Most outsourced projects fail, or at the very least businesses settle for “good enough” out of business necessity. I talked about this in-depth in my essay on why most outsourced projects fail on Upwork. I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve seen it with friends. Clients. Business partners. You name it. But, remote work is the future. According to Upwork Research Studies and Statistics, 50% of the American Workforce have worked from home since May 2020. And although I’ve been highly critical of the current state of the freelance marketplace, it’s not because of Upwork or any other freelance marketplace – it’s how businesses and freelancers utilize the platform. Many want to outsource overseas to save money, but the age old adage remains true, “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”

I do most of my hiring on Upwork, but do consider alternatives…

First off, feel free to use Upwork, Freelancer, Guru or any other platform as the same concepts will more or less apply. We know that Upwork is the biggest, due to the merger with Elance and oDesk. But according to the latest financials and statistic, Fiverr is right behind Upwork. And that’s where I would tend to point people for most projects, but before signing up checkout our post on the 10 Most Popular Things to Outsource and Where to Outsource It. For a TL;DR the simplest tasks and if you’re flat broke you should check Fiverr first where most jobs start at $5 (see our favorite business gigs on Fiverr). For design related tasks, I’d venture towards the crowdsourced market. Before jumping into the step-by-step guide to hiring on Upwork, I want you to think about two things very carefully – these two concepts could save you a ton of $$$ and headache. Think less about saving money, and more about gaining access to talent across the world. 

Hiring Online Freelancers on Upwork without Losing Your Sanity

Businesses tend to think money first, as a matter of fact the #1 reason for companies to outsource was to “reduce operating costs”. And that’s perfectly fine for rudimentary tasks such as data entry, bookkeeping, etc. But when the task requires more creativity, it’s tough to find $100k talent at $10/hr. Think less about price and more about value.   If you’re hiring a marketing consultant, hire the guy who can clearly articulate how he could help you generate a return on investment. Perhaps with experience and case studies in your industry. Sure you could take a shot at the fresh out of college marketing major, or the $8/hr “Marketing Guru” from India but I’ve found that the latter options are typically a little more liberal with their hours. You don’t want to pay someone to twiddle their thumbs – you want results.

How to Hire on “A” Players on Upwork and Other Freelance Websites

For programming and software development, there are a few options. As I will detail in this post, one of my first projects was on a tight budget of $1,000. Remember that salaries of good developers essentially start at $100k in the USA so I knew what I was up against. But I just wanted to build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and see where I can go from there. And if you’re on that sort of budget, or if you just need a simple website or short-term project – Upwork is still the best way to go. But there are a lot of caveats to that. I consider myself fairly technical, and even spent some time learning how to code just so I could communicate a little more effectively with developers. And I was looking to hire in the $20-50/hr range, I haven’t seen many people have much luck hiring for less than that. Upwork Tip for Hiring a Developer: Don’t even think about hiring for less than $20/hr – I’ve seen very few case studies of this working well.  For long-term projects, or if you have a bigger budget, you have a lot more flexibility. For the person who doesn’t just want things done – you want things done right, I’d try TopTal, a company that works with the top 3% of talent. And I’ve seen first hand that 3% isn’t an understatement. The beauty of the platform is that they’ve solved a lot of the problems non-technical people have with UpWork. They screen the developers. They provide the coding tests. And they can have developers interview prospective developers (because they really do speak another language). They do also pay developers on Toptal about $60-95/hr, which is a reasonable freelance rate, but higher than the average on Upwork. And they also provide a two week free trial with a developer, which I personally don’t see how that’s very feasible from TopTal’s perspective… but my guess is that enough people convert to make it worth it. Whatever platform you decide on, I’d recommend sticking with it and building a reputation on there because prospecting freelancers can looks at profiles for insights on your hiring rate %, feedback and how much you’re willing to spend. I’ve been on both sides of the table and anyone with a low hiring % and/or looking for < $10/hr workers won’t even get my attention. After you’ve signed up, one of the most important considerations is: 1. Razor Concise Job Description.  Don’t use the template job descriptions UpWork offers. Template job descriptions attract template cover letters (we’ll see why this is bad in step 2, “The Brown M&M Technique”). If you truly need a little inspiration scope out your competitors, or companies that you admire for job descriptions. In any case, make sure your description is razor concise and describes exactly what you need. Here’s an example from a job description that led to a successful project (also mentioned in How to Outsource Web Development below):

We are hiring a Ruby on Rails developer to create a web application. Applicants will first be asked to complete version 1.0 of the website, estimated budget for this phase is $1000. We will likely hire multiple candidates for this phase to find the best developer. The chosen developer will be asked to complete the rest of the project. Does this make sense? If not, let me know. The requirements for version 1.0 are as follows: [redacted]

Few things on note:

  • “Ruby on Rails”: I knew exactly what technology I would be building on
  • “Applicants will first be asked to complete version 1.0 of the website”: Even beyond any interview coding tests, you’ll want to make sure that the web developer has the talent to complete the first version of your website.
  • “Estimated budget for this phase is $1000″: For small projects I much prefer a fixed rate vs hourly rate – you want to pay for value, not time (more details later).
  • “We will likely hire multiple candidates”: Even if you don’t have the budget to do so, even mentioning it can weed out low level talent.

