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Ask HN: How do you outsource design and development?

6 points by gacxllr9 ↗ HN
Ideally, I would have someone in my immediate circle of friends who could create this project. Since I don't, I want to make the process of outsourcing development and design as seamless as possible. Does anyone on HN have experience hiring out, and ensuring that the vision is executed upon?

10 comments

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zackattack
Yeah, definitely. Your best bet is to make your spec documents as detailed as possible, to the letter. Then, only hire someone whose references you've checked; ask them how reliable are they (do they randomly disappear?) and ask them how close they stuck to their initial estimate. I like looking on Craigslist when I prefer to deal with an American and Rentacoder when I'm willing to go international.
jeffepp
Design: I would look at sortfolio and contact them directly Development: I would look at design shops with development (one company is better) again, they can be found on sortfolio.

If you are looking intl, then you have odesk, elance, guru and rentacoder.

You definitely should make sure that it is scoped out, with business rules, wireframes, use cases, etc. All of these will help the contractors come up with a realistic price and timeframe.

gacxllr9
In a comment that will probably be laughed at, I'll just ask this: what kind of a site can I expect with a $500-$1000 price range? Surely something can be built for that much money.
jeffepp
At that point you are better off finding a partner. I am sure something can be built on that budget, but it better be very simple!
Travis
No need to laugh. But you should seriously adjust your expectations.

For a US firm, $1k will get you a website with around a dozen pages. Probably from a template. Maybe with a contact form or email signup.

If you outsource, $1k will get you the above with maybe a single database interaction. E.g., you could probably expect to make a to-do list, with user login and password updating. Maybe it would even email out the tasks when they're due. But not much more than that.

Figure it this way -- a kick ass US programmer will charge about $1k for a day's work. You can't get much built in a day.

And for outsourcing, I can only speak to my experience, but they tend to take 4-5x longer (per hour basis) than I do. So the hourly is much cheaper, but the quality and efficiency are much worse (note: that's an obvious generalization... but the parent comment is exactly the type that will tend to get screwed on outsourcing due to lack of domain expertise.)

scorpioxy
$1k for a day's work? Really?

Wow. Some people on this website considered it weird when i said that $15/hour is a low rate when you ask for freelancers who can code more than your run-of-the-mill php page.

I am not talking about US vs non-US, that makes no difference to me. I expect to pay a premium for service from knowledgeable people regardless of their nationality. Why don't people do the same when it comes to software?

Or am i completely off base here?

hvs
Honestly, not much. Like another commenter said, that's about 1-2 days of a developer's time. You can't get much done in that amount of time. I would recommend finding someone who has the expertise that shares your vision and make them a partner.
alexwyser
I am a non-US freelancer web designer and developer.

Personally, for $1000 I would provide a custom design and develop a database-driven website (using HTML/CSS/Javacript/PHP/MySQL) with a decent backend. This means you can get almost any kind of website that does not involve advanced things like automatic personalization based on user's activities (except maybe basic recommendations). So you could start a website like HN or Reddit (but not Digg which produces a different homepage for each user based on their preferences).

$1000 is not much for a skilled developer in any country, but its worth more to someone from outside US.

About the process of outsourcing, I would recommend not going with anyone using sites like rentacoder or odesk. Instead ask for references from people you know (offline or online), a lot of people on HN have worked with a freelancer, and would probably be able to suggest someone more reliable.

If all else fails, find someone on the HN Contractors spreadsheet.

PS. Since I am a designer/developer myself, you can email me at alexwyser@gmail.com if you need any help.

fjabre
You're the architect so you'd be the glue between the design team and implementation team. Ideally they are not the same people.

For a programmer I'd start by farming out the project in pieces to a few different people to find the right person. For designers I'd start looking at sortfolio.com or CSS portfolio sites where you'll typically find designers demonstrating their skills. Expect to be emailing quite a bit. It's not an easy process but assembling the right team is half the battle - directing and architecting the product to release is the other half.