Would you learn something new or pay someone else to do it?

[Tomco]

As the title suggests, would you go down the rabbit hole of learning everything about a particular topic, or getting someone else to do the work for you, so that you have more time focusing on distributing it?
Asking this as I had an idea for an app, but don't know if I should look into coding it or find some other professional party to do it?
Or perhaps should I scratch that idea as it is too far advanced?

 

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[SeanM]

As the title suggests, would you go down the rabbit hole of learning everything about a particular topic, or getting someone else to do the work for you, so that you have more time focusing on distributing it?
Asking this as I had an idea for an app, but don't know if I should look into coding it or find some other professional party to do it?
Or perhaps should I scratch that idea as it is too far advanced?

It depends.
Let's say you wanted to create an IoT product, but didn't know how to design circuits, hire it out. Why? There's just too much to know to get started, that you'll end up spending 100x the time and 10x the money just to get a working product vs hiring somebody that has the experience.

Programing is differently as the cost of prototyping is minimal, as it's just writing code and not a physical product. It will still take you 100x the time to program yourself compared to hiring.

With that being said, if you have the time to develop the skill of programming, it can be much more useful for creating more apps or softwares as you get more familiar with the market you are selling to. If it were me, learn to program so you have the skill so you can build a software when you see a hole in the market.

 

[melanieps]

As the title suggests, would you go down the rabbit hole of learning everything about a particular topic, or getting someone else to do the work for you, so that you have more time focusing on distributing it?
Asking this as I had an idea for an app, but don't know if I should look into coding it or find some other professional party to do it?
Or perhaps should I scratch that idea as it is too far advanced?

I really like the question no only for creating a new product, but expanding the discussion of 'Learning VS Hiring experts'.

This is how I see it.

The peak of the pyramid is base on the foundation we build.

1. Knowledge is a powerful tool that no body can take away from you. Nowadays we can learn about everything everywhere. Just put the effort - deep focus and deep work.
2. Time is our most valuable asset and attention drives where our time goes. (Decide what to learn/focus about) - Unlearn what is holding you back and learn what is valuable.
3. Having more knowledge is not all, we must take action and get experiences to fully absorb it, so it becomes a part of us. Knowledge gives clarity and power.
4. By having knowledge and experience, we can see the big picture, make better decisions and less mistakes, fix problems, assess and adjust better. There are so many things that go into a business. Think about selling, marketing, prospecting, accounting, law, taxing, hiring, training delegations, etc.

Of course you’re not gonna study years and years to master all professions, but knowing how something works will give you a better understanding and control: who to hire? what requirements are you looking on an expert? what results are expected? when/how is time to delegate, to scale or to sell the company?

Having clarity about the stage of the process you are in, and all steps you need to take from where you are to where you wanna go, what the business has and what it needs.
Having clarity also about your self, what can I do and what not. What are you willing to do and what not.
Do you need a soup recipe or do you need a chemist?

 

[Andy Black]

As the title suggests, would you go down the rabbit hole of learning everything about a particular topic, or getting someone else to do the work for you, so that you have more time focusing on distributing it?
Asking this as I had an idea for an app, but don't know if I should look into coding it or find some other professional party to do it?
Or perhaps should I scratch that idea as it is too far advanced?

Before you do either can you find out if people will buy it?

 

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[heavy_industry]

Depends on how much money you have to throw at this idea, your ability to learn, and prior experience.

The ideal scenario for a software business owner is that in which you hire people to do all the work, but you are more than capable of doing it yourself and have in-depth knowledge about all the aspects of the technology used.

As @Andy Black said, it's more important to be able to tell if there's a market for your app. Ideas don't go very far unless there's an acute need for your solution.

 

[Andy Black]

Thought I'd say it... The phrase "I've an idea for an app" is a red-flag for me when someone reaches out and wants to have a chat (about me helping them with their marketing). I've never seen these turn into anything.

 

[ZF Lee]

Thought I'd say it... The phrase "I've an idea for an app" is a red-flag for me when someone reaches out and wants to have a chat (about me helping them with their marketing). I've never seen these turn into anything.

Sometimes I wonder if the solution ALWAYS has to be an app...

What is the market already using-- even with their weaknesses?

 

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[JAJT]

If you have lots of money and little time - you hire it out.
If you have lots of time and little money - you learn it.

That being said, most people are in the middle - they have a bit of time and they have a bit of money and they don't know where to invest either.

IMHO, if there was a general rule for this stuff, I'd say it makes the most sense to hire out things that aren't in your wheelhouse, along with the various "one time" tasks you may need. You should focus on learning the tasks that are within you're capabilities and are items you'll use again and again and will save you significant costs in the long term.

If you're learning a new skill from scratch that is wildly outside your current capabilities, it should be for a long term investment - if you want to learn to code to develop one app and then quit if it doesn't work out, that's a lot of wasted time and effort. If you want to learn to code so that you can develop dozens of apps cheaply on your own and get better and plant your flag in this mountain until you finally hit one out of the park - then yes, it makes sense to learn to code.

