Dealing with freelancers

[911Carrera]

I'm having one of my fastlane sites built on one of the freelance sites by an overseas freelance company. These guys are moving at a turtle pace, way too slow for my taste and I can already tell that the project won't be done on time unless I keep getting on their asses often which I'm already doing.

Let's use this thread to help each other deal with these freelancers better.

My tips:

1)Don't use a one-man freelance team to build you a complete website. Always try to hire a company. Hiring a guy to build your site has way too many risks. If anything happens to him, your site is stalled. He will also be working on multiple projects and will probably not be an expert at both design/coding, so you will end up getting less quality on one side.

2) Always use escrow payment and don't release escrows until you're satisfied with the progress.

3) Don't try to be nice to your freelancer, you're trying to run a business, speak up whenever you feel like something is not right. You're paying them to do a job, not to be your friends.

4) Don't believe everything you see in their portofolio. When I was looking at freelancers who bid on my project, I have found some of them using fake work in their portofolio to beef it up. Do your due diligence.

Please add yours.

 

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[TadMoore]

This is applies more to people building complicated web apps.

Learn the basics about design and programming. I think you should have some basic understanding of web technologies like Ruby on Rails, PHP, Java, AJAX, and some basic HTML. It will save you a lot of time and hassle in the long run because you will be able to discern when your getting "snowed" by a developer. When ever I hire a developer I play really stupid, and pretend I know very little. ("What's HTML?" kind of attitude) It loosens them up and you can find out pretty fast when they don't know their stuff. If they pass that test...I take them to phase two...

Reliability is more important the having the best programer in the world. I test programmers by sending them a website template, and asking them to make modifications to the layout and function. I usually do 3-4 rounds over the course of 3-5 weeks. So spread it out. This shows me what it's actually like to work with them, reliability, and quality of work. I also look at the code when they finish, and make sure it's organized, and neatly laid out. Sloppy coders are bad coders when comes time to go back and make modifications. This way costs money, and is not fast, but once you find that developer he is worth is weight in gold. I have worked with developers for years, which has saved me thousands of dollars and more importantly time.

 

[Shuffle]

Just a question, where do you hire these companies? I was looking on Elance/Odesk/Freelancer/Guru but they all seem to be just a one person team. I am suspicious of the portfolios but reviews say otherwise.

I contemplated over the steps to creating a website and it seems that I would have to hire one for designing, one for development and such. instead of doing that one by one and person by person with steps I don't clearly understand, it would definitely make more sense to hire a company.

Any suggestions?

 

[bernieshawn]

4) Don't believe everything you see in their portofolio. When I was looking at freelancers who bid on my project, I have found some of them using fake work in their portofolio to beef it up. Do your due diligence.

How do you tell if their portfolio has fake work in it?

 

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[458]

Tip 5) Pay for quality in AMERICA.