5 ms·

Freelancers or outside firms can’t possibly deliver what you want because they don’t actually care about the product or the outcome Actually that's not true. A

by fjabre 17y ago

Freelancers or outside firms can’t possibly deliver what you want because they don’t actually care about the product or the outcome Actually that's not true. A lot of freelancers I know are very proud of and attached to the projects they work on. Might be true for some others, like some of the overseas firms you'll find on elance who crank out insane amounts of code, but for individual freelancers my experience has been that they care a great deal about what they work on.

ohashi 17y ago
How you pick a freelancer/outsource makes a big difference too. When I am looking to hire a freelancer I don't post a project, I go out and look at code that people have produced (open source) that are similar in function/scope/language/whatever and contact them to see if they are interested.
akalsey 17y ago
Certainly with any generality, there's exceptions. But if you are a guy with an idea and don't have the ability to build it, you're unlikely to be satisfied with the outcome of hiring a freelancer. Freelancers are not employees. They're not attached to the business on a full time basis, and while they may get excited by the business and be happy to be working with the entrepreneur, in the end they are mercenaries. Further, when the project is over and they walk away, the knowledge behind your product and technology walks away with them. This is true of employees as well to some extent, but at least with employees there's an expectation that they will be involved for a long term. For them it's not just another contract. Contractors can be used to augment your development staff, but should never be your entire development staff. Sure, you CAN have a success with a product built by freelancers (Digg is an example of this) but it is very, very rare.

5 ms·

Freelancers or outside firms can’t possibly deliver what you want because they don’t actually care about the product or the outcome Actually that's not true. A

by fjabre 17y ago

ohashi 17y ago
How you pick a freelancer/outsource makes a big difference too. When I am looking to hire a freelancer I don't post a project, I go out and look at code that people have produced (open source) that are similar in function/scope/language/whatever and contact them to see if they are interested.
akalsey 17y ago
Certainly with any generality, there's exceptions. But if you are a guy with an idea and don't have the ability to build it, you're unlikely to be satisfied with the outcome of hiring a freelancer. Freelancers are not employees. They're not attached to the business on a full time basis, and while they may get excited by the business and be happy to be working with the entrepreneur, in the end they are mercenaries. Further, when the project is over and they walk away, the knowledge behind your product and technology walks away with them. This is true of employees as well to some extent, but at least with employees there's an expectation that they will be involved for a long term. For them it's not just another contract. Contractors can be used to augment your development staff, but should never be your entire development staff. Sure, you CAN have a success with a product built by freelancers (Digg is an example of this) but it is very, very rare.