Something you shouldn't do, which I did (and I'm sure many are guilty of it now and then) is trying to learn something without setting yourself up for success. You'll waste time and not save money. Here's a fun story about how I got the "worst of both worlds" in my own businesses - I thought I could do in-house product photography myself and spent a LOT of time trying to make a cheap DIY solution work using different cheap lights from home depot, cheap white poster boards (think school project boards), a DSLR with an unideal lens, and I was spending a lot of time editing the shots I took in Photoshop. The results were good, but they weren't great, and it took a long time to get a usable photo. Ultimately I got fed up and hired it out and got (as you'd expect) professional results.

Here's the thing with this example. Basic photography and photo editing are in my wheelhouse. If I spent a few hundreds bucks on the right equipment (proper lights, a light box, a lens, etc) I'm 100% positive I could have produced professional quality results. Instead I was being cheap with my money by trying to force-fit a DIY solution and was very lavish with my time by spending hours and hours on every shot. If I had invested in a proper setup, I would have saved tons of time and money and had a recurring problem (product photography) solved forever. Similarly, if I had just hired it out from the get-go, I also would have saved tons of time at the cost of a bit of money and also gotten professional results - also a very acceptable solution. I flipped from wasting time trying to learn something inefficiently to wasting money by hiring it out.

If you ARE going to learn something, and you have a bit of time and a bit of money - make sure you invest in whatever is needed to learn efficiently - pay for courses/classes, buy books, hire a teacher, buy software, etc. Don't spin your wheels by spending 1000 hours piecing together youtube coding videos when a $150 course and $50 book would get you there in 100 hours.

 

[Tomco]

I really like the question no only for creating a new product, but expanding the discussion of 'Learning VS Hiring experts'.

This is how I see it.

The peak of the pyramid is base on the foundation we build.

1. Knowledge is a powerful tool that no body can take away from you. Nowadays we can learn about everything everywhere. Just put the effort - deep focus and deep work.
2. Time is our most valuable asset and attention drives where our time goes. (Decide what to learn/focus about) - Unlearn what is holding you back and learn what is valuable.
3. Having more knowledge is not all, we must take action and get experiences to fully absorb it, so it becomes a part of us. Knowledge gives clarity and power.
4. By having knowledge and experience, we can see the big picture, make better decisions and less mistakes, fix problems, assess and adjust better. There are so many things that go into a business. Think about selling, marketing, prospecting, accounting, law, taxing, hiring, training delegations, etc.

Of course you’re not gonna study years and years to master all professions, but knowing how something works will give you a better understanding and control: who to hire? what requirements are you looking on an expert? what results are expected? when/how is time to delegate, to scale or to sell the company?

Having clarity about the stage of the process you are in, and all steps you need to take from where you are to where you wanna go, what the business has and what it needs.
Having clarity also about your self, what can I do and what not. What are you willing to do and what not.
Do you need a soup recipe or do you need a chemist?

Thanks for the tips, really helpful!

 

[Tomco]

Before you do either can you find out if people will buy it?

That's true as well. How would you go about this? I'm assuming asking typical customers whether or not they might need it. Perhaps in the form of a questionnaire?

 

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[Tomco]

Thought I'd say it... The phrase "I've an idea for an app" is a red-flag for me when someone reaches out and wants to have a chat (about me helping them with their marketing). I've never seen these turn into anything.

True, it's all about execution isn't it Ideas are worthless if you don't put in the work. I was brainstorming different ideas and this came up in mind, wanted to look more into it

 

[Andy Black]

That's true as well. How would you go about this? I'm assuming asking typical customers whether or not they might need it. Perhaps in the form of a questionnaire?

True, it's all about execution isn't it Ideas are worthless if you don't put in the work. I was brainstorming different ideas and this came up in mind, wanted to look more into it

Rather than brainstorming different ideas could you go out and help people, this week, and figure out what you can help people with? That includes figuring out how to get in front of people who want help as well as being able to help them, and then doing so as a paid service or product.

 

[ZackerySprague]

I would try to learn something, if their wasn't a huge learning curve. If was going to take me, say 2 years to learn, I'd hire someone else if your talking about a specialized skill.

For my special-unit, I would learn the skills necessary to build something.

 

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[evanwilson]

As the title suggests, would you go down the rabbit hole of learning everything about a particular topic, or getting someone else to do the work for you, so that you have more time focusing on distributing it?
Asking this as I had an idea for an app, but don't know if I should look into coding it or find some other professional party to do it?
Or perhaps should I scratch that idea as it is too far advanced?

Actually it depends on your bigger goal. If your aim is to learn and you have enough time, interest and energy then definitely you should try things yourself first. This will help you to be aware of how things work. While if you are not interested in diving deep into some specific part of your project due to any limitation but it is necessary for your bigger goal then you should consider someone else to do it for you. Make sure you know how to check the quality of that work.