Remote development is the absolute slowest way to get anything done. Startups need speed, a lot of the time. I've worked with every arrangement of developer mg

Remote development is the absolute slowest way to get anything done. Startups need speed, a lot of the time. I've worked with every arrangement of developer mgmt on websites I've built. Inside, outside, agencies, freelancers, directly managed on agile teams, separate departments on semi-waterfall teams. Outsourcing works best when you have a lot of predictable work to do, for example (these are from my direct experience) 1) upgrading a CMS in an environment with lots of custom app dev. (Say what you will about how much it makes sense to write custom apps in a CMS; I agree with you). When we decided to prioritize the upgrade over new work, we got outside devs to work alongside the local agile team, to do the more predictable, less troublesome work. 2) Retrofitting secure forms processing onto an existing CMS where (to reduce attack surface) the secure site did not run inside the CMS, but used HTML exported from the CMS (for design/nav elements etc.). I actually think this would have been better with internal staff, but the one-off nature of the project meant that hiring FT was not possible. I just don't see running a startup that either of these situations (or their analogues) will come up. For a startup you need fewer staff, doing less management and more work, as quickly as possible (most of the time). You need people who get code, get security, can manage a server, can set up a heroku app, etc. WITHOUT a lot of oversight because you are just not prepared, or too busy to do it.