I continued the job description with a section on the ideal candidate:

The Ideal Candidate: – Write beginner friendly, clean, modular, robust code to implement the desired requirements with little or no supervision. I ask for “beginner friendly” because I am attempting to learn RoR without any previous programming experience (good luck, I know). Comments should be used to give background information or annotate difficult code. – Strong communication skills, proficient with English, and comfortable speaking on Skype. – Required Programming Languages: Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, and Javascript. – Do you have any open source projects? Please provide links. – Do you contribute to the Rails community? Personal blog? Participate in Q&A? Please provide links. – References – What other startups have you worked with?

Few things of note:

  • “Strong communication skills”: No exceptions. Tim Ferriss emphasized this in the outsourcing section in The 4-Hour Workweek and I agree. Language barriers can lead to catastrophic errors. Don’t make that mistake. Interview your candidates over Skype to ensure that communication won’t be an issue (among other things).
  • “Open source projects?… Contribute to the Rails community?”:  I’ve found that people who find a way to give back are easiest to work with, and are a little more flexible with billable hours. Plus, I’m looking for someone a little like me and I look for a person who contributes much like I do with the marketing community.
  • “References?”: References are so under utilized online, especially since I’ve seen quite a few people throw projects in their portfolio that don’t belong to them. One of the biggest things you can do is ask for a reference, and then send that person a quick email. As a freelancer, your best salespeople should be your clients.

2. Finish your job description with “The Brown M&M Technique.” I use this technique in every job description, and it’s proven time and time again that over 50% of applicants don’t actually read your job description. Instead they opt to use the same copy and pasted cover letter that spam every listing with. These are the applicants you want to avoid. What’s the technique? In his latest bestseller, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Atul Gawande highlights David Lee Roth’s weird obsession with Brown M&M’s (and it’s not how they tasted):

Listening to the radio, I heard the story behind rocker David Lee Roth’s notorious insistence that Van Halen’s contracts with concert promoters contain a clause specifying that a bowl of M&M’s has to be provided backstage, but with every single brown candy removed, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation to the band. And at least once, Van Halen followed through, peremptorily canceling a show in Colorado when Roth found some brown M&M’s in his dressing room. This turned out to be, however, not another example of the insane demands of power-mad celebrities but an ingenious ruse. As Roth explained in his memoir, Crazy from the Heat, “Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third level markets. We’d pull up with nine 18-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function.” So just as a little test, buried somewhere in the middle of the rider, would be article 126, the no-brown-M&M’s clause. “When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl,” he wrote, “well, we’d line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error… Guaranteed you’d run into a problem.” These weren’t trifles, the radio story pointed out. The mistakes could be life-threatening. In Colorado, the band found the local promoters had failed to read the weight requirements and the staging would have fallen through the arena.

Implementing that same concept, this was the last line in the Ruby on Rails job listing:

VERY IMPORTANT: To separate you from the spammers, please write I AM REAL as the first line of your bid. We will delete all bids that do not start with this phrase, since most bidders never read the requirements. Thank you for being one who does.

You’d be shocked with how many people don’t actually read your job description – even the most successful freelancers on Upwork tend to skim the details. 3. Price: Fixed vs Hourly Remember, think about value, not price. You want to pay for results, and that’s why I tend to lean toward milestone based fixed pricing. If you’re building a web or mobile app, think about releasing payment as new features are successfully added. If you’re adding a writer, think about getting a fixed price for the article. If you just want a logo design, negotiate a fixed price for 3 samples. For short-term tasks, fixed pricing is ideal. Obviously, for long-term work that isn’t quite as feasible. Hourly pricing has it’s advantages as well though, especially with Upwork’s Work View software that takes screenshots at random intervals for your review to ensure that they’re working. It takes away some of that angst from businesses wondering, “Are my remote workers actually working?” But be careful, just because there’s screenshots doesn’t mean they’re working – they could just be working extremely slowly and in disputes UpWork will likely side with the freelancer there. Either way, Upwork’s payment protection covers both scenarios. 4. Submitting your job and inviting candidates Once you’ve nailed down the details, you can go ahead and post your job. If you’re new, I’d recommend verifying a payment method so freelancers know you’re serious (there’s no commitment to hire or pay anything). Invite Freelancers – One of the biggest mistakes I made was opting to let the proposals come in instead of taking 10 minutes and find freelancers that would be perfect for the position. With over 100k+ active projects on Elance, it’s easy for freelancers to miss a project that’s perfect for them. 5. The Interview and Selection Process I’m not an HR pro, so I’ll keep this section short and sweet as there’s a lot of better resources out there for how to conduct an interview. Though I will offer a few tips with regards to hiring online:

  • Immediately delete any applicant who didn’t pass your “Brown M&M” Test, or when the cover letter looks copy and pasted. The best candidates submit proposals tailor made for your business.
  • If you’re hiring offshores, just make sure communication won’t be an issue.
  • Be sure to validate their skills, and don’t rely on Elance’s Skills Tests scores listed on their profiles.

