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Ask HN: Is outsourcing though Elance/Guru a reasonable way to get started

11 points by adnymarc ↗ HN
I have several ideas for web apps that I would like to pursue. I would love to begin working on one of them, but do not have a great programming background (my current capability is in front end design/UX). I am planning on spending as much time as possible over the last year of my degree teaching myself a major web-focused programming language (such as Python, Ruby, or PHP). However my current time constraints don't allow me enough time to do everything myself.

My questions are these:

Is using a service such as Elance or Guru to pay for some help a viable way to begin working on a prototype of an app?

If so, how is the best way to approach this sort of a situation?

10 comments

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ahpeeyem
I haven't actually got anything done through any of these sites but I have some friends who have, and I think it can be hit and miss with regard to the quality of developers on the sites.

An idea I'd like to try is a small guinea-pig project that you would use to find the better developers - get them to build it and see what the quality is like. It may cost a bit up-front but if you find good developers you could save yourself a lot of money and get a lot better results on a real project.

bisi
Elance is not a bad place to start ut you can look on Killerstartups.com and when you see a site you like email them and ask them for a referal .
abdulqabiz
I think, there are really smart service providers. You have to just choose one from bids.
teej
Depends. I know a guy with no programming skill who had an idea. Take that flash helicopter game people like to play and put it on Facebook. He hired a Russian guy through elance to do the flash, and a brilliant guy in Virginia through IRC to do the PHP. His app got big and he sold it six months later for a significant chunk of cash.
snorkel
I've tried it. The code quality was OK but it took a lot of time just to document and explain the project to each coder over email, and time to do progress checks with each coder, answer their questions, and generally keep everyone coordinated with what others were working on. At some point I realized I was documenting the project in such detail and coordinating every step of it that it was faster to code it all myself. I would still outsource graphic design elements because I'm a better coder than artist.
vaksel
the problem with freelancers...is the programmers get overwhelmed. A crappy little app that would take someone decent 2 weeks to program, will end up taking 8-10 months. Because the guy is juggling your project with 20 other ones.

But yeah, if you have no other option freelancing sites are the way to go. At least this way you can get the basic site up, and then have something to offer to get a decent programmer as a co-founder.

ejs
I would just pick one project and focus on it, learn and implement it... then the others will become easier and easier.

Might want to do the one you are least interested in first, since the code quality will probably not be too good.

dsil
Slow down, take what spare time you have and learn django or ruby on rails. Go through some tutorials, struggling and learning as you go. By the time you graduate you'll be so much more powerful, and glad you did.
steveeq1
It can be, but like Paul Graham says it all depends on your ability of identifying a good programmer. I made the mistake of not interviewing the candidates well enough and wasted a month's worth of time and labor because of it. Most people on the site, from my experience, are 3rd world country programmers with the equivalent of a degree from Devry.

My advice is just to learn the language and do it yourself. You will probably have to modify the site in the long run anyway.