7 ms·

I would like to hear anecdotal evidence from regulars here who have used services like eLance. Did it work out for you?

by Sukotto 17y ago

patio11 17y ago
I got my site done on eLance (two years ago), and was extraordinarily happy with the experience. It was cheap and much better than anything I could have produced. http://www.kalzumeus.com/2008/03/02/my-experience-with-outsourcing-web-design/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2008/03/02/my-experience-with-outso...
- Sukotto 17y ago
  Yet (iirc) when you had other work to do you chose to cut out the middleman and simply post job offers directly on your blog. Does that mean you found those sites less useful than the direct approach? Or was it simply that you were already getting a lot of unsolicited job offers in your blog comments and felt you had a big enough pool of talent to draw upon directly?
  - patio11 17y ago
    You have a very good memory. eLance, et all, fundamentally solve the problem "A customer has work available and doesn't know who can perform it to their specifications at their price point." For that, they take some money and give some headaches (e.g. wading through a lot of bids by companies which I would not consider using, which is a time cost of outsourcing that provides no direct value to me). As my blog readership has grown, I've gotten to the point where just announcing I have work available will result in a handful of very talented people writing me telling me how they plan to do it. No middleman cut, no paging through 17 screens of Yes Sir We Can Make Your Site In HTML and CSS. I love outsourcing, and I mostly love the freelancer sites. I just have a better alternative these days. If I didn't I'd be back on them in a heartbeat.
markkoberlein 17y ago
I have worked with multiple Indian groups on projects while working full time at different companies and I also have some experience outsourcing tasks for my startup through Elance. Here are my rules with for working with Indian companies: 1. Never outsource the whole project or even a majority of it. I've seen companies do this because it's cheaper than hiring a staff of full time in-house developers. The projects usually fail. 2. Never ask them to do a task that you wouldn't know how to do yourself. You should never outsource a key piece of technology just because you don't know how to do it. You should only outsource something if they will get it done faster than you can or you want to work on something else. You will still have to review and test every line of their code to keep the quality up. 3. Expect communication issues. From my experience, Indian consulting firms try to communicate the best they can but you do have to stay on top of them. 4. They are much better at coding than they are at design. I've always been happy with the code they produce but not with their graphic design abilities. Never leave the UI design up to them. I'm a single founder of a startup and the only way that I'm going to get my product off the ground in 30 to 60 days on a shoe-string budget is to outsource pieces of it. If you want to keep up with my progress then go to http://sqlmover.com http://sqlmover.com to sign up for the private beta that is going to be launching next month.
- netcan 17y ago
  Re # 4. My experience is exactly the opposite. I guess there needs to be a #5 - Outsourcing is a competency in itself and can be hard. People have different experiences and offer conflicting advice. If you do it often, you will find ways of doing it better. If you just need to outsource something once, it may not be worth the learning curve or risk.
- SamAtt 17y ago
  I agree with your points but wanted to put special attention on 1 & 2 because I've found those to be the most important in my own experience. Generally what I do is to make a class diagram and then hand it to an outsourced coder to create. That way there's no question of what is supposed to go in and what is supposed to come out and I can test it easily. Plus that way allows me to keep track of which pieces I outsourced so even if I get a bad coder who writes inefficient code I can go back at a later date and correct his work.
adamt 17y ago
We love elance. We currently employ about 10 full-time equivalents on elance. I'd agree with the linked article. For most serious skills (beyond basic HTML markup) you need to pay $15-$25, but the results we've got have been top notch. Here's what we've learnt: * Only hire people to do stuff you understand. You don't need to be an expert on it, but you have to be able to understand what you are speccing and what you are getting. * For anything beyond basic HTML we've never had success with a company from the Indian sub-continent. For basic HTML stuff we've had good results. * Our best results have come from Eastern Europeans, but we've used people from the US, and western Europe as well. * For many projects we hire people on an hourly rate. There are exceptions - if we have a really clear spec, and it's a side project (e.g. we need some flash client work) then we may do it fixed price. * Deal only with individuals - ignore companies. They only exception might be a small bunch of 2-3 hackers working as a team. * As with any form of recruitment - there are good people and more bad people. As with buying on ebay - look at feedback, and use your judgement. * If you're looking for people on an ongoing basis, then be prepared to interview and test them thoroughly. When hiring C++ coders we actually pay people (as a elance project) to do a 20 hour long programming test. This might cost us $400, but we prob take on 1 in 2 people who get this far. So an $800 hiring cost is cheap, especially if it gets people up to