Comments on: The Future of the Startup Workforce : OnDemand Talent?

By: Siddhi

Siddhi — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:48:19 +0000

The founder needs to know what skills the company is being built around.

If your core IP is in the software, then it makes sense to do it in house for 2 reasons. 1) You dont want the outsourced team building a similar project for someone else, and 2) you dont want to depends on a third party when you need to make quick, critical changes to the product.

On the other hand, not every company has software as the core IP. The main focus may be in some other domain and the software is only the enabler. In such cases, outsourcing is the way to go.

Look at it this way. Companies outsource a lot of administrative work to a chartered accountant. This is perfect for a software firm, but if you are an accounting firm you obviously want an in house team.

By: Vinodh Nandakumar

Vinodh Nandakumar — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:41:29 +0000

Outsourcing may be a good idea – but I think we need to make sure that services orgs understand the startup DNA

This is experience that I have had doing outsourced work for startups in the US. My 2cs
1. Evaluate if the company is open to change. Most outsourced services orgs prefer to work on a fixed price model with requirements frozen out. This might not provide value for startups.

2. Sense of product ownership – How well they can understand the market and just not work on isolated modules. This might be something to think about.

By: shabbir husain

shabbir husain — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:35:24 +0000

I agree with the model of outsourcing during the initial phases of the product’s life-cycle. This helps keep the costs and risks (both from over-staffing and attrition stand-point) low. It may also help reduce the time to market as now you don’t have to spend the time hiring, training etc… and instead have trusted a services company to deliver the assigned tasks in time because we know they know the technology better than the fresher. Once the product has built significant traction then it makes sense to built an in in-house team. my 2 cents!

By: Freeman Murray

Freeman Murray — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:20:54 +0000

I’m a big fan of the online job portals like elance, but I think there are a narrow set of startups for whom they would be appropriate. ie. Startups where the founders are technical and still working well paying jobs, but want to scratch a particular idea itch which requires more time than they can give on the side. These people can afford to pay the rates and can give enough guidance and track progress closely enough to notice if things are going seriously wrong.

For many startups keeping costs low, and having time to iterate on the idea are top necessities in staying alive long enough to be successful. Contractors don’t fit this profile. Founders either need to be humble enough to bring on cofounders sharing significant equity and risk, or patient enough to work with freshers.

For many startups the idea is somewhat amorphous which is a bad situation to pay people by the hour, and the prime value of startups is often its development capacity which doesn’t get developed in the contracting scenario.

My feeling is founders are often too stingy with

By: Ross

Ross — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:47:21 +0000

Vijay – I enjoyed reading this post. And you are right – there are many ways to create a startup that don’t require lots and lots of money. One of the reasons we founded http://www.crowdspring.com is to help small and midsize businesses buy creative services (logos, site design, marketing materials, etc.) without having to spend a ton of money. And the reason our model works differently from Elance, oDesk, etc. is because we felt it was easier for buyers to set their price, explain what they want, and pick from actual designs, not just proposals. This makes it MUCH easier to break down what you need – something that is often complicated for people, as you point out. I invite you and your readers to take a look – http://www.crowdspring.com

Ross
co-Founder

By: Rashmi Ranjan Padhy

Rashmi Ranjan Padhy — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:58:06 +0000

Vijay,
Well, I have faced almost all the challenges which you have mentioned all.

To keep the cost to the minimum, We decided to train freshers and get the codes delivered from them. However, they will leave you for a better package.

To my advantage, I have found my CTO and he is working on the module to break it into pieces and i have formed a core team now.

Now, instead of going to elance, odesk, etc, I have tried contacting the companies offering services on these websites directly and have negotiated a price to keep the costs down. I hope this will work out fine. I am trying it out and lets see how it can be effective.

The main challenge in a startup is to keep the costs to the minimum and yet get quality products. This seems to be a major bottleneck. Getting an investor can definitely ease this pressure on this and get things moving fast. But getting an investor after the prototype is ready with a few customers will always give you the power to negotiate well.

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:12:29 +0000

Hmm.. I would have loved to test this sort of model but I, myself, love to code. Moreover, when someone else develops a thing for you, it is very hard to get satisfied with the quality. You always seem to find the ways in which he could have done better.