Gotta keep reminding myself

wezcountry

wezcountry

New member
Aug 31, 2009
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In the EUSSR
I thought I'd mention this as it's a lesson I keep having to remind myself and writing here reinforces the lesson, which is: out-source whatever and whenever as much as possible.

E.g. a good web client of mine has an important presentation in a month (to raise funds for his company). He asked me if I could help him with his power point presentation @ $50 per hour. So I started work on this and then realised - why am I doing this? It's so non-core and very time-consuming. So I logged into ODesk and sure enough:

2eutlkz.jpg


Sure many of these dudes will be more trouble than they're worth but there will be someone who will be excellent at this job.
 


I don't even message dudes on POF anymore. I just scrape a list, get someone from onlinejobs.ph to private message them, and let the replies come pouring in to my mailbox.

I'm thinking of hiring a programmer too to help automate getting guys off POF.

But seriously, I started outsourcing more last year and never looking back.
 
We're trying to hire a decent web developer on oDesk and so far it has been a pain in the ass. 3 out of 4 guys went AWOL on the first day after a few hours or on the second day. Then two showed up with bullshit excuses like 'I had an emergency' or 'I can't work on my laptop at home'.

What a fucking waste of time. Explaining them the architecture, setting up access to Github and Jira and then the guys suddenly drop off after working a few hours for no reason. We only hired guys with an avg rating of 4+ and with some oDesk experience.

Invested about 15 hours researching, interviewing and briefing those 4 guys. I still have some hope left to find a decent guy there.

Any good articles / resources on outsourcing your stuff online?
 
Microlancer
This is a new place and it has great value for now. They stopped accepting new freelancers from what I remember, so they are putting focus on quality. You can find great developers at great prices. Most of them are doing PSD to Wordpress, but there is a good chance they know other languages too.

If you use the platform they take a 30% fee, but from the freelancer. So if the service costs $100, you pay it, but the freelancer gets $70.

Most of them have a link to the personal portfolio so you can pass the platform.
 
The tricky thing for me with this was that if it was a one time job like fixing a powerpoint, it took me so much time just to find someone reliable to do it, that I might as well have done it myself. On the other hand, if you expect to use them again or have a steady flow of incoming jobs, then the time investment is obviously worth it.
 
maybenot said:
The tricky thing for me with this was that if it was a one time job like fixing a powerpoint, it took me so much time just to find someone reliable to do it, that I might as well have done it myself. On the other hand, if you expect to use them again or have a steady flow of incoming jobs, then the time investment is obviously worth it.
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Yeah, but the client wants the powerpoint equivalent of Equilibrium and I could do it, but seriously I need to focus on the software stuff I'm doing. It will be difficult to explain to someone on ODesk though - so I'm going for a European.

But you're right about the ongoing working relationship. I have been working with a guy for about 18 months. When I get a Wordpress site, he does 95% of the work. He gets about 15% of the total money and does an excellent job. And he's not just a robot - he has saved me twice now when I asked him to do something stupid.

My next step is to find a developer I can trust and who will show-up. I was working with a woman and when she did the work she was great, but just like with ibanez | jan, this woman twice vanished and left me holding the bag. Two strikes and out. There are 10,000 others out there.
 
Ibanez | Jan said:
We're trying to hire a decent web developer on oDesk and so far it has been a pain in the ass. 3 out of 4 guys went AWOL on the first day after a few hours or on the second day. Then two showed up with bullshit excuses like 'I had an emergency' or 'I can't work on my laptop at home'.

What a fucking waste of time. Explaining them the architecture, setting up access to Github and Jira and then the guys suddenly drop off after working a few hours for no reason. We only hired guys with an avg rating of 4+ and with some oDesk experience.

Invested about 15 hours researching, interviewing and briefing those 4 guys. I still have some hope left to find a decent guy there.

Any good articles / resources on outsourcing your stuff online?
Click to expand...

I had an SEO project once that I outsourced to ODesk. The first thing I did was set a small test. That filtered 90% of the applicants - I mean, most didn't even bother to do the test, and quite a few of those that did screwed-up. The company that got the job did the test, followed-up with me and in the end did some good SEO work.

I randomly give my guy a small bonus, $20 or something like that, when he's not expecting it. That helps. Actually this guy invited me to Bangladesh to 'meet his female cousins' ...

