

Questions before building your business on a freelancer - ntalbott
http://terralien.com/blog/articles/2011/03/01/5-plus-1-questions-before-building-your-business-on-a-freelancer

======
div
Are there any successful business built by using a freelancer ? Or a devshop
for that matter ?

Genuinely curious here. To narrow it down a bit, let's talk businesses who
primarily operate on the web or through a mobile app.

It just seems that outsourcing the core of your business is a strategy that's
destined to fail.

You need to be able to pivot, and fill in the blanks as you go along. Most
freelancers and shops don't give you this option, or at least not at a
reasonable cost. It feels like most businesses would be much better off hiring
someone and giving that person a piece of the business as part of the deal.

~~~
ntalbott
I run Terralien, and I can only speak from my own experiences doing so, since
it seems most businesses that have been built mostly by a freelancer or a
devshop don't go out of their way to publicize that fact.

Terralien does ongoing development work for six businesses for which we built
the original technology. Their degree of success varies, but they all have in
common that they're successful enough to have persisted 1+ years and are
continuing to make progress. All of them rely on software for their core
business to some varying degree, but in none of their cases is the software
itself rocket science. It may be moderately complicated and there may be a lot
of it, but a good hacker could pick it up without completely derailing the
project in the meantime.

On the flipside, Terralien had one very tech-heavy business that we got off
the ground, after which they brought development in-house in the form of a
developer working for equity. It made total sense for them, since they were
doing algorithmic work in the energy space so their technology was in a way
"rocket science" and they needed to have that close.

I think anyone considering outsourcing the software build for their startup
should look for a freelancer or devshop that is ready and willing to serve as
their CTO for the long haul. You want a shop or an individual that understands
technology as a tool that should serve the larger business purposes, and not
an end in itself. That's the way we try to approach it at Terralien, and it
seems to be working really well for our clients.

~~~
div
Interesting to hear.

I think some of the difficulties I've had in these type of projects stems from
the customer not knowing where they want things to go / not having thought
things through.

In this situation they seem eager to bounce ideas, which is great, but once
those new ideas start affecting deadlines and budgets, the relationship can
get tense.

------
larrik
This post seems like you can put "Why Pick Us?" on the top of it and call this
their (Terralien) sales page...

~~~
dbates
I wrote this post to give people a different perspective on answering the
freelancer vs. dev shop question. We've had a number of entrepreneurs lately
asking about the difference between the two and it seemed like a useful way to
explain the difference. The value proposition for working with Terralien is
very different. We're all about long term relationships with entrepreneurs and
helping them build their business rather than just an app. Thanks for the
comment and opportunity to clarify that.

------
jwb119
another question to ask: do I own the IP rights to the freelancers creation,
and if so, can I enforce that contract?

IP doesn't automatically confer..

~~~
dbates
This is a great point that too many entrepreneurs miss - hoping you didn't
personally get burned on this! Unless you're in a partnership where you
explicitly want to share IP, it's "works for hire". Good advice to avoid work
with any developer (freelancer or otherwise) that doesn't fully and
contractually recognize your rights to the IP.

