

Ask HN: Startup Quandary - build myself, hire or outsource - artharrison

Background info on me: 
 - Founded a few companies;some successful, some not
 - Mid 30s, 2 kids, wife mortgage, VP job
 - Decent &#x27;hacker&#x27;, former developer, current marketer, not to be trusted with developing solid code base<p>- Last startup:  because of my other obligations I attempted to do everything as solo-founder during evenings and weekends.  End results:  Nearly 9 months to build useable beta; competitors started popping up around 4 months into my build; by launch, I was exchausted and lost most of my motivation...<p>TODAY:<p>I have a idea (probably my best&#x2F;biggest yet) and am ready to begin prototyping.  What I&#x27;m trying to decide is this:<p>I have no cofounder prospects, I still have obligations and while I technically &quot;can&quot; build a working prototype, I&#x27;m going to be slower than most &#x2F; sloppy.<p>I am willing to commit my own funds; can raise some funds through business development grants&#x2F;loans&#x2F;etc.<p>So, the questions is:  Does anyone have advice experience with:<p>- Outsourcing the development work of a start-up to freelancers or production houses?  What are my rights, how exposed to the risk of stolen ideas, etc am I?<p>- Bringing on an unknown co-founder and&#x2F;or hiring someone to build this as an employee before I&#x27;m even a full-timer...<p>- Or advice on what you&#x27;d do in the same situation.<p>Would love to discuss and am willing to share as much as possible...<p>Thanks.
======
sixQuarks
I'm basically in the same situation. Here is the solution I found that is
working for me.

I'm assuming you have a clear vision for your product/service. You're going to
have to take the lead on owning the product, there's no getting around this.
There's almost no chance you're going to find a co-founder that's going to
handle the product/development, etc while you focus on marketing. I've tried
and each time has ended badly. I advise against co-founders unless you know
the person well and have worked with them in the past.

Here's the key to getting something developed in as little time and effort as
possible. Start with the design. What the user will see when they come to the
site. Don't worry about the backend at all.

Search on Dribble for designers - they don't have to be front-end developers.
Actually better if they're not (cheaper). For more affordable quality
designers, search eastern europe/russia.

Contact a bunch of designers, see if they're available and what their rates
are. See how quickly they respond, etc. Select 3 or 4 and give each one the
same first task. It should be something that takes 2-3 hours. It could be
taking a sketched mockup, polishing it up, etc. After each one has completed
this, you pick the one you feel was the best.

A lot of good designers know good front-end developers. You can find one
through the designer. If not, you can do the same process on odesk for both
front-end and back-end developers.

This is the process I use after a lot of trial and error, and it works the
best for me.

~~~
vtanase
I will have to disagree on this, this advice is only good if your sole purpose
is to make a quick buck. If you want to start a long term solid business than
I suggest you treat people like humans and not like cheap interchangeable
pieces as this post suggests.

Think of it this way, since you are not the one developing the application how
much will you know about all its inner workings? When you will have customers
and a critical bug in production who will solve it?

If you intend to outsource it I will suggest that you do not look for a cheap
quick hack, but rather look for a freelancer with a decent rate, with whom you
can build a working professional relationship. You want someone that will
stick around for the long run and take responsibility for the software he
develops, since building it is just the first step.

~~~
artharrison
I agree that I should be looking for people who produce quality work, but I
also think there's some flexibility to the 'interchangeable pieces' part of
the argument.

