I have been a non-tech cofounder in a different industry (Business-to-government, EU), with an experienced CTO, we raised a preseed/seed of $250K but failed to raise more due the nature of our business and the industry declining.<p>Now, I have been working on a new idea for a few months on validation and on technical feasibility and decided to go for it. Its not very complicated to pull off tech-wise, and I found some open source projects that could be of help, but ultimately I would need a team of people to build it.<p>I obviously need a CTO and I have asked a few friends and acquaintances but at the moment theyre busy with jobs or working on their own projects, and its too early for them because I dont have much to show for at the moment. They have told me to validate the idea first by signing up potential customers and then come back.<p>So going forward, I can invest around $50K for an MVP, and the initial launch. I can start talking to customers, but I need a team of freelancers to build the MVP. I believe a single developer can build the MVP in 2-3 months considering that we can use the open source project I found and start from there.<p>My question is, how and where do you find effective and affordable freelancers? How do you go about it without getting burned? Do you go to a dev shop, or make a team of individual ones? Of course if I find a suitable freelancer and everything goes well I would onboard him as a cofounder. I am also open to giving out equity to the dev shop or the freelancers.<p>Any advice is appreciated and would be of help!
<p><pre><code> > My question is, how and where do you find effective and affordable freelancers? How do you go about it without getting burned?
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If you don't have anyone recommended by a <i>very</i> trusted source, then trial and error it is. If you find one who knows his/her stuff, stick to him/her. Unfortunately this is how it goes in 2024.