My first post ever on HN. Would love to hear the opposite point of view.<p>I reasonably believe that outsourcing is not good at all for creating a product. Especially the product. Or even, PRODUCT! (all caps!)<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>3. You did not find a partner? Then just do not start. The probability of losing money is too great!<p>Until you find a partner:
1. Set a goal to write documentation for your project. Write. Re-write. Shorten. Repeat.<p>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!<p>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.<p>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.
No need to change your mind, you are correct. I can think of one success story over the last many years where the initial development was outsourced: craigslist. Beyond that, for <i>technology</i> startups, development is obviously a core competency.
I think I have an opposite PoV .<p>1. The goal for every outsourcing is to make your product great because only in that case they can upsell you and make more money.<p>2. Outsourcing company can and do create the detailed specifications, but usually founders don’t want to pay for that, thinking that they can formulate everything theirselves, that in most cases they cannot do because their vision changes rapidly. That’s why having a partner gives you a better flexibility.<p>Outsourcing works great when you have a clear vision or goal to achieve in that case you can benefit from the fast access to the competencies that you don’t have inside your team.<p>And of course costs matters, if you’re founder from the region where engineer salary is 3 times less the in SV it’s better to hire the core team then outsourcing it. But for US, Germany, Sweden, etc - outsourcing is more flexible and cost efficient solution.<p>P.S. find great partner is hard, find great outsourcing partner is also hard
You can substitute "outsourcing" with "employees" and everything you wrote would still apply.<p>In fact, I'm not sure if even the basic premise is correct - sure, you need a partner to handle the technical side but as you've surmised yourself - there is a place for outsourcing teams to build the MVP.<p>And obviously, even unicorns eventually end up hiring people.
It depends what quality of software and product you want to build. For an MVP, I think outsourcing is fine.<p>For growing a company and product, you want to make sure you are hiring the right team not only to build a killer product but also a team that will build maintainable software.