And it goes without saying, when selecting a candidate, think about value, not price. I’ve said this time and time again and I’m sure you’re nodding along at home – but seldom do I really see it implemented. Think about this. Let’s say you want to hire a writer. You’ll get 100 applicants, easy. But ask the question, “Do you have a blog that generates over 10,000 hits a month?” And you’ll be lucky to have one qualified candidate – that’s the guy you want. Let’s say you want to hire a SEO consultant, a lot of them make money selling SEO, but how many actually make money doing SEO for themselves? Think about it. I know this first hand, the best at SEO are better off doing it for themselves. But there are many who have time for side projects… so to find that top talent ask the question, “Do you have a website that earns at least $1k a month through SEO?” Again, candidates like that are rare, Upwork is flooded with snake oil… but there are diamonds in the rough. These are the types of questions I would have in the job description to weed out the garbage. Then in the interview, that’s where you’ll want to go in-depth. 6. Working with freelancers and last few tips

  • Establish Parkinson’s Law – The law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, remember the nights in college where you crammed out an entire 8-page essay because it was due 9AM the next morning? That’s Parkinson’s Law in effect. Set deadlines, here’s how Tim Ferriss does it in The 4-Hour Work Week:
Use Parkinson’s Law and assign tasks that are to be completed within no more than 72 hours. I have had the best luck with 48 and 24 hours. This is another compelling reason to use a small group (three or more) rather than a single individual who can become overtaxed with last-minute requests from multiple clients. Using short deadlines does not mean avoiding larger tasks (eg. business plan), but rather breaking them into smaller milestones that can be completed in shorter time frames (outline, competitive research summaries, chapters, etc.).

Lastly, here’s an example Ferriss uses as a well written task email to his VA:

Dear Sowmya, Thank you. I would like to start with the following task. TASK: I need to find the names and e-mails of editors of men’s magazines in the US (for example: maxim, stuff, GQ, esquire, blender, etc.) who also have written books. An example of such a person would be AJ Jacobs who is Editor-at-Large of Esquire (www.ajjacobs.com). I already have his information and need more like him. Can you do this? If not, please advise. Please reply and confirm what you will plan to do to complete this task. DEADLINE: Since I’m in a rush, get started after your next e-mail and stop at 3 hours and tell me what results you have. Please begin this now if possible. The deadline for these 3 hours and reported results is end-of-day ET Monday. Thank you for your fastest reply, Tim

While designed for a VA, these concepts can be applied to nearly any other freelancer. I will note though that the ideal hire is a person you won’t have to micro manage, ie. a person who can handle a little ambiguity and find a way to complete the necessary tasks. Next let’s talk about a tips for hiring a freelance writer…

Unconventional Tips on How to Hire a Freelance Writer

Hiring freelance writers, a popular subject, without a doubt. Everyone has an opinion. The writers. Entrepreneurs. Businesses, etc. But what actually works? I asked a lot of top entrepreneurs in this space that very question:

How do you go about finding and cultivating writers, and may I ask the rate you’re looking to pay to generate a ROI?

I came away without an answer. And perhaps it’s a difficult question to answer considering everyone’s situation is different. Generating a Return on Investment (ROI) is highly individualistic for every business. For tech startups, you can throw a lot of money at content writing because you’re looking to reach scale and monetize through your service. Since this is a blog that focuses on outsourcing, let’s look at TopTal. The freelance marketplace was once dominated by Elance and oDesk (whom have now merged to form UpWork). They have invested heavily into content for long-tail keywords: TopTal SEO …And it has obviously paid off as they’re now one of the biggest players in this space. When you Google something in the short-tail that they’re targeting, eg. “hire developers”, they’re ranking #1. What’s even crazier is that they started with just a “$1.4 million seed from Andreessen Horowitz, and angels like Quora’s Adam D’Angelo and Adam Rockefeller to build a profitable business.” That might sound like a lot of money, but it’s relatively small in the tech startup world. So circling back to the idea of how to hire a freelance writer – it depends. What are your goals and how do you plan to monetize? Because it’s different for every type of business, and it depends what you need. But I feel as though one tip that would work for any business is…

Hire a writer who actually makes money through their writing (versus selling it as a service)

So if you’re hiring a blogger, hire the one that actually has a blog with some traffic. The best are able to do it themselves. Period. The problem is, finding a writer at a price that can generate a return for you.

Find the Rookies

The Lakers just signed LeBron James to a $154 million contract 🐑 👑 I apologize for the NBA analogy for those who don’t follow basketball, but hopefully you’ll get the idea. You can’t afford the LeBron James of writing. But as a rookie, LeBron made $4 million his first year. So put on your GM cap, and look for some promising talent. For writers, I recommend using UpWork. Fiverr is another option, but I’ve found that to be a hit or miss. With UpWork you might get 100+ applicants, but in your job description if you add a single requirement:

  • Must have your own blog/website that generates 1000+ visits a month.

Relatively small requirement in the media space, no one’s really even making any money at 1000 visits. But based on my experience, you’ll slice 100 applicants to less than 5 qualified ones real quick.

How Much Should You Pay a Freelance Writer

It really depends. And I’ve tried every price point. I’d really avoid things like Fiverr and cheap writing companies. For listicles, or things that don’t require much knowledge, you can hire on the cheaper end. Here’s an example:

I basically just hired a writer to curate 50 websites and write 1-2 lines about them. Not a very difficult task, but it’s good post for this blog. It’s relevant to the niche, useful to the audience, and it will likely generate a small return in the long run. But for most posts, I look to hire around $200 for 1,000 words. And if you want to generate a ROI at that price, you have to do a lot of the research yourself. Make sure the keywords you’re targeting can generate a ROI.

