Outsourcing Startups

#1

Post by hristiank » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 3:52 PM UTC

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#2

Post by bomatson » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 4:35 PM UTC

Thanks for the post. A lot of time entrepreneurs get stuck in a mindset that assumes dev/design must all be within the U.S. Definitely not always true and most times it depends on the company culture

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#3

Post by recoiledsnake » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

If you can bridge the time zone, communication and culture gaps, then more power to you. And I am not saying that sarcastically. Outsourcing might save a startup enough money to stay afloat long or to make better features to interest VCs/customers.

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#4

Post by pitdesi » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 4:41 PM UTC

We (http://feefighters.com) found our lead designer in Bulgaria. We posted a project on Crowdspring where we asked for a redesign of TransFS.com. Tisho (http://twitter.com/tisho) did such a good job that we brought him on full-time.

We don't have any communications/timezone/culture issues at all... he knows American pop-culture better than most of us do (thank torrents for that I suppose?), his English is impeccable, and the time zone thing isn't usually an issue because we all have crazy sleep/work schedules anyway.

On a related note, using 99designs, Crowdspring, Elance, etc are great early on and then if you find someone you really like, hire them!

That being said, Tisho says that is a pretty idealized picture of Bulgaria... Folks aren't necessarily as highly experienced & motivated as this would suggest, and taxes aren't as low as this article suggests either.

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#5

Post by 24pfilms » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 4:54 PM UTC

We have outsouced a massive amount of our art assets for our stealth VW, but we have kept our dev's close at hand.

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#6

Post by bryze » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 4:54 PM UTC

I encourage people to follow this. We need more data on outsourcing effectiveness. If I were the author, however, I would not use HP as a success story.

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#7

Post by mklujszo » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:02 PM UTC

There's a lot of stories of successful outsourcing dev work being done by US startups. Eastern europe is actually a very good pick. Some more thoughts on this: http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/11/07/polish-programmers-are-j...

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#8

Post by lansing » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

The author claims that you can hire devs with either ten or 3-5 years of experience "in a particular area." I've never been to Bulgaria, but I know it's hard to find folks with ten years of iOS/Android development experience in California, so this is pretty impressive. Must be a magical country.

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#9

Post by pelemele » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:25 PM UTC

I came from a very similar environment to the US 10 years ago becuase of non existing start up scene, inability to brainstorm/exchange tech/business ideas and do tech socializing in my country of origin (people tend to deal with different kind of issues there). Everybody around me wanted to become a really good code monkey focusing on a specific platform ending up doing some contracting work for big West European businesses as an ultimate goal.

Re: Outsourcing Startups

#10

Post by jweant » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:32 PM UTC

Interesting mention of flat tax though...(9-9-9 anyone?) Though not the only reason for outsourcing talent. What about outsourcing from SV to the mid-west?