Have you outsourced part of your product? If yes, what was your experience like?

Question

I've got this product idea that's been keeping me up at night. The problem is, coding a whole web app solo doesn't seem feasible for me.

Have any of you ever tried outsourcing the development of your product? If you have, I'd love to hear your stories, the good and the bad. How did you even find the right team? What worked like a charm, and what made you facepalm multiple times?

Some context: I can work on the AI models, inference process, MLOps.. etc but building an entire web app, with the frontend, responsive view, payment and handling technical support is struggling so far...

Serhii Romanov · Accepted Answer

Sure. It's almost impossible to create completely finalized product alone. For example, for our products, we outsorsed DevOps, Swift developrs.

James Tedy · Answer

Hi Steven. I outsource some of the works we have in my startup because we're lacking the manpower. Personally, I like outsourcing works rather than hiring new people if you know the spike in workload is just temporary.

Here's the good and bad things from my experience:
Good:
- You can develop a feature/product faster because you have more hands on the development.
- It's cheaper than hiring full-time developer

Bad:
- They are working not only on your project but others too, so you need to clearly define the goals and milestone and deadline for them. Follow up on the project with them regularly too.
- Sometimes the developer is not as good as they said. Pick one with good reviews or check their previous work before hiring if possible.

Note:
- If the work is not from scratch, then it might take some time for them to get used to the repository

Steven M · Answer

@james_tedy Thanks for sharing! Judging from the experiences you shared, looks like I will have to hone my management skill 😅

Ivy · Answer

Or maybe the right team will find you first haha
As an outsource agency, I have met a lot of clients with the same worry. If you are considering to outsource your product, let's connect to see what we can offer ( as advantages) and what we can't (as disadvantages - but we can try our best to fix them together).

Some context: We are a full-stack IT outsourcing vendor which are capable of handling web app system, Blockchain, game, and many more

Have you outsourced part of your product? If yes, what was your experience like?

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