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I've never had luck outsourcing development to India (for a variety of reasons), though I know people who have. I'm curious about how those who have been succes

I've never had luck outsourcing development to India (for a variety of reasons), though I know people who have. I'm curious about how those who have been successful managed to succeed, and if it was more than just sheer luck.

justanotheratom 16y ago
I know of one case. Two founders, one American, one Indian (my brother), both highly technical. They were almost running out of money but also needed 5-6 programmers and someone to manage them, so they could take care of the business aspects. They took investment from angel investors, and my brother opened up shop in his home town in India, which is a small city. IMO the key to their success was that they were able to find this one guy who bootstrapped the entire business in India and managed it very well. Also, since this was a small city, they were able to find stable employees at reasonable salaries, unlike cities like Bangalore, Mumbai etc. which are very expensive and people keep switching jobs for salaries. Eventually the startup got acquired by an American Corporation and the operation in India is still going quite well.
- troels 16y ago
  Sounds like the key point here is that your brother is himself Indian and technical. Most people don't have those benefits.
  - justanotheratom 16y ago
    That is certainly true. But I would like to emphasize the importance of having a solid manager over in the India operation. Because even if you are Indian, it becomes difficult to manage from a long distance.
    - sid6376 16y ago
      I agree, i know of an entrepreneur who wanted to build a wildfire like app and hired some indian developers, but the project kept getting delayed and some stupid technical decisions were made. For his next project he went through references and also through drupal forums to find the developers. He then met with them personally and was in constant touch(it helped he was in india a lot) till the launch of the project.
datasink 16y ago
I was burned a few times early on, but now I'm fairly successful with outsourcing. The big stuff: be a coder or have one monitor the project progress, don't trust anyone, go hourly on large projects, sample new contractors with limited 1 hour projects, and demand daily commits to a VCS for hired coders. Without an expensive search, you won't be able to pay coders $5/hour and get good results. As another guy said, results from coders and designers in Eastern Bloc countries are typically way better, though the hourly is also higher. I've saved a sizable amount of time and money by not hiring <$10/hour guys. For those with skills that were charging less, there was always a gotcha hiding somewhere. Either they were going to string out the project intentionally, or try to use a crappy code generator program, or just try to game whatever controls had been put in place. It wasn't worth it.
rahoulb 16y ago
I now insist that developers spend at least a couple of hours per working day in my campfire room, so any issues or miscommunications are dealt with early. i also have process guidelines documents that they have to read - its fine to deviate from them but be prepared to justify that decision. however i'm also technical, so i can suggest alternatives to issues that crop up and i can recognise when i'm being bullshitted.

justanotheratom 16y ago

I know of one case. Two founders, one American, one Indian (my brother), both highly technical. They were almost running out of money but also needed 5-6 programmers and someone to manage them, so they could take care of the business aspects. They took investment from angel investors, and my brother opened up shop in his home town in India, which is a small city. IMO the key to their success was that they were able to find this one guy who bootstrapped the entire business in India and managed it very well. Also, since this was a small city, they were able to find stable employees at reasonable salaries, unlike cities like Bangalore, Mumbai etc. which are very expensive and people keep switching jobs for salaries. Eventually the startup got acquired by an American Corporation and the operation in India is still going quite well.

troels 16y ago
Sounds like the key point here is that your brother is himself Indian and technical. Most people don't have those benefits.
- justanotheratom 16y ago
  That is certainly true. But I would like to emphasize the importance of having a solid manager over in the India operation. Because even if you are Indian, it becomes difficult to manage from a long distance.
  - sid6376 16y ago
    I agree, i know of an entrepreneur who wanted to build a wildfire like app and hired some indian developers, but the project kept getting delayed and some stupid technical decisions were made. For his next project he went through references and also through drupal forums to find the developers. He then met with them personally and was in constant touch(it helped he was in india a lot) till the launch of the project.

datasink 16y ago

I was burned a few times early on, but now I'm fairly successful with outsourcing. The big stuff: be a coder or have one monitor the project progress, don't trust anyone, go hourly on large projects, sample new contractors with limited 1 hour projects, and demand daily commits to a VCS for hired coders. Without an expensive search, you won't be able to pay coders $5/hour and get good results. As another guy said, results from coders and designers in Eastern Bloc countries are typically way better, though the hourly is also higher. I've saved a sizable amount of time and money by not hiring <$10/hour guys. For those with skills that were charging less, there was always a gotcha hiding somewhere. Either they were going to string out the project intentionally, or try to use a crappy code generator program, or just try to game whatever controls had been put in place. It wasn't worth it.

rahoulb 16y ago

I now insist that developers spend at least a couple of hours per working day in my campfire room, so any issues or miscommunications are dealt with early. i also have process guidelines documents that they have to read - its fine to deviate from them but be prepared to justify that decision. however i'm also technical, so i can suggest alternatives to issues that crop up and i can recognise when i'm being bullshitted.