Here's the thing: Building anything ends up being a very iterative process.
From my personal experience, by the time one moves from the prototype/beta
phase upwards of 90% of the original code/design base is thrown away, redone,
etc. Since what I'm really looking for here is the first-cut that allows for
the validation of the idea and the on-boarding of the first few
(hundred-)thousand users, I think there could be some advantages to a little
shorter-term thinking; if-and-only-if that means I'm able to deliver that
first cut to market sooner than if I were to focus on the stability of the
team upfront.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still wavering on my opinion of this (hence this
entire thread). But I am really enjoying / appreciating the various
methodologies.

~~~
vtanase
I guess our experiences might vary with what happens to prototypes/first cut
implementations.

From my experience what starts off as a simple proof of concept/prototype that
is done quick and dirty to validate an idea, ends up being the actual
production code. This is due in part to clients that come and say: "well it
works, why rewrite it? you can just fix bugs if they come up", making you have
to maintain what was originally meant to be a throw away implementation.

While right now your intentions might be to rewrite, I do believe that you
might reconsider this decision once you have a couple hundred users to please,
who all want new features or bugs fixed. Now I do not know what your idea is
and how critical time to market is for you but I would recommend that you
consider removing non-essential features to get it out quicker rather than
skipping quality.

------
jpd750
It seems like you are writing a book about me.

On the short: I hired some contractors through elance/odesk - this was NOT the
right thing to do. They lack motivation in what you're doing.

My advice: build it yourself, no matter how long it takes.

~~~
artharrison
Yeah, that's been my approach in the past, but I'm definitely questioning that
approach right now. Founding at this stage in life is definitely more
difficult. In my early twenties, I dropped out of school, working 19hrs a day
and was able to produce a prototype for what would become my full-time
business for the subsequent 10 years in a matter of a few months ... But with
my last startup, I worked every night from about 10pm-1:30am + "nap time" on
weekends, and what should have been 1-2 months of work turned into 9 - with
way more compromises than there should have been. Plus, the time spent
tweaking the code actually limited the time I spent on some of the critical
business / positioning decisions.

(A few times I actually rented a hotel in my city just to sequester myself and
jump start the dev process)

In terms of elance/odesk, yes, I thought that would be a sketchy approach. I
was actually more interested in production houses (like the kinds that build
full-on apps) and contracting them. I've done similar in my day job, but in
that case, they weren't so much building the business for us, but just
building a marketing hook or an app extension to our core offering. I'm a
little more skeptical about using them to build the whole thing...

The final approach I was considering was simply hiring my first employee as a
work-from-home employee/cofounder. I'm wondering if anyone has ever been in
this role, how they found it and if/where things went wrong with the "non-
technical" cofounder? (I'm calling myself non-technical simply because I
wouldn't be playing the role of developer -- I am in fact technical ...)

------
tudornb
I've been to this place before with my first project. As non-technical
founders our solution was to outsource. Fast forward 2 years, I run a business
helping startups outsource their projects, by matching them with dev teams
from my curated portfolio.

To do that, we work with the founders on:

1\. Properly determining the scope and technical requirements, so things can
be predictable 2\. Understanding their needs and creating an ideal team
profile. Things get complicated later on, if you don't focus on both hard
skills AND the soft side - cultural fit, communicational patterns. Also, by
looking for a team that already has experience in your industry focus and
project type, you can get more than you bargained for. 3\. Selecting the most
fitted profile. We do this by further distilling the teams, by interviewing
them. 4\. Providing support on configuring and helping with the relationship
management.

Shamelessly, we do this for free. If you need any help, just give me a shout!
:)

~~~
artharrison
Sure -- would love to speak and see what you can do ...

I'm on gmail using the same username (artharrison)

------
seannaM
Is your idea something that you think has to go into motion soon or else its
not going to be nearly as successful? If not, I'd recommend the same thing I
would to someone who wants to date - Go to where the co-founders are, meet
people, work with people on small projects if possible, don't expect results
super quicklly.

I've talked to a founder who hired external contractors for their site and
they ended up with something pretty unmaintainable for $3.5k. They ended up
working with a more technical advisor to vet new people working on tech. I'm
not sure if such an arrangement could work for you, but if I was in your shoes
I'd find someone who seems upstanding and has had success with contracted
teams, and then get them on as a contracting advisor.

I have another suggestion I'd like to share with you privately if you want to
put your email in your account.

~~~
artharrison
Sure, I'm on gmail with the same username (artharrison)

------
carlosdaniel
Sounds like a case where you would usually push through by yourself, but given
what happened last time I think you would be better getting some extra help
and getting the product out sooner.

