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Ask HN: Advice on starting an outsourcing webdev company

13 points by mootothemax 16y ago

Hi everyone, I moved to Poland in October of last year, and thought that after a couple of months of settling in, I'd be fine getting a job locally. That's proved to be an issue: I've 12 years of development experience, but don't have a university degree, and most importantly my Polish is at a basic level (although I'm taking lessons to improve that). Viewing things through an employer's eyes, I'm not surprised that I haven't had a single callback. I've been earning a modest income via my first experience of freelancing. I've started this via sites like RentACoder, and have gained a lot of follow-up work from my clients. About once every couple of months I have /way/ more work than I can deal with, and this makes me think about hiring computer studies students locally. I've investigated local rates, and I could hire a single student for around $1,000 a month, taxes etc., included. I would aim to take a mentoring role, specifying how a given project (or subset of a project) should be coded and what should be avoided. I would also expect a high turnover of staff once every year or so, although I'd be delighted if anyone wanted to stay on longer. Is this is a viable business idea? What advice do you have for me going forwards? My main concern is regularly gaining enough work to keep paying the bills and earning a profit. Whilst I haven't struggled as a freelancer, this is my main paranoia. Thanks for any input you can give me, Tom.

tialys 16y ago
You left out a few things that might be helpful: 1) What kind of work are you doing? Web sites? Mobile Apps? 2) What does that $1000 get you? Full time or part time, and how much of that work is completely independent? Also, if you ask me, having too much work is a good problem. Still a problem, but frankly too much work is better than not enough. That said, you're leaving money on the table, so if you think that hiring someone for $1000 month will get you more than that, it's probably not a bad idea. Being a CS student myself, I'd say an extra $1000 a month is probably worth being intermittently employed if you're worried about occasionally not having work, but thats my personal opinion.
qeorge 16y ago
Hi Tom, Yes, I think its a viable business model. But I worry you're jumping the gun a bit bringing someone on fulltime. In general, I think a good progression for freelancers looking to expand capacity is this: 1) timeshift to increase your own capacity (can you schedule customers, or is it always now-or-never?) 2) hire a contractor 3) hire an employee If you can increase your own capacity, do that first. If you have to bring someone on, do it on a contract basis to limit risk. Eventually it might make sense to convert that contractor to an employee, or bring someone else on full time. I would also put up a website and focus on getting business through your own brand, outside of RentACoder. RAC is great, but its never good to be dependent on one revenue source. Best of luck!
smiler 16y ago
What kind of jobs are you looking at? Is there any businesses you can find where the Polish owners speak English and are looking to expand their business overseas to English-speaking audiences and the fact that you're an English speaking native would be perfect for customer support, e-mail and so on?

13 points by mootothemax 16y ago

tialys 16y ago

You left out a few things that might be helpful: 1) What kind of work are you doing? Web sites? Mobile Apps? 2) What does that $1000 get you? Full time or part time, and how much of that work is completely independent? Also, if you ask me, having too much work is a good problem. Still a problem, but frankly too much work is better than not enough. That said, you're leaving money on the table, so if you think that hiring someone for $1000 month will get you more than that, it's probably not a bad idea. Being a CS student myself, I'd say an extra $1000 a month is probably worth being intermittently employed if you're worried about occasionally not having work, but thats my personal opinion.

qeorge 16y ago

Hi Tom, Yes, I think its a viable business model. But I worry you're jumping the gun a bit bringing someone on fulltime. In general, I think a good progression for freelancers looking to expand capacity is this: 1) timeshift to increase your own capacity (can you schedule customers, or is it always now-or-never?) 2) hire a contractor 3) hire an employee If you can increase your own capacity, do that first. If you have to bring someone on, do it on a contract basis to limit risk. Eventually it might make sense to convert that contractor to an employee, or bring someone else on full time. I would also put up a website and focus on getting business through your own brand, outside of RentACoder. RAC is great, but its never good to be dependent on one revenue source. Best of luck!

smiler 16y ago

What kind of jobs are you looking at? Is there any businesses you can find where the Polish owners speak English and are looking to expand their business overseas to English-speaking audiences and the fact that you're an English speaking native would be perfect for customer support, e-mail and so on?