Unicorns are not built by outsourcing dev. Change my mind.
2 by dennisbalon | 0 comments on Hacker News.
My first post ever on HN. Would love to hear the opposite point of view. I reasonably believe that outsourcing is not good at all for creating a product. Especially the product. Or even, PRODUCT! (all caps!) Why not: 1. The main task of the outsourcing team is to implement the request, so to speak, to complete the task. This means taking money from you for hours spent, but NOT for MAKING a product that will be able to solve market problems and make money. 2. Outsourcing DOES NOT care that you may be able, or perhaps most likely, do not have the ability (what a weirdly polite way to say it) to create detailed and well-planned technical documentation that will lead to the desired results. 3. An outsourcing team as an entity is NOT a partner. To create a product, launch it and make it profitable, a Partner (capital P!) is required. What instead: 1. Find a partner. There is no short cut here and as the actual experience proves, alone one does not create a truly great (because let us agree you dream big!) product. 2. The partner must have real experience, but not the same as yours. Since we are talking about an IT startup, then search among people within IT experience. 3. You did not find a partner? Then just do not start. The probability of losing money is too great! Until you find a partner: 1. Set a goal to write documentation for your project. Write. Re-write. Shorten. Repeat. 2. Show the basic documentation you have created to familiar market experts. Especially try to find those experts whom no one loves for their eternal criticism of everything! 3. Finally, you can indulge a little bit with outsourcing development teams. Formulate the task for minimum viable product (MVP). Find good UI / UX designers from among your friends and create a little prototype. Outsourcing is acceptable only for simple one-time-use solutions, and outsourcing is quite cool for a small app that allows you to run between investors not empty-handed.