

Ask HN: How vulnerable am I if I outsource my development to non USA developers? - rush-tea

I am a Product Manager based in Silicon Valley, USA. I have an idea that I would like to develop as a product.  I am technical enough in a sense of knowing the tech side of what I want to build, how I want to build it, etc, but I am not a developer.  What I am thinking of doing is to create a customized software solution across all 3 mobile platforms, iOS, Blackberry, and Android.<p>I would like to outsource my product development to an IT firm or developers/hackers.  There is a big chance/possibility that these firm/developers are outside USA based because of the potential cost as I am investing my own capital (I am looking for local developers or within USA as well).<p>Now the question is how vulnerable am I if I outsource my development completely.  Vulnerable means if my source code is stolen or the firm/developers instead develop their own product based on my idea.  Of course I would have them sign an NDA and non compete document and all that, and most of the time I would think I am protected if the firm/developers are USA based, but how about if it's non USA based (most probably India, Russia, or some eastern europe based).<p>Am I completely screwed if these things happen (even if the developers/firms have signed all NDAs, non compete, and so forth)?  Would I be able to file a lawsuit on the developers country and maybe USA?  Do NDAs and non compete agreement they sign are even applicable in their residence country? What options do I have if these happen to me?<p>Thank you for the advise.
======
patio11
Filing a lawsuit in a foreign nation costs six figures and up up up, exposes
you to the substantial risk of losing due to home court advantage, and gives
you the upside that the fly-by-night developer who stole your idea gets told
in a very stern tone of voice to please not do it again. It is not a realistic
way for you to cover the downside risk of getting your code stolen.

Want good news? Your idea is worthless, so it is no biggie if it gets stolen.
The source code produced is likely to be overvalued at "worthless", so if one
of your competitors gets a hold of it, you'll quickly be ahead of the game as
long as you don't do anything excessively stupid like attempting to use that
source code yourself. (You may succeed in getting code with actual value if
you're really good at both picking your provider and managing the outsourcing
project, which is _ahem_ not a cheap, easy, do-in-your-spare-time endeavor.)
No company worth building is at risk of getting knocked off by a cheap
outsourcing company -- if all it took was enough monkeys banging on
typewriters to make a software company, they'd already be doing it.

My bona fides: managed outsourcing operations for a few teams of a Japanese
multinational for a few years.

~~~
rush-tea
Thank you for your comment. I understand that idea is worthless, and execution
is what matters. While aiming to become a company is indeed a dream for me,
but I am taking baby steps. What I want to create is a mobile app, nothing
fancy, and see if I can sell the mobile app. Because it's such a simple idea,
that's where my fear comes from. I build the idea, outsource to developers to
create the mobile app, and at the end, instead of owning my mobile app, the
developer is selling my idea of mobile app at AppStore, AppWorld and Android
Market. I suffer a potential loss of income. That's what I am afraid of. How
vulnerable am I even after the developer signed the NDA and non compete
agreement and the developer is not USA based? Of course, I could have tell
Apple, Blackberry, and Google to stop the app listing, but that's a long
process and during the process, money are going to the developer ways.

~~~
michael_dorfman
_What I want to create is a mobile app, nothing fancy, and see if I can sell
the mobile app. Because it's such a simple idea, that's where my fear comes
from._

If it is a simple idea, and is making money, _it will be copied._ There's a
notion in business called "barriers to entry", and it sounds like you are
entering a niche where there are none. You should get comfortable with this
notion; it's not the outsourced developer you have to fear.

------
kls
Personally, I would look for a US based developer that would do it for the
amount you have to spend + some equity. You would be surprised how many
talented individuals you will attract when they know that you have some skin
in the game, the big problem that technical-cofounders have is not that they
think every idea is stupid but that they perceive you as just another "I have
and idea" guy, when you have some money in they game, they know you are
serious and will listen to you. To be honest if you have to worry about money
enough to outsource, you probably don't have enough to outsource right and
therefore your risk of failure is even higher than a local or at least US
based candidate. Adding time zone, cultural and language barriers to the fact
that you have no outsourced software development experience is a recipe for
disaster. Also I don't mean to be harsh, but if you think yours will be
different, it won't the odds are stacked against you and for every one that
succeeds there are at least 20 that fail and end up costing 3X the cost that
it would have originally cost to have it built with variables that you can
manage. Outsourcing takes more management oversight, it is an economies of
scale thing, at a certain point a project gets big enough that it is cheaper
to hire managers to manage less expensive developers overseas. But just
because that recipe works for large projects does not mean that it scales down
well. Hiring a manager to manage 1 or 2 overseas developers pretty much
negates any cost savings that you would have gained.

