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This seems to be a fairly common problem amongst developers and designers. The first problem is actually shipping something that customers can buy. I'll skip o

This seems to be a fairly common problem amongst developers and designers. The first problem is actually shipping something that customers can buy. I'll skip over this because both Nathan and Amy have certainly been able to do that. So the next step, the 'white whale' project is the infamous second project. The advice out there suggests either: 1) Outsource Development (it certainly helps if you're a developer) or 2) Learn it the hard way and do everything yourself Rob Walling has certainly had fantastic success himself - all by outsourcing. In fact, if I remember correctly, Rob struggled to successfully launch countless products before he chose a different route. Rob chose to purchase existing businesses (HitTail, Beach Towels etc.) and then started marketing them . I don't believe he had any success before that. Amy Hoy has had great success with building everything herself - Freckle being a great example. However, Amy has also failed with Charm: "It ended up with me spending 2 years and $200k on something I had to shut down." It seems like it's not just as simple as choosing either option 1 or option 2. There are examples and counter-examples to both options.

ahoyhere 14y ago
FWIW, I never claimed to build everything myself… and we (my husband & I) made extensive use of freelance developers, support people, etc. Where do you think the $200k on Charm went? Not to my salary :) Charm would have been an enormous commercial success based on all the indicators, but we belatedly realized that running it would entail a stressful type of business we didn't want. Big fat "Duh" there. I stake full claim of my mistakes and warn others about it. This may sound like me twisting definitions but I don't think buying-an-existing-product is the same as outsourcing development, even if it is your only product. In the former, you've got something that already exists, that you can look at and try and poke around in; in the latter, you've got some rough designs and the hope that you picked the right freelancer. I've seen so many people take the latter course - true outsourcing - and flop around til their money was all gone. Despite trying very hard not to be a party to it, so many of my clients were like that. I eventually had to come to the conclusion that I could push them to cut back features and launch, but it wasn't my job to refuse to do what they asked just because it was dumb. On the other side, if you fully outsource your product, from scratch, what do you do if (as I mention in the transcript) you have a falling out and suddenly there's a major bug? You not only can't fix it yourself, you aren't sure if you know what it is, how to know if the person you hire can fix it, how to know if they've done a good job or not… plus your track record for hiring is already bad. It's a kind of helpless death spiral — tiny cuts leading to arterial spray. Sidebar: This has made me realize just how little I know about Rob's origin story, so I'm going to have to fix that :) And by "this" I mean "this discussion" and not "arterial spray," ha!
- charlieirish 14y ago
  So, are you saying always keep the core development/design internal? Regarding Charm, it wasn't always clear to me why you shut it down. You mentioned it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4814598 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4814598 which received some positive and negative comments. I'd rather not start that debate again but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on whether the development of Charm was the issue i.e. internal vs. outsourced. Rob has recently detailed his story on the excellent (and fairly new) Product People Podcast (from mijustin): http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/16/ep09-rob-walling-part1/ http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/16/ep09-rob-walling-part1/
  - ahoyhere 14y ago
    The issues with Charm have absolutely nothing to do with my position on outsourcing. They're two unrelated points that occurred in the same conversation :) It wasn't the development that was the issue. It was the preview of things to come, running an infrastructure product, and the general inability to hire somebody to just take that over for us entirely. Do not want. As for "core"… what does "core" mean? If you are helpless to fix things in your product, even on a stopgap emergency basis, you are going to be in for some miserable times. Unlike writing or design, code is completely impenetrable if you don't know a lot already.
rubeng 14y ago
I'm a big fan of outsourcing development as that was the route I chose to launch my product (http://www.bidsketch.com http://www.bidsketch.com) in a much shorter time than it took when I was doing everything myself. I outsourced the early code and design. Quality of both was shaky, but I only had $3,000 to put into it so I wasn't working with much. I later picked up on the last 25% of the development to get into a beta (since my cash ran out), but I was very glad I took this approach. I've since been able to work with higher quality of developers and designers and improved both areas, but when you have a product that's solving a real problem, customers will be more than happy to pay for that shaky 1st version (as they did with mine). That said, I have a dev background and learning Rails before outsourcing it was a big help. I know people that don't have a dev background and successfully outsourced dev of their products (I even helped a couple pick their developers), but it's a bit tougher and it helps if you have at least someone with a dev background that can help you pick the right developer.
- ahoyhere 14y ago
  Ruben, thanks for chiming in with your experience! You had development experience and could tell what was going on… and Nathan didn't, which is why I was discouraging him from that route. I personally don't know anyone w/o dev chops who fully outsourced the development of their product, with success. I'd love to hear about how your friends made it work. Was it with your help?
  - rubeng 14y ago
    You know, after I helped them out with picking a developer, they didn't ask for help once development started. I offered to help but they either didn't run into problems or didn't come to me when they did. These are the ones that were successful at it...many more were not. But I don't know if the ratio is the same for people with/without dev experience (plus sample size is too small). What I do know is that most: 1. Got help picking a developer initially 2. Had some guidelines on how to work with a developer 3. Had no development experience 4. Had to get learn how to outsource and made some mistakes (but eventually made it work) Outsourcing is tough at first but it gets easier. Like any skill, you have to get better at it. In any case, I do think it's a great idea to learn how to program so you're not so helpless if/when problems come up.

