how long should it take for a developer to fill in a themeforest theme?

lemon

New member
Jul 19, 2009
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Hey Guys,

I am making sites out of HTML templates found on themeforest.net

normally I am able to modify the code to my liking, purchase images from a stock photo site and fill in the site with my text / images etc in about 2 hours.

i've been hiring some local guys to take the bulk of the workload off me. They are given a themeforest template already modified by me, list of images and where they go, text to put on the theme, and the structure of the site with about 3-4 static pages. The pages are usually already created by me with the navigation done and the images saved in a folder. All they have to do is copy/paste text, optimize resize or crop photos in photoshop (sometimes this involves pasting into the PSD and exporting cropped JPG with certain layer styles) and some basic modifications of css or javascript plugins.

I pay 30$ an hour which is pretty damn good IMO, but these guys are taking like 4-5 hours to do work which would have taken me 1.5 hours max. Plus all the creative stuff is done for them its just copy/paste type work. There is no shortage of work for them to do so its not like they are just stretching out a project as long as possible to stay busy.

Whats your experience working with outsourced labor? Would I be better off just finding some indian? or maybe have say a per-site comission of 75$ or something?

whats your opinion?
 


I think your just assuming they are as talented or hard working as you are. Either may or may not be true. If they know what they are doing, and you know they are at least generally reliable, slap a flat rate on it and call it a day. It could be more hassle than it's worth to find new talent do handle it.
 
You should probably look into replacing those guys with a shell script.
 
You should probably look into replacing those guys with a shell script.

This ^

If you have already decided the colors, images, text, etc. then all you need to do is paste the file paths to the files with the information and have it upload - or just paste that info into a web form and have it modify the settings on your server.

Hell, even Ubot could do this.
 
the main problem is that each design is unique. I don't use the same theme more than three times, and even then it's often unique.

HiGhPer i'll PM you
 
Cut the base pay, and put an incentive program in place. Find people willing to work for that. This way, they have an incentive to get shit done fast, and done right.

Either that, or up the rate you're willing to pay, and get someone decent. Sorry, but $30/hour is fuck all for the IT industry.