When and What to Hire Freelance Writers

I don’t particularly enjoy writing. I’m not very good at it either, that’s why I’ve always tried to find a way to outsource it. But I’ve found it difficult to do it effectively, so when I do hire freelance writers, it’s on subjects that I may not be an expert in. For example, on 1kCreatives, I hired a writer for How to Start a Video Production Company. As a photographer learning video, I thought it would be a great post that I can add-on to… and if it ranks well in search it could bring in a decent amount of traffic. Recall that I started this post mentioning that I asked top entrepreneurs how they hire freelance writers:

How do you go about finding and cultivating writers, and may I ask the rate you’re looking to pay to generate a ROI?

I don’t think I got an answer for a reason, it’s hard to do effectively. Even when you look at top advocates of outsourcing, you’ll see that they don’t outsource freelancing writing very much. Tim Ferriss, author of the popular best seller, The 4 Hour Work Week, when you look at this blog, he isn’t generating content from freelance writers. Nor does he hire a ghostwriter for his books. Pat Flynn, who also doesn’t outsource freelance writing on his personal blog. He does however, have a team for his Food Truck website, a field he acknowledges that he doesn’t have experience in but he has found a way to successfully outsource it to capitalize on the growing food truck industry:

Last Thoughts

Hiring a good writer is easy, hiring a writer that can help generate a ROI for you can be a little tougher. Now, it could be different depending on the type of writer you’re looking for but the same concepts apply. If you’re looking for a ghostwriter to help for a book you want to write, the marketing and promotion really falls upon your shoulders. If you’re looking for a writer for a press release (here are the best press release services), you can look for the writer who can show you a press release that has worked for one of their clients… but at the end of the day, the success of your launch is predicated upon writing of your press release. The final tip is that if you’re working with a freelancer on an hourly rate, don’t give him/her a license to waste time. Request status updates and review Upwork’s Work View screenshots to ensure that they’re actually working. I’ve worked with a VA in the past that thought they could milk a few hours by making minor progress hour to hour (ie. 5 minutes of work). I fired her immediately.  Integrity is very important with remote workers, and if you notice anything fishy just move on. As the old adage goes, “Hire slow and fire fast.”

This Is How Google Hires The World’s Top Talent

Let’s get straight to the point on hand – how the heck does Google hire the best talent in the world? Sure, just their sheer brand has the power to attract the best talent from all across the world – but then how do they sift through that? Perhaps one of the most famous ways Google has attracted talent is through this unbranded billboard: Mystery Google Billboard for Hiring Developers The billboard read, “{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits e}.com.” I know you’re working on it, don’t worry I’ll let you gather your answer. . . . Wow, you’re a genius. Did you really land upon the answer of 7427466391.com? I’d point you to that website to land that cushy 6 figure job with awesome benefits at Google but not only is the website down, but this billboard is over a decade old. Let’s let that tear out now 😢 Well, except for the fact that answer would just lead you to that website with another puzzle to solve (still not knowing that this little quest was made by Google). But assuming you’d crack that (and you can head over here for a breakdown on the solution), you would have been greeted with this message:

One thing we learned while building Google is that it’s easier to find what you’re looking for if it comes looking for you. What we’re looking for are the best engineers in the world. And here you are. As you can imagine, we get many, many resumes every day, so we developed this little process to increase the signal-to-noise ratio.

Google receives over 3,000,000 applicants a year, and only hires 0.2% (data from 2014). So a well deserved slow-freaking-clap to the person that solved this puzzle. I mean, this was back in the day when people were actually paying attention to billboards instead of their cell phones while they were driving (yes, I’m talking to you!). Later that same year, Google would release a 4-page long aptitude test that could land you a job with Google. The page is down down, but thanks to the wayback machine we still have an archive of the webpage. Curious to know if you could have passed that? MathWorld still has the list of questions and some answers. Another test, this one more recent, would unlock when you search complex programming terms in Google. So I guess to summarize, Google has been well known to host a variety of programming challenges to attract top talent. But how is this relevant to me? If you’re most businesses, this probably isn’t that helpful. You’re not plunking down thousands on a billboard or programming challenges but you still need to acquire some technical talent. Well, the Google Developers channel on YouTube has a video that could help smaller businesses find, screen and hire developers: For the lazy, here were some of the key tips:

  • As a small team you need more than a specialist… you can’t just have a front-end or back-end developer, a firmware or hardware developer, “we expect the guys to developer right across the stack.”
  • 5-Step Hiring Process: 1.) Receive the CV,  2.) Initial Email Screening, 3.) the Telephone or Google Hangouts Screening, 4.) An interview with the dev team and 5.) inviting the candidate to work for a half or full day with the team to see if he/she is a cultural fit.