speed on your technology. We normally get them to right a cut down version of our actual project. * You need to monitor people regularly and manage them as you would a physical employee. * Give people respect, and deal with them fairly. * You have to be good at working virtually. We make extensive use of Wikis, Trac, Skype etc and this enables us to manage a virtual team well. The benefits: * For about $20 an hour ($40k per annum) you can get a top class programmer that would cost you $100k an annum in SE England, or the West Coast. But you have no hiring cost and no long term commitment. * We typically can put an advert on elance Monday, be interviewing by Wed, and have taken someone on by Friday to start the next Monday. In the old world it would be arguing for budgets to hire for a month, spending 2 months interviewing, waiting 1-2 months notice period. * We can very quickly bring in specialist skills. E.g. if I need a Silverlight developer, I can find one who can start within a week, and can terminate when the project is done.
RACNicole 17y ago
Hi, this is Nicole from Rent a Coder.Rentacoder provides access to programming, writing, illustration, even data entry jobs. (You can get a sense of the broad scope of work available here: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/SoftwareCoders/BrowseWork.asp http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/SoftwareCoders/BrowseWo...) I'd like to point out a few differences between our service and services like Elance since those differences could influence the success of an outsourced project. === Employing a new worker that you don't yet know/trust: === When you don't yet know if a worker is productive, both Elance and Rent A Coder let you employ them in the safest way possible: by paying them a fixed price for the final deliverables (called pay-for-deliverables). However, if there is a problem, Elance charges you for the arbitration process necessary to get a refund (while Rent A Coder does not), and the process can take much longer if the worker is abusive. Elance, also does not offer a forfeitable on-time delivery guarantee. 1) Money-back Guarantee --- If a worker doesn't deliver what they agreed to, both sites will step in and give you a refund via arbitration. However Rent A Coder does this for free. If a worker doesn't deliver what they agreed to, both sites will step in and give you a refund via arbitration. However Elance charges you $66-$133 to do this. This may also make it impractical to get a refund on smaller projects. Rent A Coder, on the other hand, does this for free. 2) Arbitration --- On Rent A Coder you can start arbitration immediately. A worker intent on abusing the system can stall the start of arbitration on Elance for 21 business days and during this period your money is not available to you. During the first phase (dispute assistance), the worker has up to 3 business days to respond, and can make this phase last up to 12 additional business days (15 business days total). After this, the arbitration phase "begins", but does actually start because the worker is given 3 business days to acknowledge the notice of arbitration, and the another 3 business days if they did not acknowledge the first notice. Only at this point is arbitration actually started. See the Elance contract for more information. 3) On-time Delivery Guarantee --- Some workers are better at meeting deadlines than others, and when you have a critical and time-sensitive project you need a way to quickly differentiate between the two. The most effective way to do this is to require the worker to guarantee on-time delivery with a deposit (which they only get back if they make the deadline). This signifcantly discourages less qualified workers from bidding on your project, and financially aligns the worker you do select more closely with your own situation, resulting in a better partnership. === Employing a familiar worker that you've worked with before: === Once you know the worker is productive, both Elance and Rent A Coder let you employ them more flexibly and cheaply by paying them by the hour (called pay-for-time). However there are important differences in how Elance and Rent A Coder provide this service. 1) Over-billing Safeguards --- Rentacoder requires all workers to punch-in and out of the AccuTimeCardT in real time, to prevent them from fabricating hours. To allow you to monitor their presence and productivity, it also records their webcam and desktop. Elance workers bill you using a traditional, old-fashioned time-card. As a result they may freely record hours that they did not work, and you cannot monitor their productivity. This is not the case with Rent A Coder workers. There are other differences as well. I invite everyone to compare the 7 major services through this link to learn even more: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/WhyRentACoder_ForBuyers.aspx http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorI... (Short version: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/OneOnOneComparisons/ElanceVersusVWorker_ForBuyers.aspx http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorI...) If you have any questions, please let me know. You can also call in to talk to a facilitator 7 days a week, or email us (see http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/Feedback.asp http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/Feedback.asp). Nicole www.rentacoder.com

I would like to hear anecdotal evidence from regulars here who have used services like eLance. Did it work out for you?

by Sukotto 17y ago

I would like to hear anecdotal evidence from regulars here who have used services like eLance. Did it work out for you?

