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Can you give any tips on how you find people to outsource to? Where do you look? Do you interview them? Do you give them a trial period of some sort? Do you do

Can you give any tips on how you find people to outsource to? Where do you look? Do you interview them? Do you give them a trial period of some sort? Do you do fixed costs or hourly rates? How do you agree on prices per task? What do you do if you're not happy with the quality or they're late? Thanks for the article by the way. It takes a lot of bravery to be this transparent about your earnings and expenses.

nyrulez 8y ago
Not the author but I have been on a similar journey after leaving my job at Google 4 months ago. I have successfully used Reddit /forhire and Upwork to find decent people to work with and help code up parts of my new project (https://stockquanta.com https://stockquanta.com). The most important thing I look for is their past work - its complexity and usability both. Without that, it's a massive bet. Don't trust their words. And also you talk to them about your project and see if they ask the right questions + get the nuances. Assuming this works out, then you ideally do fixed price, not hourly. Latter can become scammy. For the fixed price, you will divide it into milestones so that the first set of costs isn't too much but also gives some kind of re-assurance to the dev that you're serious and can give money. If the execution is bad, you can bail out sooner. I have seen developers lie about their past work too. One Fintech developer claimed he was the main developer for wealthfront.com and betterment.com lol and had them as part of this portfolio. I soon found out it was an amazingly bold lie which I guess many folks do fall for. In my experience, they are ALWAYS late. I don't have a good way so far to control for that effectively. Even after this, you will get bad apples. Some money will be wasted initially. The trick is to keep the good ones with you as time goes on (become friends with them if possible), and move away from the rest.
- seanwilson 8y ago
  Thanks for the tips! > Assuming this works out, then you ideally do fixed price, not hourly. Latter can become scammy Can you elaborate? I'm assuming you mean if they work slower they earn more money? I prefer fixed price as well when working with clients; it has big advantages for both sides. > For the fixed price, you will divide it into milestones so that the first set of costs isn't too much but also gives some kind of re-assurance to the dev that you're serious and can give money. What do you do for payment if they don't reach the milestone or you're not happy with the quality? > One Fintech developer claimed he was the main developer for wealthfront.com and betterment.com lol and had them as part of this portfolio. I soon found out it was an amazingly bold lie which I guess many folks do fall for. How did you find this out? > In my experience, they are ALWAYS late. I don't have a good way so far to control for that effectively. I find the same with clients. You have to be very cautious agreeing to any deadline where you're dependent on other people and factors you cannot control, especially if you've never worked with someone before.
  - nyrulez 8y ago
    - The costs become uncapped and always end up more, with no accountability. After a certain while, sunk cost factor kicks in and it's too late to back out when you realize this developer is slow or not so great. Good confident developers will be able to estimate costs for projects upfront. - You either lose the payment or ask for refund. I have done both. That's the risk. You can perhaps lower the risk by giving a much smaller initial milestone or negotiating first payment after some work. - With crazy claims, the suspicion is already high. I talked to him for a few mins and it was clear there was no sophistication present and the guy was trying to attract clients with little to no experience. Are you already working on a project or planning to?
mtlynch 8y ago
Thanks for reading! I do almost all of my hiring from Upwork, although most of my freelance costs in 2018 were to hire a former colleague who went freelance. I've written posts about how I hired the blog's illustrator[0] and editor[1]. My screening process varies depending on the job I'm hiring for. The #1 thing I'm looking for is communication. I look hard at the quality of writing on their profile bio and cover letter. I've been hiring freelancers for several years (before I quit) and the most common reason it doesn't work out is that the freelancer is a bad communicator and we burn excessive time on miscommunication. When I find someone who has promise, I generally just hire them for a small job (capped at 5-10 hours) without a lot of interviewing. I have this theory (not rigorously tested) that putting developers through a lot of screening is counterproductive because the people who are good have lots of options and don't want to jump through lots of unpaid hoops for you. I don't have a defined trial period, but I just incrementally start giving them more responsibility and increase their hours cap. I do fixed costs if it's a job that has a very distinct deliverable (e.g. convert this AngularJS site to Angular7). But if it's just that I want someone to do some of the dev work on a project, I'll just pay hourly. Price is determined at the start. On Upwork, the freelancers bid on the job and that's the price you go with. If I work with someone for a long time, I increase their rate periodically. If I'm not happy with the work, I pay for the time they put in, but I end the contract. I only refuse to pay if they either fail to deliver or deliver something that's unusable. That's very rare, though. It's only happened to me once out of 50ish hires on Upwork.[2] [0]: https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/ https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/ [1]: https://mtlynch.io/editor/ https://mtlynch.io/editor/ [2]: https://mtlynch.io/upwork-scammer/ https://mtlynch.io/upwork-scammer/

