<div class="bbWrapper">I really enjoyed going through this thread and extracting some nuggets of wisdom. I actually joined the forum just to share my experience losing $10k outsourcing on sites like eLance and oDesk. If anyone's interested, please check it out here: <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/showthread.php/48558-Let-s-Learn-from-a-Loser-How-I-Lost-10k-Outsourcing" class="link link--internal">https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/sh...Learn-from-a-Loser-How-I-Lost-10k-Outsourcing</a>.<br />
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or spend months discussing your app with a developer who's native language isn't the same as yours & eventually give up as you couldn't communicate effectively or discover the developer couldn't really do the job.
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This has definitely been my experience. However, it hasn't been painful enough so far for me to go crazy and decide to learn coding <img src="/community/imgs/emoticons/em-smile2.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-shortname=":)" /><br />
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The real annoyance for me is that I've described what I essentially a very simple site in multiple way - written specs, user stories, mockups, and even video - and it doesn't help get the idea across. At the very least, since this is a clone/copy site after all, I would like to be able to just point to the competitors like I have, described how they handing their data, and have something developed.<br />
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Discovering that the developer couldn't communicate effectively or couldn't really do the job are two reasons why I'm never doing hourly projects again unless there's a damn good reason to. Hourly just opens up too many "But I did the work! You can see from the screenshots!" arguments.<br />
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3) Check your coder pricing, I outsource some very complex projects to extremely talented coders that I pay about $3k/month
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Absolutely the best tip on here. There was another post in the thread saying that $10k would cover your main coder for 4 months full time. So, as I always suspected, it is possible to find someone in the $15-$20 hourly range.<br />
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My two previous guys were $40-$50 and from Eastern Europe. Honestly, hourly rate doesn't mean much to me at this point. Both didn't produce a worthwhile product, and I've seen people charging even more who knew even less.<br />
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The problem is actually finding these $15-$20 guys. I never have them post on my jobs. Maybe I'll go through eLance by level and try to invite individuals with these listed rates and see what I get.<br />
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understand potential uses of open source apps and widely available templates --- so you don't get ripped off by someone who is just slapping your logo and copy on a template<br />
understand that hardly anything these days needs to be built completely from scratch (incl data models). even if your business idea seems new, novel, like a really big deal... that's great, but the programming and database operations are almost certain to be nothing special, read/write/delete take input validate input apply business logic update db show output call api etc... yawn.<br />
100% absolutely positively understand how/where your app is hosted, ownership of the domain, and how to get source code for the thing you're paying for
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These are all super essential points. After looking at enough portfolios online, you'll notice that most people don't believe in the first two, mainly since all an acknowledgement of such resources does is reduced billable time.<br />
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In addition to this, I'd say subscription to such resources as well as any sort of project management tools are essential. I'm not moving forward on a project again until I find that person who can, like you'll read on HackerNews, take a theme, take an idea, and build something in a week or two.</div>
