for me. I'm assuming you have a clear vision for your product/service. You're going to have to take the lead on owning the product, there's no getting around this. There's almost no chance you're going to find a co-founder that's going to handle the product/development, etc while you focus on marketing. I've tried and each time has ende…

I will have to disagree on this, this advice is only good if your sole purpose is to make a quick buck. If you want to start a long term solid business than I suggest you treat people like humans and not like cheap interchangeable pieces as this post suggests. Think of it this way, since you are not the one developing the application how much will you know about all its inner workings? When you will have customers an…

I agree that I should be looking for people who produce quality work, but I also think there's some flexibility to the 'interchangeable pieces' part of the argument.

Here's the thing: Building anything ends up being a very iterative process. From my personal experience, by the time one moves from the prototype/beta phase upwards of 90% of the original code/design base is thrown away, redone, etc. Since what I'm really looking for here is the first-cut that allows for the validation of the idea and the on-boarding of the first few (hundred-)thousand users, I think there could be some advantages to a little shorter-term thinking; if-and-only-if that means I'm able to deliver that first cut to market sooner than if I were to focus on the stability of the team upfront.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still wavering on my opinion of this (hence this entire thread). But I am really enjoying / appreciating the various methodologies.

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#22

Post by artharrison »

carlosdaniel wrote: post #18
artharrison wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love that info - at least it would give me some concrete examples of what's available. I definitely have a budget -- willing to invest in the idea & no longer a starving student, so I certainly wouldn't want to be going the rock-bottom cheap route. Thanks.

I know of a company that works more like extending your engineering team, it's called Nearsoft, they have presence in the valley so if you live around I can drop you the contact info of one of the founders and help schedule a coffee meeting or something informal just to get to know how they work. I recommend you them because they have several startups as their clients, some small other big so they could probably be a…

I'm actually in Toronto, Canada (closest I got to the valley was an invite to the YC interview round almost 6 years ago now ...), but I'll reach out via email because I would absolutely love to hear more.

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#23

Post by artharrison »

mhuang511 wrote: post #20

Did you ever think of skill exchange? I am interest in your current role "Marketer". Recently I just launch my startup product(peoplelamp.com). Now I am headache on how to promote it on US market especially I am living in Asia(Taiwan). Take a look at my site and see if my skills fulfill your expectation. I build this site myself. If you are interesting we can discuss further. Not sure if my response violate the posti…

I haven't really thought of a skills exchange. It's an interesting concept though...

( NOTE: for someone else who's looking for a startup idea -- there you have it: A marketplace for startup founders to exchange skills.

Skills / tasks are sold on a credit basis Design a logo == 1 credit Design a landing page from wireframe == 3 credits Develop a membership backend == 5 credits

Earn credits by completing tasks for other founders using your own skills, then posts/purchase tasks for things you can't do yourself using those credits.

Monetize == let people just straight up buy credits if they don't want the hassle of helping other :)

Obviously that's not the idea I'm talking about in this thread -- just a freebee for someone who needs a new idea to noodle around with.

)

Anyway, in terms of your website People Lamp -- I don't think your skills would be a match for the scope of what I'm talking about, but one piece of initial advice: make sure your website loads with " rel="nofollow">http:// and not just " rel="nofollow">http://www. ...

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#24

Post by vtanase »

artharrison wrote: post #21
vtanase wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will have to disagree on this, this advice is only good if your sole purpose is to make a quick buck. If you want to start a long term solid business than I suggest you treat people like humans and not like cheap interchangeable pieces as this post suggests. Think of it this way, since you are not the one developing the application how much will you know about all its inner workings? When you will have customers an…

I agree that I should be looking for people who produce quality work, but I also think there's some flexibility to the 'interchangeable pieces' part of the argument. Here's the thing: Building anything ends up being a very iterative process. From my personal experience, by the time one moves from the prototype/beta phase upwards of 90% of the original code/design base is thrown away, redone, etc. Since what I'm reall…

I guess our experiences might vary with what happens to prototypes/first cut implementations.

From my experience what starts off as a simple proof of concept/prototype that is done quick and dirty to validate an idea, ends up being the actual production code. This is due in part to clients that come and say: "well it works, why rewrite it? you can just fix bugs if they come up", making you have to maintain what was originally meant to be a throw away implementation.

While right now your intentions might be to rewrite, I do believe that you might reconsider this decision once you have a couple hundred users to please, who all want new features or bugs fixed. Now I do not know what your idea is and how critical time to market is for you but I would recommend that you consider removing non-essential features to get it out quicker rather than skipping quality.