nyrulez 8y ago

Not the author but I have been on a similar journey after leaving my job at Google 4 months ago. I have successfully used Reddit /forhire and Upwork to find decent people to work with and help code up parts of my new project (https://stockquanta.com https://stockquanta.com). The most important thing I look for is their past work - its complexity and usability both. Without that, it's a massive bet. Don't trust their words. And also you talk to them about your project and see if they ask the right questions + get the nuances. Assuming this works out, then you ideally do fixed price, not hourly. Latter can become scammy. For the fixed price, you will divide it into milestones so that the first set of costs isn't too much but also gives some kind of re-assurance to the dev that you're serious and can give money. If the execution is bad, you can bail out sooner. I have seen developers lie about their past work too. One Fintech developer claimed he was the main developer for wealthfront.com and betterment.com lol and had them as part of this portfolio. I soon found out it was an amazingly bold lie which I guess many folks do fall for. In my experience, they are ALWAYS late. I don't have a good way so far to control for that effectively. Even after this, you will get bad apples. Some money will be wasted initially. The trick is to keep the good ones with you as time goes on (become friends with them if possible), and move away from the rest.

seanwilson 8y ago
Thanks for the tips! > Assuming this works out, then you ideally do fixed price, not hourly. Latter can become scammy Can you elaborate? I'm assuming you mean if they work slower they earn more money? I prefer fixed price as well when working with clients; it has big advantages for both sides. > For the fixed price, you will divide it into milestones so that the first set of costs isn't too much but also gives some kind of re-assurance to the dev that you're serious and can give money. What do you do for payment if they don't reach the milestone or you're not happy with the quality? > One Fintech developer claimed he was the main developer for wealthfront.com and betterment.com lol and had them as part of this portfolio. I soon found out it was an amazingly bold lie which I guess many folks do fall for. How did you find this out? > In my experience, they are ALWAYS late. I don't have a good way so far to control for that effectively. I find the same with clients. You have to be very cautious agreeing to any deadline where you're dependent on other people and factors you cannot control, especially if you've never worked with someone before.
- nyrulez 8y ago
  - The costs become uncapped and always end up more, with no accountability. After a certain while, sunk cost factor kicks in and it's too late to back out when you realize this developer is slow or not so great. Good confident developers will be able to estimate costs for projects upfront. - You either lose the payment or ask for refund. I have done both. That's the risk. You can perhaps lower the risk by giving a much smaller initial milestone or negotiating first payment after some work. - With crazy claims, the suspicion is already high. I talked to him for a few mins and it was clear there was no sophistication present and the guy was trying to attract clients with little to no experience. Are you already working on a project or planning to?

mtlynch 8y ago

Thanks for reading! I do almost all of my hiring from Upwork, although most of my freelance costs in 2018 were to hire a former colleague who went freelance. I've written posts about how I hired the blog's illustrator[0] and editor[1]. My screening process varies depending on the job I'm hiring for. The #1 thing I'm looking for is communication. I look hard at the quality of writing on their profile bio and cover letter. I've been hiring freelancers for several years (before I quit) and the most common reason it doesn't work out is that the freelancer is a bad communicator and we burn excessive time on miscommunication. When I find someone who has promise, I generally just hire them for a small job (capped at 5-10 hours) without a lot of interviewing. I have this theory (not rigorously tested) that putting developers through a lot of screening is counterproductive because the people who are good have lots of options and don't want to jump through lots of unpaid hoops for you. I don't have a defined trial period, but I just incrementally start giving them more responsibility and increase their hours cap. I do fixed costs if it's a job that has a very distinct deliverable (e.g. convert this AngularJS site to Angular7). But if it's just that I want someone to do some of the dev work on a project, I'll just pay hourly. Price is determined at the start. On Upwork, the freelancers bid on the job and that's the price you go with. If I work with someone for a long time, I increase their rate periodically. If I'm not happy with the work, I pay for the time they put in, but I end the contract. I only refuse to pay if they either fail to deliver or deliver something that's unusable. That's very rare, though. It's only happened to me once out of 50ish hires on Upwork.[2] [0]: https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/ https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/ [1]: https://mtlynch.io/editor/ https://mtlynch.io/editor/ [2]: https://mtlynch.io/upwork-scammer/ https://mtlynch.io/upwork-scammer/