For the non-tech savvy, this process is a lot more difficult but I do have a guide on how to hire online freelancers on UpWork, but that’s more for a short term project. 99Designs, which we’ve talked about before, is another good place for small design projects. If you know you’re going to need at least 60 hours of design/development than think about using a platform like Toptal, who essentially handles the screening process for you. For marketing, biz dev and other things, you’ll have to try the UpWork. On the flip side, if you’re the prospective interviewee, checkout this guide by Google on How We Hire where they have tips on how to prepare and how to stand out. If you want to know what they’ll ask, here’s a list of over 140 Google Interview Questions and here’s another 15 – with the answers. Here’s a few experiences people have had interviewing with Google:

Any other questions? Have you worked at Google and can provide information on the interview process? Feel free to chime in on the comments below!

How to Outsource Web Development

With many cities lacking technical talent, outsourcing web development has become the popular choice for businesses around the world. We’ve touched on the challenges of websites like Upwork and Toptal, the most popular places to outsource web development. And while the sentiments of that post, as well as comments from our readers, echo that web development is extremely difficult to outsource, for some, it’s their only option.

Why Outsourcing Web Development is Difficult & Why Many Fail

Most want to outsource web development overseas to save money, but the age old adage remains true, “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” Ruby on Rails developers in the United States make over $100k a year on salary, so when I hear stories of failed web dev projects, I can only assume most tried to find $100k talent for $10/hr. And whether you’re hiring someone for $100/hr or $15/hr, if you’re non-technical, how do you evaluate technical talent? Most don’t and rely on the developers portfolio (where some list projects they didn’t even do), the eLance/oDesk programming skills test (where answers can be Googled) or their reviews. If you’re non-technical, you should really consider hiring a project manager, as the best people at outsourcing web development understand the technology, they understand code. We’ve even seen stories of a $100k+ USA employed developer outsourcing their job to China for a 5th of the price. Another option is going with a reliable company, providing a whole stack of outsourcing web development services. Another perhaps even better, source through a marketplace like Toptal, a company that promises the top 3% and design and development talent.

Introduce a Coding Test

If you’re looking to outsource web development, a simple way to evaluate technical talent is to ask the developer to write a simple program. Imran Ghory developed a simple test called “FizzBuzz,” a test that can be completed by good developers in a few minutes. Though, as the article points out, he found that many computer science graduates couldn’t even finish the test, or self-proclaimed senior programmers took 10+ minutes. I’ve used this test with success, and weeded out a lot of bad applicants. If you’re hiring online, to conduct this test, ask the interviewee to share his screen during a Skype interview and then give him/her the “FizzBuzz” instructions. If he/she declines, or takes longer than 5 minutes – move on to the next applicant.

Understand What You Need, and Be Clear in Your Job Posting

Do you know the difference between a web designer and web developer? The difference between PHP and CSS? WordPress and Drupal? Do you have a wireframe? If you answered no to all these questions (you’re not alone) – I would advise you to ask technical friends, or at least find technical people in your city through Meetup.com (or like sites) and attend one of their meet-ups. Unlike a consultation, there’s less of a sales pitch and you might find that working locally with someone (even at a premium) is well worth the price compared to the challenges faced with outsourcing marketplaces. Or at the very least you’ll gain new insight about what you’re looking for. With regards to job postings, here’s a sample I’ve used in the past:

We are hiring a Ruby on Rails developer to create a web application. Applicants will first be asked to complete version 1.0 of the website, estimated budget for this phase is $1000. We will likely hire multiple candidates for this phase to find the best developer. The chosen developer will be asked to complete the rest of the project. Does this make sense? If not, let me know. The requirements for version 1.0 are as follows: [redacted]

Few things on note:

  • “Ruby on Rails”: I knew exactly what technology I would be building on
  • “Applicants will first be asked to complete version 1.0 of the website”: Even beyond any interview coding tests, you’ll want to make sure that the web developer has the talent to complete the first version of your website.
  •  “Estimated budget for this phase is $1000″: I much prefer s fixed rate vs hourly – you want to pay for value, not time. “Breakdown what you need done into milestones and release payment upon completion of each milestone” says web developer Helge Sverre. “This creates a win-win for both parties, and it insures that you’re paying for results.”
  • “We will likely hire multiple candidates”: Even if you don’t have the budget to do so, even mentioning it can weed out low level talent.

How about mobile development? How do you hire an Android or iOS Developer?

All the same concepts apply, but in this post we’ll delve into the specifics for hiring an Android and/or iOS developer. Let’s quickly summarize the aforementioned posts (though I do recommend going through them):

  1. Yes, this article is titled “How to Save Money Hiring a Android & iOS Developer” but that doesn’t mean you should skimp on talent. It’s simple – You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Good developers can make well over $100k/yr here in the US. Most of the horror stories I hear are when companies try to outsource for $10/hr. I’ve had a lot of luck with the $25-50/hr range on UpWork for basic projects. For serious projects, I’d seek the help of Toptal.
  2. During the interview process, introducing a coding test can weed out a lot of unqualified applicants.
  3. Starting out with someone new, I prefer a fixed cost based on milestones versus an hourly rate. You don’t want to pay for someone to twiddle their thumbs, you want results. If not an option, at least work on building a clear timeline for what can be done in X amount of time.

