

Ask HN: Build app myself or outsource it? - blizkreeg

HNers: I need some advice&#x2F;counsel on a dilemma I keep flip-flopping on.<p>I have a full-time 9-6 job and run a venture&#x2F;project on the side. The website for my project has been live for a while and has a small number of users. Given the space it is in (mass consumer), I&#x27;m finding that growth and traction is seeming hard to come by without an app. All my competitors have mobile apps.<p>I&#x27;m a proficient coder and have little doubt that if I consistently spend my evenings and weekends for the next 2-3 months, I might be able to pull off a MVP-level app.<p>I&#x27;m currently using the Ionic framework to develop the app.<p>Where I keep going back and forth on is whether I should just outsource it instead? I have a budget of about $15-20K but am finding it hard to find trusted, solid freelance devs&#x2F;agencies with experience that&#x27;ll be able to pull this off (within my budget). I don&#x27;t want to hand this off to someone on Elance.<p>If I find a freelancer to do this for me, I could spend my time thinking about and working towards a growth strategy and making the product stronger.<p>Please help me see both sides, from your own experiences. DIY or outsource?<p>As an aside, if you happen to know a talented freelance dev&#x2F;small shop in the US or overseas who can develop a middleweight iOS &amp; Android app (6-8 weeks timeframe) for (max) $20K, I&#x27;d love an introduction. Email in my profile.
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qq66
I would first verify the causal link between "no mobile app" and "small number
of users." Can you scope the product or marketing towards a desktop-centric
audience and verify that your product can scalably grow in that sub market?

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blizkreeg
I can and that is what I'm doing right now. But some of the interactions just
lend themselves better to a mobile use-case. That being said, there is nothing
stopping me from trying to vet the market more with a desktop-centric
audience.

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sheraz
I'm in a similar spot. Below are some of my own experiences:

Depending on the scope of your project that budget could certainly be
reasonable.

Here are some of my strategies:

\- I dont use E-lance to source talent. Rather, I use their escrow system to
pay my non-US freelancers. (Escrow is a must-have for me).

\- There are lots of places to source good talent. You might be surprised what
a good tweet with the right hashtags might bring back you. Try a tweet. Try to
post something in your linkedin profile.

\- Go right to the communities of the frameworks/technologies you are using.
For example, Appcelerator (my mobile tech of choice) has a small (but decent)
community that is active with their own slack channel (ti-slack.slack.com). It
is free to join up. IRC on freenode is also helpful.

I'll drop you a line privately as well.

Good luck out there -- would love to see what other HN'ers have to say as
well.

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hawe
If you're absolutely sure that you need a mobile app, and you say you
validated that users say a mobile app is a needed as a solution for That
Problem: How about you write a minimum app for That Thing to do that one (or
2) main thing that your service does, but not everything. If that'll have a
good number of downloads, then that's a good validation. * A small product is
also easier to outsource. * I did tiny test projects with applicants before,
and it worked well.

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Jeremy1026
Can I ask the reason you want to go with Ionic? Rather than truly native?

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blizkreeg
I want both iOS and Android out at the same time and don't want to double
spend time or money. Kill two birds with one stone.

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day_
sent you an email. But I highly recommend outsourcing for this kind of
project.

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kachhalimbu
I sent you an email

