Ask HN: Anybody outsource their startup?

[DanielBMarkham]

So here's the deal:

I'm a consultant. One of my large customers is having a problem with X. So I wrote out the database specs and a few screens around how to fix X. The customer is interested in trying out my program on a few users.

Now I don't have bandwidth to both finish the program and hand-hold the users AND continue consulting with this customer. Needless to say, in the customer's eyes the consulting part is what they want. In my eyes I'd rather be working on this small start-up opportunity. If I leave the consulting part, I'll lose my first customer as my start-up.

It just occurred to me that since my data model, my DAL, and my screen framework is complete, I could hire out the rest of the coding. After all, I could pay somebody to work full-time on the project. Even if they weren't as effective a coder as I was, there would always be sombody on the other end of the phone for the customers (in addition to having me personally on-site from time to time)

Anybody else do something like this? I know as hackers it's best to be close to the solution, but isn't there a point where you can hand off things like bug fixes and trivial data entry screens to somebody with more bandwidth?

Interested in your opinion.

And BTW -- anybody with C#, ASP.NET, SQL Server, and Telerik experience who wants in on the action is welcome to respond.

[ericb]

I'm doing it now. It's a little like arbitrage. I hired someone on Rent a Coder to keep my project moving while I finish a consulting contract.

The key is finding someone who's good. I have some tricks for that on Rent a Coder:

1 - Spend some time building a private invite list of coders who have something similar in their work history. Pick only people with a 9-10 rating, and 10+ projects. Make sure at least couple of those projects are decent-size. Give preference to similar time zones unless you work either early morning or night hours (like I do).

2 - Invite your coder-list to a private auction, and don't worry about the price of the bids much. Instead give it to the guy who asks the most questions.

3 - Have well defined specs (as you have), and create unit tests or test stub names that are required to pass for the project to be considered "complete" and put this in the requirements.

4 - Outsource discrete chunks.

If you've got a great coder, #3 is less important, but some people have low attention to detail and try to turn the project over ASAP. So they'll lob something over the wall that doesn't work fully, and you lose time investigating and complaining about each item--they make you drag it out of them. I make automating the required tests part of the project, and then I spend less time verifying their work. Call it test-driven outsourcing.

I've found that outsourcing a project takes anywhere from 10-30% of the time doing it myself would have, but it's still a win.

[johnyzee → ericb]

I too am doing this now, though it is still too early to evaluate.

I deeply agree with 2 - prefer people who ask a lot of questions. In my case for some reason this is always Russians, while the bids I've gotten from Indian companies without exception:

1. Assure me that they can do my project with excellent quality and proceed to list a bunch of portfolio projects that have nothing to do with what I am doing.

2. Name a price without a single question asked about the requirements.

3. Are represented by someone with zero technical knowledge who hands off any request for details to tech people. It then turns out they have no idea what I want and need lots of further details (nothing wrong with that, but how the hell did you name a price in the first place then?).

Indian outsourcing companies seem really top-heavy in the layers department. As a technical person I want to deal with developers directly.

[ericb → johnyzee]

I agree with you strongly. When I build my coder lists, I actually only add individuals, to help avoid those pointless bids.

[ericb → ericb]

One question, has anyone used the "expert guarantee" feature there where they have to pay up if they miss the deadline?

Seems like a jerky thing that I would never agree to, but on the other hand, it would certainly be motivational.

[david927]

I've done just that and it's worked spectacularly for me. If you have a good job, don't drop it for your startup -- outsource the components instead.

[DanielBMarkham → david927]

How did you find the people?

[david927 → DanielBMarkham]

Rent A Coder (www.rentacoder.com) and I also went through university student web pages and cold emailed people. That didn't work quite as well, though.

[jeffrese]

oDesk works well for this and they have great PM tools baked in. Stay away from firms, only hire freelancers, be quick to fire and quick to giving raises to good developers.

[DanielBMarkham → jeffrese]

Never heard of it.

Anybody else try oDesk?

I wonder how it compares to rent-a-coder?

[incredicorp]

I have alway's done that- the 'not prone to misdirection' type's of tasks I always outsource.

It worked so well I have started recommending my partner-in-outsourcing to other startups with incredible results...

not only is it more convenient- it just makes good business sense.

let me know if I can help anyone..(marco@incredicorp.com)

[gm]

Of course, outsource if it makes sense. Don't drop the ball though, manage it. 80/20 rule still applies, take full advantage of it.

[vaksel]

I think the #1 rule for outsourcing is making sure that you can sue the pants off the person if they screw you. This means you need to stick to programmers in U.S.

And yes you will pay more, but you'll be surprised how much less it is compared to what you expected. And yes rentacoder is a good site, because you can set where to get bids from.

Other sites you can list in the description that you will only work with U.S. based people, and you'll still get 50 people from India offering you their services.

[ericb → vaksel]

Do you find it profitable to sue people over projects?

If a lawsuit over a project would be substantial enough to be a credible threat and justify the legal expense, I would argue you shouldn't be outsourcing whatever it is at all--it's too critical if you're in the smaller end of the business world. If you use rentacoder, I think the risk is on your head, and the agreement is clear--they don't get paid if they fail--I don't think you can sue the coder successfully, but maybe I'm wrong.

If you're saying you will get better results with a US coder, that may be true for other reasons (greater loyalty, common culture and language, fear you'll drive across country and find them).

[waldrews → vaksel]

The threat of lawsuit is more relevant if they were to violate copyright and take work done for hire and resell it, or set up their own site to compete with you on your own codebase; this is especially true if you give them access to your systems as part of the process, rather than bring in an isolated component. I agree that failure to deliver is rarely worth the squabble; but for these more extreme cases, knowing that there's legal recourse can prevent problems from occuring in the first place.

[lsc → vaksel]

the problem with civil action

is that you can't get blood from a stone. If you sue someone without assets or insurance, you probably won't be able to even recover enough to pay the lawyer.

I would argue that it is better to find someone with a good reputation, someone who is careful to preserve that reputation.

[vaksel → vaksel]

and like everyone else said, make sure that the person has a good reputation on the site, that they did projects that were similar to yours in the past, and that they have a flawless reputation

[DanielBMarkham]

Thanks for the advice guys. I've put the job up on both oDesk and RentACoder. Perhaps it will be useful to report back and tell everybody how it went? I'm really wary about trusting anybody else with "my" baby, but at some point I think it makes sense to offload non-value-added things. I really appreciate the feedback.