The “saving money” aspect of this article really implies that you’ll save a lot of money getting things done right the first time. App development can be very costly, especially if done incorrectly. If you have some development experience, things might be made a little easier. Even though Mark Zuckerberg might be a weak coder in compared to when he started Facebook, he still has the technical competence to understand that language, and he knows the right qualities in a good developer. If you’re non-technical, you have your work cut out for you. If you don’t have money, I’d seek a co-founder. If you do have money, I’d go the Toptal route and get things done right the first time… I feel like they really solved the problem UpWork had, they filter for the best talent and they have project management to help ensure projects go smoothly. If you’re a non-technical founder, those two points can’t be understated. If you have some technical experience, and don’t mind a little project management, I find UpWork to be a viable option. Again, I’ve had luck in the $25-$50/hr range. Related: How to Be a Freelancer 101 Hiring locally is an option too, but often times the best talent isn’t within your 25 mile radius. It may work in one of the bigger tech cities, like Silicon Valley, Austin, LA, NYC, etc… but YMMW in a lot of other markets. But before you even look to hiring an Android or iOS developer…

Do you really even need a custom app solution?

Forget apps for a second, you’d be shocked by the amount of businesses that think they need spend thousands on a custom website solution when a simple templated WordPress setup for under $100 will do. It’s actually still a thing, which makes sense, why would a web development company sell you a $100 website when they can sell you a $5000 one? Businesses are finally starting to wise up though, with WordPress now powering 30% of the web, up from 25% in 2015. So when thinking about an app – do you really even need one?… Or can one of many platforms for building mobile apps help? Many, like Thunkable, are now cross-platform meaning it can create apps that work for both Android and iOS. Everyone’s situation is different, but this is one of the most important decisions your business can make.

Android, iOS or Both?

Swift is a programming language released in 2014 designed for Apple, including iOS. And it’s popularity continues to grow, perhaps because iOS app users tend to spend more money and it’s been going up year after year. It’s why many new apps hit the Apple Store first. So one could argue that looking for a development team experienced with Swift might be the way to go (and Swift may have cross-platform support in the future), or perhaps look for a team familiar with Scade, a cross-platform framework that allows you to develop Android and iOS apps with Swift. But then again, it really may depend on your market. Android still has the stronghold in marketshare, which if you’re monetizing in a CPM/CPA basis – that might be the route to go. Again, everyone’s situation is different – but identifying these issues early can save you a lot of money (and headache) in the long run.

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Web Developer

Having consulted for numerous businesses, I’ve also worked with a number of web development companies that helped them put together a website. Some were good, some were bad, and some were downright terrible. Many of the clients I’ve worked with transitioned from bad web developers. Transitioning isn’t easy, and losing money is never fun for a web development company, therefore they could make your life a living hell if you wanted transition, at the expense of your business (eg. they own your domain name). But if you get things right the first time, you could avoid a lot of these problems. While this post addresses both designers and developers, you should also checkout our last post on How to Hire a Web Designer. Fortunately, I’ve put together a list to help you avoid hiring a bad web developer: 1. Know What You’re Looking For – If you’re a local business providing goods or services in your area, for example, let’s just say you’re a plumber. If you’re a plumber, you want one thing from your website – more calls. Well guess what? A new website isn’t the key monetization driver.  I’ve worked with a lot of businesses owners, most of them are experts at what they do. But when it comes to technology, they can sometimes be a little irrational on their needs because they don’t know the space as much as I do. They think, “If I can rearrange the Facebook button… or make this a little bit nicer… or just move the phone number over here” that somehow magically you’re going to start getting 10 more calls a day. And that simply isn’t true, as a matter of fact you could potentially be decreasing your conversion rate. Perhaps look for a digital agency that specializes in your type of business. You don’t want someone to design a website for the sake of designing websites. You want value. You see, most web development companies, or even SEO consultants have it wrong. Hiring web designers or developers is a cost – they usually provide little when it comes to the business end (unless you’re Mark Zuckerberg).  And most SEO’s focus on rankings, not revenue. Look for someone focused on improving what you really want – if you’re a plumber, that’s getting you more calls. So unless you need a scalable web application (think eBay, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) you don’t need several thousand dollars for a website and you don’t need to hire a dedicated web developer who makes 6 figures a year. You need to… 2.  Get Quotes from 3 Web Development Firms – Make sure you’re not talking to a salesperson either, with the larger consulting companies in Maui you’ll pay $200+ hour and your account will be assigned to a junior associate who makes $25/hr. Even though we all “hate being sold,” they’ll tell you whatever you want to get your deposit (I’ve seen businesses screwed out of $10,000+ after they found out the developers couldn’t live up to what the salespeople said). If they charge by project, ask them how much they charge to add a favicon. If they don’t know what one is, run. If they beat around the bush, run. It’s a 5 minute task that I’ve seen companies charge $75 for… or the equivalent of $900/hr. And again, most of the time your primary need isn’t a new website… ask them how they can add value to your business? How can you help me get a return on investment? In my opinion, a better option is to outsource to either Upwork or TopTal (links are my reviews), the former if you’re on a bit of budget (be careful: if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys), the ladder if you need access to the top talent in the world and you really need to get things done right the first time. 3. Buy Your Own Domain – This is CRUCIAL. Be extremely weary of any developer who offers to buy your domain (which you can get for a buck on GoDaddy). You should also have access to your admin panel (usually cPanel). With access to cPanel, getting your website backed up and moved to another company is trivial and can be done with asking your current web developer.  If however, you’re transferring from a company who has bought your domain, then you must request for a transfer… which would have cost more money than just buying the domain in the first place! And unfortunately, I’ve been in situations where the old company was either slow to send back the domain, or even refused to do it. And if the consulting agreement doesn’t call for a transfer for your domain upon termination – you’re screwed. Your domain is your business. On the internet, your domain is your brand – it’s your storefront. If your website did well with SEO, you can kiss all that goodbye. Because if you just started another website, all the SEO work that has been done would essentially be negated… even worse, Google would see your website as a duplicate and duplicate content does not rank! Yes, successful businesses have switched domains before, but they owned their domain. When you still own your old domain, you can setup a 301 redirect which redirects all traffic (and SEO juice) to your new website. 4. Get the contract right! – First, the disclaimer. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. When you hire a contractor, unless explicitly stated, all of the intellectual property, and work he produces, he still owns the copyright for. Fortunately, consulting agreements are frequently used, therefore there are great templates on the web that are very balanced for both contractor and client. 5. Payment Terms – Payment is a touchy issue for freelancers, we require at least partial payment upfront because if you don’t pay – we have little legal recourse. As the same time, you have to find a competent developer before you can send the deposit. As mentioned earlier, I’ve seen someone screwed out of five figures because the developers couldn’t live up to the salespersons quote. Sure you could sue, that’s the easy part. Collecting is the hard part. 6. The Portfolio – See the websites designed in his portfolio – what do you think? Also, anyone could list a bunch of nice websites in their portfolio, even if they had little to no part in it, I’ve seen it done. But if you’re thinking about hiring that person, reach out to one of the people listed. Ask them how has company x  helped your business? What was your experience? , etc. 7. Look for specialists – If you’re a small business building a brand new website, look for a developer (like myself) that can help you launch a beautiful website within a week at an affordable rate. If your website is already built and you’re using OSCommerce – look for an PHP developer who specializes in OSCommerce. It will save you a lot of time and money in the long run. I hope this helped, if you have any general questions, feel free to ask in the comments below. If you’re hiring, contact me and we can discuss your needs. I’m local to Maui, and specialize in small businesses who need more than a website. We offer much more than web design, I’m a marketing and SEO Consultant that has ranked many businesses in Maui. Not just rankings on phrases with little traffic, we rank for tough terms that helps your business get noticed and actually drive revenue.