I know a couple of outsourcing companies so I can give you a few pointers,
good companies have NDAs and other contracts in place to protect you and your
IP, usually they have US presence and they have workers on aligned timezones.
I can say such companies are not rock bottom cheap but the quality and
security it comes with them might be worth every penny (while also being
cheaper than getting a full US team).

If you like I can pass you a few contacts in case you'll like to go this path.

~~~
artharrison
Would love that info - at least it would give me some concrete examples of
what's available. I definitely have a budget -- willing to invest in the idea
& no longer a starving student, so I certainly wouldn't want to be going the
rock-bottom cheap route. Thanks.

~~~
carlosdaniel
I know of a company that works more like extending your engineering team, it's
called Nearsoft, they have presence in the valley so if you live around I can
drop you the contact info of one of the founders and help schedule a coffee
meeting or something informal just to get to know how they work.

I recommend you them because they have several startups as their clients, some
small other big so they could probably be a good fit.

I'll keep it there as this is starting to sound like an advert, so I'll leave
my email: chadruva@hotmail.com

Cheers.

~~~
artharrison
I'm actually in Toronto, Canada (closest I got to the valley was an invite to
the YC interview round almost 6 years ago now ...), but I'll reach out via
email because I would absolutely love to hear more.

------
rficcaglia
honestly if the idea isnt worth leaving the day job, and dedicating 6 months
or so, maybe it is not the right idea?

in any case, nothing is as important as the founder's investment of time amd
focus in any new business. that said, i would also look for enthusiastic
volunteers (equity based, deferred comp, experience, former employees hoping
to see another success, etc) to help so that it forces you to articulate a
plan, organize and prioritize, and most importantly, keeps you from losing
motivation since you have people who depend on your feedback and leadership
day to day

oh and stop reading HN as it kills productivity ;) time to get back to work!

~~~
artharrison
1\. I totally agree and am always ready to leave the day job. I guess what I'm
looking at here is the optimal way to get to the quit-job state. I'm not the
best developer, so quitting to take on that responsibility seems counter
productive ... Leave a job that pays well, allows me some freedom to invest in
others working towards my goal - just so that I can devote all my time to work
that I'll never be the best at / other would do a better job of ... Part of
the problem here is likely the fact that I should probably be in a "non-
technical" cofounder role, but I just happen to have enough technical founder
skills that prevent me from embracing that approach whole-heartedly.

I'm really trying to find the best balance of risk/reward here -- while
accelerating the timeline as much as possible.

2\. I'm at the dayjob - so, technicall my time on HN is helping finance the
upcoming project... (note to those who work with/for me / are quite possibly
reading this: -- this was a lunch break post & you all know I run a number of
side projects -- don't get too scared that I'm leaving tomorrow...)

------
fouc
I'm in Toronto, working as a rails developer. Last year, while doing some
freelancing on odesk, I saw a CTO of a startup get the minimum viable product
built by partitioning the job out to a few different odesk workers. He spent
about $10k for 600 hours of work - the startup was an ecommerce site that had
a gift recommender based on the answers the customer provided.

You get what you pay for however, so while the site works, it's pretty ugly
(needs way better design). Also, his main contractors were barely fluent in
english - so communication was always bit tricky.

BTW, feel free to email me since I'm in the same town.

------
idoh
I have a lot of experience with outsourced development, my last couple
projects have been like that and it has worked out really well (as in,
profitable apps with a lot of users). So I know it's possible.

For concern about rights / stolen ideas, I don't think it should be a major
problem. By and large they are interested in getting paid, if you are a good
partner then things should be OK. There are things you can do to mitigate the
risk, e.g. if it is an iOS app then you submit the app yourself and get the
payments directly, make sure to get the source code, etc.

If you want to know more then let me know.

------
charlieirish
Ruthlessly strip out all features until hurts. Then build it yourself. Launch.
Rinse and Repeat.

