

Learn or outsource? where's the right balance... - relientmark

What's your advise for someone who can't program, although wants to build an online business.<p>I have a technical (network/security) background and have recently taught myself perl for a side project. I'm also learning php basics to fix a whole.<p>There is a difference between stumbling through perl/php to fix a problem, and building an successful web application.<p>The obvious answer would be to partner with a programmer, that aside.<p>Should I be thinking of learning/outsourcing? 
With offshore pricing so competitive this would seem the option if I can manage the process.<p>Concerns: In the YC application, this is flagged as a concern (http://news.ycombinator.com/s2011form).<p>"Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your founders? If so, how can you safely use it?"<p>Concerns: I could pick up RoR or run with PHP, although learning from scratch my code is going to be messy and sometimes completely wrong. I accept this is part of learning to program, but my goal is to build a business not become a programmer.<p>Paying for outsourcing isn't an issue.<p>Has anyone got experience or advise I can learn from to get the right balance?<p>Cheers<p>M
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jackbean
"but my goal is to build a business not become a programmer."

I believe there's your answer. Outsource for the former, learn for the latter.

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finebanana
In outsourcing, how do you prevent the Winklevosses-syndrome from happening to
your project? Of course you want someone with The Zuck's coding ability but
it's pretty hard to measure greed

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jackbean
I think Fb/Winklevosses situation is an outlier, very unlikely to happen to
you. I don't know the size of outsourcing market, but its probably pretty big
and as far as I can tell there isn't overwhelming evidence that outsourcing
means someone else will steal your idea and get rich off it.

Besides how much did they get from from the lawsuit anyway?

P.S. I freelance and I'm glad to sign a NDA before starting, not that I need
one to stop me from stealing their ideas. First I don't really care. Ideas are
great, but they need lot of work to make it happen. Two, my projects list
(like almost any other programmer's) is full of stuff I'd try if I had 36
hours in a day and needed no sleep.

