

Ask HN: has anyone had success with odesk or elance? - andrewstuart

I have a PHP project I want to get built and don't have much money.  I'm thinking of using elance or odesk.  Has anyone had any success using these services?  Any pitfalls to look out for, or tips on how to succeed?  Anyone willing to say how much their project cost them?
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nostromo
I've used both. ODesk for some HTML/CSS work and Elance for some help
uploading content into a wiki and in a second project on Elance writing some
Java.

My impressions:

* I had a bad experience on ODesk with HTML/CSS work. The person just wanted an easy buck and did a poor job. It would have been faster for me to do it myself. (This is just one anecdote, not an indictment of ODesk.)

* I had a good experience getting some Java code done on Elance. Why? Because I wrote a very strict interface that had to be extended and produce very precise results to be considered successful.

* I also had a good experience (again on Elance) getting a small wiki updated and cleaned up.

All projects probably cost me $500.

In general, I would avoid these places if you have someone local you can work
with. If not, then you have to be __super super clear on what you want __. If
there is any ambiguity then prepare for disaster. You'll need to have clear
specs, or interfaces, with very clear success criteria for them to work with.

Sometimes I find writing clear specs and managing the outcome takes longer
than just hacking it myself, which is why I don't use them much anymore.

~~~
byoung2
I've had similar experiences. My first experience on Elance was phenomenal. I
found someone in Baltimore who worked wonders with a PPC advertising campaign,
turning a money-waster into a profitable venture. I thought it would always be
that easy.

The next 2 were not so pretty. The first was a simple content writing task
(provider from Texas). The first results were on time and of great quality.
Then the delays started, then the excuses (sick pet, sick child, storms and
power outages, death in the family). Finally I got no response at all for
weeks, and when all the milestone dates had passed I got a refund.

The last one was so-so. The next was a simple design job (provider in
Pakistan)...5 HTML templates for 5-page brochure sites. The provider's
portfolio looked great, and the bid price was right. The designs were amazing,
but the coding was terrible...I had to have it re-done by someone else. And
the designs came quickly but the coding took forever. I'm guessing the guy was
a designer who usually works with a partner for the HTML/CSS coding, and he
tried to cut his partner out of the deal by doing it himself.

EDIT: Forgot to include this: the final solution to my problem was finding my
own team in the Philippines. I lucked out when I found an amazing project
manager who put a team of 10 developers, designers, content writers, and data
entry guys together and he manages everything so I don't have to. Now we do
transparent outsourcing for other web design companies.

~~~
andrewstuart
How did you find the phillipines company?

~~~
byoung2
I put an ad on philweavers.net, which is a community for Filipino web
developers. That's how I found the first guy. He then found the rest if the
team. They all report to him, but they all work for me directly.

------
kls
_In general, I would avoid these places if you have someone local you can work
with. If not, then you have to be super super clear on what you want. If there
is any ambiguity then prepare for disaster. You'll need to have clear specs,
or interfaces, with very clear success criteria for them to work with.

Sometimes I find writing clear specs and managing the outcome takes longer
than just hacking it myself, which is why I don't use them much anymore._

summed up, if you are not a developer already, your chances of a successful
outcome are slim. I try to explain this to people all the time who have no
idea of what they are getting themselves into.

It is not a place that you can "offload" your technical work without deep
technical oversight. It is a site where an in-house or near-shore team can
write a system, develop a plug-gable architecture, define interfaces, and
solicit developers to build a bunch of plug-ins that the in-house team would
have no hope of completing on time.

If you do not posses that technical talent, then you first need a onshore guy
that can help provide technical know-how. He can then help you make decisions
as to what will succeed on sites like that, or most likely will link you with
a Eastern-European or Indian development house directly.