I got my site done on eLance (two years ago), and was extraordinarily happy with the experience. It was cheap and much better than anything I could have produced. http://www.kalzumeus.com/2008/03/02/my-experience-with-outsourcing-web-design/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2008/03/02/my-experience-with-outso...

Sukotto 17y ago
Yet (iirc) when you had other work to do you chose to cut out the middleman and simply post job offers directly on your blog. Does that mean you found those sites less useful than the direct approach? Or was it simply that you were already getting a lot of unsolicited job offers in your blog comments and felt you had a big enough pool of talent to draw upon directly?
- patio11 17y ago
  You have a very good memory. eLance, et all, fundamentally solve the problem "A customer has work available and doesn't know who can perform it to their specifications at their price point." For that, they take some money and give some headaches (e.g. wading through a lot of bids by companies which I would not consider using, which is a time cost of outsourcing that provides no direct value to me). As my blog readership has grown, I've gotten to the point where just announcing I have work available will result in a handful of very talented people writing me telling me how they plan to do it. No middleman cut, no paging through 17 screens of Yes Sir We Can Make Your Site In HTML and CSS. I love outsourcing, and I mostly love the freelancer sites. I just have a better alternative these days. If I didn't I'd be back on them in a heartbeat.

markkoberlein 17y ago

I have worked with multiple Indian groups on projects while working full time at different companies and I also have some experience outsourcing tasks for my startup through Elance. Here are my rules with for working with Indian companies: 1. Never outsource the whole project or even a majority of it. I've seen companies do this because it's cheaper than hiring a staff of full time in-house developers. The projects usually fail. 2. Never ask them to do a task that you wouldn't know how to do yourself. You should never outsource a key piece of technology just because you don't know how to do it. You should only outsource something if they will get it done faster than you can or you want to work on something else. You will still have to review and test every line of their code to keep the quality up. 3. Expect communication issues. From my experience, Indian consulting firms try to communicate the best they can but you do have to stay on top of them. 4. They are much better at coding than they are at design. I've always been happy with the code they produce but not with their graphic design abilities. Never leave the UI design up to them. I'm a single founder of a startup and the only way that I'm going to get my product off the ground in 30 to 60 days on a shoe-string budget is to outsource pieces of it. If you want to keep up with my progress then go to http://sqlmover.com http://sqlmover.com to sign up for the private beta that is going to be launching next month.

netcan 17y ago
Re # 4. My experience is exactly the opposite. I guess there needs to be a #5 - Outsourcing is a competency in itself and can be hard. People have different experiences and offer conflicting advice. If you do it often, you will find ways of doing it better. If you just need to outsource something once, it may not be worth the learning curve or risk.
SamAtt 17y ago
I agree with your points but wanted to put special attention on 1 & 2 because I've found those to be the most important in my own experience. Generally what I do is to make a class diagram and then hand it to an outsourced coder to create. That way there's no question of what is supposed to go in and what is supposed to come out and I can test it easily. Plus that way allows me to keep track of which pieces I outsourced so even if I get a bad coder who writes inefficient code I can go back at a later date and correct his work.