ahoyhere 14y ago

FWIW, I never claimed to build everything myself… and we (my husband & I) made extensive use of freelance developers, support people, etc. Where do you think the $200k on Charm went? Not to my salary :) Charm would have been an enormous commercial success based on all the indicators, but we belatedly realized that running it would entail a stressful type of business we didn't want. Big fat "Duh" there. I stake full claim of my mistakes and warn others about it. This may sound like me twisting definitions but I don't think buying-an-existing-product is the same as outsourcing development, even if it is your only product. In the former, you've got something that already exists, that you can look at and try and poke around in; in the latter, you've got some rough designs and the hope that you picked the right freelancer. I've seen so many people take the latter course - true outsourcing - and flop around til their money was all gone. Despite trying very hard not to be a party to it, so many of my clients were like that. I eventually had to come to the conclusion that I could push them to cut back features and launch, but it wasn't my job to refuse to do what they asked just because it was dumb. On the other side, if you fully outsource your product, from scratch, what do you do if (as I mention in the transcript) you have a falling out and suddenly there's a major bug? You not only can't fix it yourself, you aren't sure if you know what it is, how to know if the person you hire can fix it, how to know if they've done a good job or not… plus your track record for hiring is already bad. It's a kind of helpless death spiral — tiny cuts leading to arterial spray. Sidebar: This has made me realize just how little I know about Rob's origin story, so I'm going to have to fix that :) And by "this" I mean "this discussion" and not "arterial spray," ha!

charlieirish 14y ago
So, are you saying always keep the core development/design internal? Regarding Charm, it wasn't always clear to me why you shut it down. You mentioned it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4814598 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4814598 which received some positive and negative comments. I'd rather not start that debate again but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on whether the development of Charm was the issue i.e. internal vs. outsourced. Rob has recently detailed his story on the excellent (and fairly new) Product People Podcast (from mijustin): http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/16/ep09-rob-walling-part1/ http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/16/ep09-rob-walling-part1/
- ahoyhere 14y ago
  The issues with Charm have absolutely nothing to do with my position on outsourcing. They're two unrelated points that occurred in the same conversation :) It wasn't the development that was the issue. It was the preview of things to come, running an infrastructure product, and the general inability to hire somebody to just take that over for us entirely. Do not want. As for "core"… what does "core" mean? If you are helpless to fix things in your product, even on a stopgap emergency basis, you are going to be in for some miserable times. Unlike writing or design, code is completely impenetrable if you don't know a lot already.

rubeng 14y ago

I'm a big fan of outsourcing development as that was the route I chose to launch my product (http://www.bidsketch.com http://www.bidsketch.com) in a much shorter time than it took when I was doing everything myself. I outsourced the early code and design. Quality of both was shaky, but I only had $3,000 to put into it so I wasn't working with much. I later picked up on the last 25% of the development to get into a beta (since my cash ran out), but I was very glad I took this approach. I've since been able to work with higher quality of developers and designers and improved both areas, but when you have a product that's solving a real problem, customers will be more than happy to pay for that shaky 1st version (as they did with mine). That said, I have a dev background and learning Rails before outsourcing it was a big help. I know people that don't have a dev background and successfully outsourced dev of their products (I even helped a couple pick their developers), but it's a bit tougher and it helps if you have at least someone with a dev background that can help you pick the right developer.

ahoyhere 14y ago
Ruben, thanks for chiming in with your experience! You had development experience and could tell what was going on… and Nathan didn't, which is why I was discouraging him from that route. I personally don't know anyone w/o dev chops who fully outsourced the development of their product, with success. I'd love to hear about how your friends made it work. Was it with your help?
- rubeng 14y ago
  You know, after I helped them out with picking a developer, they didn't ask for help once development started. I offered to help but they either didn't run into problems or didn't come to me when they did. These are the ones that were successful at it...many more were not. But I don't know if the ratio is the same for people with/without dev experience (plus sample size is too small). What I do know is that most: 1. Got help picking a developer initially 2. Had some guidelines on how to work with a developer 3. Had no development experience 4. Had to get learn how to outsource and made some mistakes (but eventually made it work) Outsourcing is tough at first but it gets easier. Like any skill, you have to get better at it. In any case, I do think it's a great idea to learn how to program so you're not so helpless if/when problems come up.