------
zeratul
You have to be careful which countries can enforce U.S. based NDAs. You will
probably need to translate it to a native language and have it notarized by a
native lawyer and signed by the individuals (not by the company since that
might not work in some cases). This might get expensive.

To kitcar: From what I've saw on the Internet, Eastern Europe has very good
developers/hackers if not the best. Probably, I'm just biased here.

------
mjs00
> I could have tell Apple, Blackberry, and Google to stop the app listing, but
> that's a long process and during the process, money are going to the
> developer ways.

If this is a key point of worry, get the ball rolling for your registered
trademark for the _exact_ name that you will appear in the app stores, and
confirm that name isn't already taken in the stores, and ideally you can get
that name .com/twitterID/facebookID to own your brand.

You can use registered trademark to deny others the app listing by way of your
registered trademark status, its straightforward for
Apple/Google/Microsoft/et. al. to make a call on app store removal based on
trademark infringement.

Regarding development, I've done the same with a startup as you are thinking
of with a similar product background, it can be done but the challenges are
maybe not what you expect - code theft is not a top concern if you screen
correctly. Send me an email, or we can grab a coffee sometime, I'm also in
Silicon Valley.

~~~
rush-tea
trademark is not an issue, a good analogy would be like a game app (angry
birds). Angry birds is available at AppStore and Android Market, but since
it's not available in AppWorld for some reason (I think it can be because
Angry Birds maker don't want to develop for Blackberry platform? I don't
know...), a company copied Angry Birds and create Angry Farms. that's what I
am afraid...

~~~
mjs00
My point was you can use trademark as a tool to keep someone from co-opting
your exact name if you are not there. For example, I'm not in Windows Phone
Market, but I have been able to have someone who used my App's name pulled
from market by MSFT because of my registered trademark.

As an entrepreneur, I'm not sure you can do anything about folks trying to
compete with you (similar name, similar function), you just have to have a
differentiated advantage where folks prefer you to knock-offs. But most folks
won't try to copy your name until you are popular and there is a reason to
clone you, and attempt to glean off your popularity.

------
TheRevoltingX
Most outsourced developers are pure rubbish. I cringe when I have to open a
project that was outsourced.

At the small level it's fine, but when building larger apps there are just too
many barriers to make it efficient.

Including developer programming and communication skills.

------
kitcar
Depends on what country you send the work to, and if there is rule of law in
that country. Also depends on the amount of money on the line.

If its a big concern, and your project allows it, split the project up into
separate modules, each worked on by a separate team - at least that way no
single team would have full access to your codebase. The code quality could
potentially suffer though, as there would be little consistency in style
(unless you establish guidelines and enforce them)

~~~
rush-tea
Thank you for your comment. Well, looking at the cost involved, I could
possibly going to source it to India, Russia or some eastern european as it's
less costly vs if it's USA based.

I thought about the project splitting, and the concern I have is exactly the
same as your concern in term of code quality. When it's time to merge them
together, it would be a pain if one code section is superior than the other
and I would end up clean up the inferior one. And my other concern is that who
would merge them together as I am not a developer. I could possibly hire a USA
based developer to merge them together after splitting them, that's one
possibility. But if that developer ends up cleaning up the inferior one, it
would cost more at the end.

------
devs1010
I think having them steal the work is the least of your worries, you have to
first actually get them to produce a successful product across three
platforms. This is something thats challenging to do in-house so good luck
making that work when dealing with non-native English speakers working on a
different-time zone

------
rmc
You will have to pay above standard outsourced rate in order to ensure that US
based contracts et al. apply.

It's called hiring in the USA.