adamt 17y ago

We love elance. We currently employ about 10 full-time equivalents on elance. I'd agree with the linked article. For most serious skills (beyond basic HTML markup) you need to pay $15-$25, but the results we've got have been top notch. Here's what we've learnt: * Only hire people to do stuff you understand. You don't need to be an expert on it, but you have to be able to understand what you are speccing and what you are getting. * For anything beyond basic HTML we've never had success with a company from the Indian sub-continent. For basic HTML stuff we've had good results. * Our best results have come from Eastern Europeans, but we've used people from the US, and western Europe as well. * For many projects we hire people on an hourly rate. There are exceptions - if we have a really clear spec, and it's a side project (e.g. we need some flash client work) then we may do it fixed price. * Deal only with individuals - ignore companies. They only exception might be a small bunch of 2-3 hackers working as a team. * As with any form of recruitment - there are good people and more bad people. As with buying on ebay - look at feedback, and use your judgement. * If you're looking for people on an ongoing basis, then be prepared to interview and test them thoroughly. When hiring C++ coders we actually pay people (as a elance project) to do a 20 hour long programming test. This might cost us $400, but we prob take on 1 in 2 people who get this far. So an $800 hiring cost is cheap, especially if it gets people up to speed on your technology. We normally get them to right a cut down version of our actual project. * You need to monitor people regularly and manage them as you would a physical employee. * Give people respect, and deal with them fairly. * You have to be good at working virtually. We make extensive use of Wikis, Trac, Skype etc and this enables us to manage a virtual team well. The benefits: * For about $20 an hour ($40k per annum) you can get a top class programmer that would cost you $100k an annum in SE England, or the West Coast. But you have no hiring cost and no long term commitment. * We typically can put an advert on elance Monday, be interviewing by Wed, and have taken someone on by Friday to start the next Monday. In the old world it would be arguing for budgets to hire for a month, spending 2 months interviewing, waiting 1-2 months notice period. * We can very quickly bring in specialist skills. E.g. if I need a Silverlight developer, I can find one who can start within a week, and can terminate when the project is done.

RACNicole 17y ago

Hi, this is Nicole from Rent a Coder.Rentacoder provides access to programming, writing, illustration, even data entry jobs. (You can get a sense of the broad scope of work available here: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/SoftwareCoders/BrowseWork.asp http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/SoftwareCoders/BrowseWo...) I'd like to point out a few differences between our service and services like Elance since those differences could influence the success of an outsourced project. === Employing a new worker that you don't yet know/trust: === When you don't yet know if a worker is productive, both Elance and Rent A Coder let you employ them in the safest way possible: by paying them a fixed price for the final deliverables (called pay-for-deliverables). However, if there is a problem, Elance charges you for the arbitration process necessary to get a refund (while Rent A Coder does not), and the process can take much longer if the worker is abusive. Elance, also does not offer a forfeitable on-time delivery guarantee. 1) Money-back Guarantee --- If a worker doesn't deliver what they agreed to, both sites will step in and give you a refund via arbitration. However Rent A Coder does this for free. If a worker doesn't deliver what they agreed to, both sites will step in and give you a refund via arbitration. However Elance charges you $66-$133 to do this. This may also make it impractical to get a refund on smaller projects. Rent A Coder, on the other hand, does this for free. 2) Arbitration --- On Rent A Coder you can start arbitration immediately. A worker intent on abusing the system can stall the start of arbitration on Elance for 21 business days and during this period your money is not available to you. During the first phase (dispute assistance), the worker has up to 3 business days to respond, and can make this phase last up to 12 additional business days (15 business days total). After this, the arbitration phase "begins", but does actually start because the worker is given 3 business days to acknowledge the notice of arbitration, and the another 3 business days if they did not acknowledge the first notice. Only at this point is arbitration actually started. See the Elance contract for more information. 3) On-time Delivery Guarantee --- Some workers are better at meeting deadlines than others, and when you have a critical and time-sensitive project you need a way to quickly differentiate between the two. The most effective way to do this is to require the worker to guarantee on-time delivery with a deposit (which they only get back if they make the deadline). This signifcantly discourages less qualified workers from bidding on your project, and financially aligns the worker you do select more closely with your own situation, resulting in a better partnership. === Employing a familiar worker that you've worked with before: === Once you know the worker is productive, both Elance and Rent A Coder let you employ them more flexibly and cheaply by paying them by the hour (called pay-for-time). However there are important differences in how Elance and Rent A Coder provide this service. 1) Over-billing Safeguards --- Rentacoder requires all workers to punch-in and out of the AccuTimeCardT in real time, to prevent them from fabricating hours. To allow you to monitor their presence and productivity, it also records their webcam and desktop. Elance workers bill you using a traditional, old-fashioned time-card. As a result they may freely record hours that they did not work, and you cannot monitor their productivity. This is not the case with Rent A Coder workers. There are other differences as well. I invite everyone to compare the 7 major services through this link to learn even more: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/WhyRentACoder_ForBuyers.aspx http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorI... (Short version: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/OneOnOneComparisons/ElanceVersusVWorker_ForBuyers.aspx http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorI...) If you have any questions, please let me know. You can also call in to talk to a facilitator 7 days a week, or email us (see http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/Feedback.asp http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/Feedback.asp). Nicole www.rentacoder.com