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Product: Do It Yourself – OR – Hire/Outsource?

5 points by anupshinde ↗ HN
I quit my previous job 3 months ago to start my own SaaS product(s) + part time independent consulting. Consulting part takes 20-22 hours weekly and is going good as expected. But I find it very hard to dedicate time to my product idea.

I have been tempted to hire freelancers to develop my product idea but not sure if that is the right choice. I have the choices below:

1. Hire a freelancer and pay them to get the product developed while I do the specs.

2. Get more disciplined and do the job myself and save/earn the money that would have been paid to a freelancer.

3. Quit consulting and focus totally on products. This is very difficult because of my financial liabilities - but not impossible, I do have a small financial backup in that case.

Which one is a better? or are there any other choices?

At my job positions spanning about 10 years, I have been in the roles of a developer and business analyst. At times I have also acted as a team lead and must say I did not see myself successful in that role (however nobody complained either).

5 comments

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cornewut
How about finding a co-founder? That might help with motivational problems.
didgeoridoo
Is your hourly rate more than what you would pay a freelancer to do the same work? If so, hire a freelancer to build out the MVP while you continue consulting. If not, build it yourself.

Don't think of it as a matter of discipline — think of it as an optimization problem :)

qaiserhabib
Freelancers are good for menial design jobs but not for complicated scalable architectures, or apps. They just don't care enough about your idea to put their best in it. You only work 20-22 hours a week you have all the time in the world to develop a great product on the side.
palidanx
I was in the exact same situation and I chose to develop my platform myself while consulting. It kind of sucks because about half of your time is consulting, but with the remaining time you have in the week you are forced to prioritize features.

Also as your saas is out in the world, most likely you may have to pivot, and you knowing your own software makes it the fastest way to change as you see fit.

For any really menial tasks, I use fiverr.com to outsource small code tidbits and data entry tasks I might have.

orky56
Sounds like my life 6 months ago. I found it too difficult to manage consulting and my own product. I would always compromise my own resources to ensure my consulting clients were happy. Although it was nice to make a decent amount much quicker than with my product, I really felt like I might as well have stuck with my job. I made the decision to taper off the consulting to maintenance mode (< 5 hrs/wk) and do the product full-time. I fired my freelancers after I ended up learning coding and doing their job faster within a 2-3 week timeframe (shout out to Mattan from One Month Rails). Looking back it was the right decision and I'm proud to say I have my priorities in order. I've built out Catalist (http://www.catalist.me) and currently refocusing on sales after a good amount of time in product development.