After you Hire a Web/App Developer – The Importance of Code Reviews

I talked to Adam Derewecki, and we chatted about a service he’s launching, where people can have their code reviewed to ensure people they’re hiring the right talent, but not only that they could find bugs or areas of improvement (this is why programmers tend to work in pairs – no one is perfect). I immediately thought the idea was gold, people can take advantage of lower labor rates around the world, whilst ensuring that their code is up to par. Anyway, I’ll let Adam talk a little bit more about his service, as well as provide you with a few additional tips on how to outsource web development.

Enter Adam Derewecki.

Update: Adam’s business, PaidCodeReview, has since went out of business… but the idea behind it is still valid, you could simply hire a project manager with development experience, or just use a marketplace like TopTal. Launching a startup is easier today than it’s ever been before, especially for entrepreneurs without technical backgrounds. Need to run a mailing list? Use MailChimp. Need a landing page with an email collector? KickoffLabs has your back. And then for everything else, there’s WordPress and Unbounce. But if you experience growth, sooner rather than later you’ll need the flexibility and control of moving to your own stack, such as Ruby on Rails. This is where things get a little murky. There’s a lot of developers on oDesk, and prices are across the board. How do I hire the right developers to make sure I’m not building something that will collapse on itself? If you need to outsource development, you’ve got a few options based on your budget:

  • $15-20/hour oDesk or Elance lowest priced outsourced developers ($31k/year)
  • $40-60/hour oDesk or Elance contractors with a good reputation ($83k/year)
  • $60-120/hour Contractor with an outstanding reputation ($125k/year)
  • $120-250+/hour Domain expert ($250k/year)

The first option is obviously the most attractive financially. And if you’re setting up a basic page to gauge interest and maybe do a few basic things, you don’t really need the best developers to start with. But how do you know which developers to hire and make sure that they’re writing code that’s doing the right thing? By using PaidCodeReview you can hire an expert to lend technical expertise by reviewing code on your behalf. Let’s look at a few situations where this can help.

Scenario: Big Project

Your MVP (or small seed round) has been successful enough that you’ve got $5k and can afford to hire two developers for a month-long project (about 333 hours). You’ve narrowed your candidates down to four, but don’t know how to choose the two best developers. How a code review can help Request a code sample from each candidate and hire an expert on PaidCodeReview to review each code sample, provide feedback, and an overall recommendation to you. Code samples tend to be smaller projects (though not always) so you’ll want to budget one hour per candidate. For four candidates then, the total would be $200 — or, about 13 hours of paid contractor time. Trust me, if you end up choosing the wrong contractor, you’ll be measuring your losses in WEEKS and not hours. This is an appropriate time for an outsourcing anecdote of my own. At the time, I was bootstrapping CameraLends and decided to try outsourcing some basic specs on ODesk. I looked at a few dozen candidates and chose 1 of 2 who were in my price range and had experience with Rails and Rspec. After waiting longer than promised, I was delivered a few dozen specs that tested various aspects of the site. Except they didn’t. You could run the tests and they passed, sure. Luckily, I’d been writing Rspec for years and knew my way around very well. Within minutes of looking at the source code, my jaw dropped: these tests weren’t testing anything at all! I’ll spare the technical details, but basically the tests set up a test object and verified that the values in the object matched themselves. I called the contractor out on it and he immediately refunded my money, no questions asked. The moral of the story is: everything about a contractor can appear right, even code that appears to work, but without expert review, can create a liability.