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#25

Post by phantom_oracle »

artharrison wrote: post #4
phantom_oracle wrote: post #2

You provide too little detail for anyone to give you a positive answer...

Sure, I'm happy to provide more, I just wasn't sure what details others would need... AMA

I see two big trends in building apps/sites/businesses these days.

If your product is tech light (eg. groupon) you can build an MVP relatively quickly and on your own

If your product is tech heavy (eg. fusion reaction analytics at power plants) you will probably need to quit your job and find a skilled team (and maybe some investment).

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#26

Post by sixQuarks »

vtanase wrote: post #19
sixQuarks wrote: post #12

I'm basically in the same situation. Here is the solution I found that is working for me. I'm assuming you have a clear vision for your product/service. You're going to have to take the lead on owning the product, there's no getting around this. There's almost no chance you're going to find a co-founder that's going to handle the product/development, etc while you focus on marketing. I've tried and each time has ende…

I will have to disagree on this, this advice is only good if your sole purpose is to make a quick buck. If you want to start a long term solid business than I suggest you treat people like humans and not like cheap interchangeable pieces as this post suggests. Think of it this way, since you are not the one developing the application how much will you know about all its inner workings? When you will have customers an…

Who says you have to treat these freelancers "sub-human"? On the contrary, once I find someone that works well with me, I create long-term relationships and treat them with utmost respect. I have a 9+ year working relationship with one of my developers, and even gave a 50% ownership in one of my startups to him. I consider him a really close friend even though we've never met in person.

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#27

Post by seannaM »

artharrison wrote: post #13
charlieirish wrote: post #9

Ruthlessly strip out all features until hurts. Then build it yourself. Launch. Rinse and Repeat. Put up a landing page now to gauge interest and start the marketing effort by building a list.

Yeah, that's absolutely what I've done in the past / will do again if I head this route. (Truthfully speaking though, with the time limits, it was the ruthlessly stripped down version that took me 9 month). As I said, I'm a competent hacker, but even full-time, I'm nowhere near my dev friends and designer friends who breeze through some of the data structure design aspects I'd end up meddling with for a week ...

Could you talk more about that project? I can imagine some projects that would take at least 9 months to make a beta happen (Space travel), but I can't really imagine a stripped-down-to-the-core software business that takes 9 months for a beta. (Was it financial?)

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#28

Post by seannaM »

Is your idea something that you think has to go into motion soon or else its not going to be nearly as successful? If not, I'd recommend the same thing I would to someone who wants to date - Go to where the co-founders are, meet people, work with people on small projects if possible, don't expect results super quicklly.

I've talked to a founder who hired external contractors for their site and they ended up with something pretty unmaintainable for $3.5k. They ended up working with a more technical advisor to vet new people working on tech. I'm not sure if such an arrangement could work for you, but if I was in your shoes I'd find someone who seems upstanding and has had success with contracted teams, and then get them on as a contracting advisor.

I have another suggestion I'd like to share with you privately if you want to put your email in your account.

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#29

Post by fouc »

artharrison wrote: post #13
charlieirish wrote: post #9

Ruthlessly strip out all features until hurts. Then build it yourself. Launch. Rinse and Repeat. Put up a landing page now to gauge interest and start the marketing effort by building a list.

Yeah, that's absolutely what I've done in the past / will do again if I head this route. (Truthfully speaking though, with the time limits, it was the ruthlessly stripped down version that took me 9 month). As I said, I'm a competent hacker, but even full-time, I'm nowhere near my dev friends and designer friends who breeze through some of the data structure design aspects I'd end up meddling with for a week ...

I have had a similar issue hitting bottlenecks in developing an app that would've benefited tremendously from a domain expert. I now think that a good approach would be to hire out that specific part on odesk.com or other freelancing site.

Re: Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource

#30

Post by fouc »

I'm in Toronto, working as a rails developer. Last year, while doing some freelancing on odesk, I saw a CTO of a startup get the minimum viable product built by partitioning the job out to a few different odesk workers. He spent about $10k for 600 hours of work - the startup was an ecommerce site that had a gift recommender based on the answers the customer provided.

You get what you pay for however, so while the site works, it's pretty ugly (needs way better design). Also, his main contractors were barely fluent in english - so communication was always bit tricky.

BTW, feel free to email me since I'm in the same town.

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