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I'm genuinely surprised by the wherewithal entrepreneurs have at hiring domestic talent. Anyone know why outsourcing isn't more popular- particularly among B2B

I'm genuinely surprised by the wherewithal entrepreneurs have at hiring domestic talent. Anyone know why outsourcing isn't more popular- particularly among B2B startups? I'm a developer myself, but if I was an entrepreneur with no coding skills, I'd hire some guys in India to crank out my lo-fi MVP and use that to find a product/market fit and then raise money. I suppose it's not that easy though, is it?

RyJones 13y ago
I have seen outsourcing done many times. I have never seen even a partial success.
- spamizbad 13y ago
  What usually goes wrong?
  - njr123 13y ago
    The quality of the outsourced programmers is extremely low. They might cost 20% of a domestic programmer, but if you got even 20% of the productivity you'd be pretty lucky. These outsourcing companies will also only do exactly what you have specified. This means the specs have to be very precise, in a way that I think would be difficult to do if you weren't a programmer already
    - abalashov 13y ago
      Indeed. Plus general communication problems, language problems, time zone problems, and lack-of-shared-intellectual-culture problems. It's a lot to overcome to save a few pennies.
saumil07 13y ago
I have yet to see it work successfully in a startup context - I am sure it can be done and there is certainly empirical evidence out there - but I have yet to see it work. The feedback loop is frequently difficult to get right. Communication barriers don't help (fwiw I grew up in India so have some sort of limited advantage but not by much). The time zone difference does actually slow things down a tad bit more. You talk about 2 rather different milestones in your comment - building a lo-fi MVP is certainly possible with an offshore team. But lo-fi MVP != product/market fit on any reasonable definition of p/m fit (Sean Ellis' formulation of 40% of users/customers) being disappointed with your disappearance, say). Getting to p/m fit may require lots of rapid experimentation, iteration, brainstorming and so forth...and that's when you can run into trouble with offshore contractors.
flyinRyan 13y ago
Well, most startups appear to pay crap rates with dubious company ownership schemes. What more value could they get out of outsourcing when they're likely already paying far below minimum wage?

RyJones 13y ago

I have seen outsourcing done many times. I have never seen even a partial success.

spamizbad 13y ago
What usually goes wrong?
- njr123 13y ago
  The quality of the outsourced programmers is extremely low. They might cost 20% of a domestic programmer, but if you got even 20% of the productivity you'd be pretty lucky. These outsourcing companies will also only do exactly what you have specified. This means the specs have to be very precise, in a way that I think would be difficult to do if you weren't a programmer already
  - abalashov 13y ago
    Indeed. Plus general communication problems, language problems, time zone problems, and lack-of-shared-intellectual-culture problems. It's a lot to overcome to save a few pennies.

saumil07 13y ago

I have yet to see it work successfully in a startup context - I am sure it can be done and there is certainly empirical evidence out there - but I have yet to see it work. The feedback loop is frequently difficult to get right. Communication barriers don't help (fwiw I grew up in India so have some sort of limited advantage but not by much). The time zone difference does actually slow things down a tad bit more. You talk about 2 rather different milestones in your comment - building a lo-fi MVP is certainly possible with an offshore team. But lo-fi MVP != product/market fit on any reasonable definition of p/m fit (Sean Ellis' formulation of 40% of users/customers) being disappointed with your disappearance, say). Getting to p/m fit may require lots of rapid experimentation, iteration, brainstorming and so forth...and that's when you can run into trouble with offshore contractors.

flyinRyan 13y ago

Well, most startups appear to pay crap rates with dubious company ownership schemes. What more value could they get out of outsourcing when they're likely already paying far below minimum wage?