Scenario: The Long Churn

Your bootstrapped business has been chugging along for a year now and you’ve hired six different contractors over the course of the year. Your current contractor is telling you there’s a lot of code that makes no sense to him. How a code review can help Think of how many times your business has changed or evolved in the last year. Was each contractor pitched a different “big vision”? Even a well managed team of top-notch programmers introduce technical debt over time. Given that, it’s easy to see how lower-quality programmers, who may have each worked in isolation, and without technical oversight can produce mountains of technical debt. That should be scary, because unknown technical debt can lead to hours or even days of downtime, if you have to suddenly fix it all at once. Using PaidCodeReview, you can hire an expert to periodically review your entire code base, to give you peace of mind that you’re not walking through a field of land mines. Experts with years of industry experience can help identify and assess the severity of anti-patterns or other technical debt in your code base. Think about how much you’re spending on outsourced developers, and then tell me that spending a small fraction of that on expert review of your core business isn’t worth it.

Scenario: The Apprentice

I don’t want to make it sound so doom and gloom — I’ve worked with a number of talented outsourced contractors who work hard, let you know when they’re not confident about their solution, and are generally pleasant to work with. However, many of them are also more junior developers or contractors who work on small projects and never see the problems associated with larger projects. How a code review can help This is an investment opportunity. Personally having worked with junior engineers on teams I’ve lead, it’s amazing how quickly code review can fix bad habits and instill new, good practices. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” as the saying goes, and it’s especially true for development. Junior developers often waste time re-implementing solutions to solved problems because they simply don’t know any better. Code review is a very effective way to convey a lot of information, and can serve as a learning aide to multiple developers at once. By now I’m sure you’ve noticed the common theme: pay for contracting you can afford, and pay experts to make sure your affordable labor isn’t building an upside-down house.

How to Hire a Web Designer

Editor’s Note: This infographic will give you a brief highlight on How to Hire a Web Designer. If you need any clarifications, feel free to ask in the comments below and we’ll follow up, and point you in the right direction. Hiring a web designer is tough, especially if you’re non-technical. We’ve already addressed a few mistakes to avoid when hiring a web design/development company, now let’s discuss how to hire a web designer and what you should consider before and after hiring one. Without even looking at the infographic, the single biggest piece of advice I can give you on your search for a web designer is to talk to someone you trust. If you have friends who work in design/development, ask them. Or even if you just know a few small businesses in town, ask them where they got their website done and what their experience was. And remember, a website isn’t the magic pill. Most businesses don’t actually need a new website, they want revenue. If you’re a restaurant, that means having a mobile website with an easy to access menu, hours (including happy hour!), and a link to Google Maps. Yet, most restaurants don’t have that information – let alone a mobile website! If you’re providing a service (eg. plumbers, lawyers, etc.) you want your website optimized for more calls, thus leading to more revenue. Before jumping into the infographic, let’s start with 3 takeaways:

  1. Hiring a web designer doesn’t have to be expensive anymore. What use to cost thousands of dollars can be exceptionally done with even a modest budget of $1000 utilizing a popular CMS like WordPress. For me personally, while I can design a website down to the button, I often recommend WordPress to most businesses as a means to launch a beautiful website within a week. As a matter of fact, it’s what this website is built on.
  2. Don’t get stuck on the design – While having a website is imperative, there’s a point of diminishing returns when we’re talking strictly design. If you want users to convert, your copywriting on the page is much more important. Focusing on little things like the color of a button is like asking, “What color socks should I wear on a date?” Focus on the big things…
  3. Think About Mobile – Especially if you’re a local small business that counts on driving customers through the door. Most web design designers today offer responsive design, which aims to create a perfect user experience whether the visitor is on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer.

The Best Value Web Designer is…

It depends. But here are three directions I would point you in depending on your budget:

  • WordPress Theme (Anywhere from free to $60) – Opt for the open-source WordPress.org (not the self-hosted WordPress.com) and find a paid theme, my personal favorites are on ThemeForest.net. This option is the best for companies who are just looking to display information. You have plentiful beautiful theme options for around $60… and I would recommend a paid theme vs a free one because it does tend pay off in the long run if you plan on continuing to build off of that theme.  If you need a your website/application to actually do things, you’ll need to look into web development.
  • Crowdsourcing ($500-1000) – Designers compete for your “prize money.” It’s a win/win situation, you get dozens of options, and either you like your design or you get your money back. The best designer(s) are awarded the the price you paid. For the most popular options, see this post on 99designs vs CrowdSpring vs DesignCrowd.
  • The Best Designers – If you need access to the best web designers, checkout our review on TopTal. They have solved one of the biggest problems finding talent, by actually culling them down to the top 3% of talent. They then match a suitable web designer to your project. Another win/win situation, because they also have a money back guarantee.