Put up a landing page now to gauge interest and start the marketing effort by
building a list.

~~~
artharrison
Yeah, that's absolutely what I've done in the past / will do again if I head
this route. (Truthfully speaking though, with the time limits, it was the
ruthlessly stripped down version that took me 9 month). As I said, I'm a
competent hacker, but even full-time, I'm nowhere near my dev friends and
designer friends who breeze through some of the data structure design aspects
I'd end up meddling with for a week ...

~~~
seannaM
Could you talk more about that project? I can imagine some projects that would
take at least 9 months to make a beta happen (Space travel), but I can't
really imagine a stripped-down-to-the-core software business that takes 9
months for a beta. (Was it financial?)

------
mhuang511
Did you ever think of skill exchange?

I am interest in your current role "Marketer". Recently I just launch my
startup product(peoplelamp.com). Now I am headache on how to promote it on US
market especially I am living in Asia(Taiwan). Take a look at my site and see
if my skills fulfill your expectation. I build this site myself. If you are
interesting we can discuss further.

Not sure if my response violate the posting rules of HN. If it did, I will
remove it immediately.

~~~
artharrison
I haven't really thought of a skills exchange. It's an interesting concept
though...

( NOTE: for someone else who's looking for a startup idea -- there you have
it: A marketplace for startup founders to exchange skills.

Skills / tasks are sold on a credit basis Design a logo == 1 credit Design a
landing page from wireframe == 3 credits Develop a membership backend == 5
credits

Earn credits by completing tasks for other founders using your own skills,
then posts/purchase tasks for things you can't do yourself using those
credits.

Monetize == let people just straight up buy credits if they don't want the
hassle of helping other :)

Obviously that's not the idea I'm talking about in this thread -- just a
freebee for someone who needs a new idea to noodle around with.

)

Anyway, in terms of your website People Lamp -- I don't think your skills
would be a match for the scope of what I'm talking about, but one piece of
initial advice: make sure your website loads with [http://<url>](http://<url>)
and not just [http://www.<url>](http://www.<url>) ...

------
jason_slack
Build yourself. You are motivated. You cant ask someone to be motivated about
your "thing" unless you are paying them. Otherwise it should become a "we"
thing.

~~~
osivertsson
Yes, either build it yourself, or successfully share your vision of how cool
and successful this will be to a dev that makes it become a "we" thing.

This allows the dev to make small decisions several times a day that align
with your vision. Meet and work together and iterate in real life as much as
possible to keep bringing positive energy of how this thing is breaking new
ground in this problem space.

I would personally stay away from production houses because I don't think I
would be able to share my vision as direct and with the same weight, which
would at least to some extent limit their motivation to make my project really
stand out.

------
probinso
Caution. I know no thing of this problem space.

you have a unique oopportunity to learn. Hire someone on as your lead
developer, and act as a developer beneath them. You can grow yourself, by
getting assigned tasks and working through their code reviews, you'll have
complete scope view of project, and the possibility for a cool prototype.

I would suspect that it'll take less time than you, and more time than just
them; but could be an exceptional environment

------
danvoell
It's a great question. I am in the exact same situation. The really difficult
part of the equation is that every minute with your startup is time spent away
from family. And as soon as you hit a snag developing (day 2) you begin to
question if your time is best spent developing when you know someone else can
do it in one tenth of the time. Feel free to drop me a line on
gmail(danvoell). I am happy to commiserate with you or offer suggestions or
help out.

------
amac
Often, people forget to look a history but it's a good teacher. Applying
history here, look at most successful technology companies and you'll see co-
founders (Google) or a founder that hires (Amazon).

Supposing you can't build an mvp, logically, you're best to try the above
routes.

------
phantom_oracle
You provide too little detail for anyone to give you a positive answer...

~~~
artharrison
Sure, I'm happy to provide more, I just wasn't sure what details others would
need... AMA

~~~
phantom_oracle
I see two big trends in building apps/sites/businesses these days.

If your product is tech light (eg. groupon) you can build an MVP relatively
quickly and on your own

If your product is tech heavy (eg. fusion reaction analytics at power plants)
you will probably need to quit your job and find a skilled team (and maybe
some investment).