Hmmm ... I wonder if I can outsource expanding that paragraph into a WSO.
 
Hell ya, it is tough but once you find the right guys they will save you a ton of time. I agree that letting them know there is more work if they do well, and then actually follow through on that you find some great guys.
I have been working with a programmer I found on an 0desk like site for 6 years now, now he works just for me. He also has a team under him know and the are all reliable and know their shit.
I was looking for an assistant and found a young hungry kid to work with me he is from Murica as well. He is now part of my company, shares and all.
There is good people to be found...but once they don't perform you cut their asses right away.
Many times they coming begging for a bit of work later once they realized they had a good thing...maybe you give them 1 more short to work for part of the pay and see how they do...if that doesn't work, cut them, remove them from your skype list and all further emails go straight into your fked folder.

Pro tip * Use Jing or Camtasia to show them the exact job that you need done via voice and screen shots.
 
wezcountry said:
most didn't even bother to do the test
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This.

I'm in a need of another VA for some low end SEO tasks now, so i posted a vacancy on onlinejobs.ph. Got like 60 applications, killed an evening for looking thru them, sent out about 40 tests. Simple test, scraping content - spinning with any tool - posting to Wordpress. Guess how many ppl got the tests done?

2 (two).

I mean, wtf? Why they send all these applications then?

:arcadefreak:
 
Absolutely give them a test to see if they can follow directions first. Secondly, a short test to see if they can find solutions on there own. If they pass both of those and have the relative skills, you should be in the clear. The only other thing you have to worry about is if they get sick, their sister, get's married, or if a hurricane comes through.

As stated above, random bonuses to incentivize them work great. Srs.
 
You all need to follow Noah Kagan.

The stuff he does when hiring off CL and other boards is pretty genuis and hands off ( deals with Gmail and autoresponders and also gDocs.

It can cut down the time you spend looking for Freelancers down to nothing almost
 
golan said:
so i posted a vacancy on onlinejobs.ph. Got like 60 applications, killed an evening for looking thru them, sent out about 40 tests.
:arcadefreak:
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Should've indicated in the job posting that you want them to contact you with a specific email subject, you'd spend way less time ;)

I did that lately and only about 10 applicants out of 50 used the subject I wanted - I didn't even open the non-compliant emails. Less tests to send out ;)
 
golan said:
This.

I'm in a need of another VA for some low end SEO tasks now, so i posted a vacancy on onlinejobs.ph. Got like 60 applications, killed an evening for looking thru them, sent out about 40 tests. Simple test, scraping content - spinning with any tool - posting to Wordpress. Guess how many ppl got the tests done?

2 (two).

I mean, wtf? Why they send all these applications then?

:arcadefreak:
Click to expand...



Their strategy is spray and pray.

When I find someone good, I'll make shit up for them to do just so I can keep contact.

Especially with programmers, I try to keep a few on hand. 99% can't do what I need, but I expect magical shit.

I also like to keep a few people around who may not be extremely skilled... but people who really put in a good effort. When you need someone at 11:30 pm... it's best you already know them.

I also put in an effort not to burden my best people with crazy deadlines and such. Some people will worry about performance, but I like to work in a lax atmosphere and try to find people capable of working that way too. They know if I tell them I'm having an emergency, it's really an emergency.
 
mattseh said:
With regards to freelancers, you get what you pay for.
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i disagree, the information asymmetry in the market for programmers is huge. you've to trudge through a load of shit, but you really can find great coders at very low prices on oDesk. and only oDesk, I've tried loads of other freelancing sites and they're all useless.

i got a great Filipino PHP scraper/automation guy if anyone's looking for his email address. took me ages to find him but the quality of his code is fantastic and his prices are very competitive.

here's his blog to get an idea of him:
scraperblog.blogspot.ie
 
erect said:
I'm really intrigued.

User1 through User9363 have the mindset that "what I want is simple, this shouldn't take much time" .... Then along comes 9364 who knows that he's asking for some Voldemort shit.

Really, really intrigued.
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lol. I have a lot of really, really, stupid ideas, and a fondness for taguchi testing. Every now and then, I'll prove common knowledge wrong.

I keep myself in check by remembering that there's an opportunity cost for testing.
 
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