Outsourcing your MVP development, anyone got some experience with that?

[dablegend]

Hi everyone.

Continuing my last post, specifying the struggle to find the right technical cofounder match (it is not only about finding someone who is interested but also someone who is a good fit and ticks several boxes at once- tech stack knowledge that fits what you build, a personality that would compliment yours, business aspirations that your journey can bring him close to, you know the rest - the struggle is real and the list is long and justified).

I then started thinking about just paying X$ to a freelancer or an agency to help me move forward as I have everything mapped out and ready (from user journeys to wireframes).

For those of you who choose this path:

1. Was the outcome successful? what things would you recommend to avoid/pay attention to?
2. What was a good working methodology that worked well for you? in terms of comms frequency, amount of revisions, etc, whatever?
3. Where did you find that person you worked with? Upwork? Reddit?
4. How did you handle the post-delivery? you have an MVP delivered to you - now how do you manage bugs, improvements, helping customers with technical support, etc?
5. Did reaching that point, having an MVP with a few users, help you bring some angel investment to hire a dev?
   

I know this is all product and industry-related, but any input would help. For context, I am building a web app in the world of CMS for content writers

For example, a nice guy based out in Germany, reached out here on Reddit, because of my last post, saying he is a freelance Full Stack with experience in X and Y, and Z. That he can do my project in 3-4 weeks. He also shared a few links to things he claimed to build.

He says he worked with multiple customers, friends, and non-friends, but he cannot let me speak to any of them. He says I can follow the link he shared with me and follow the new features he is going to push.

He also shared his LinkedIn which shows he has only 22 connections.

And he asking for 5K. 10% upfront. Possibility to stop at any point if milestones are not achieved.

How can you trust that?

Otherwise, if any of you worked with a trustworthy, dedicated, and communicative full stack developer, someone who is comfortable with coding front end (react, angular) and backend, I am happy to speak to anyone. Some experience in front-end could be useful for this product as well.

Thanks & happy Easter!

 

[shephard]

@dablegend Upwork. But you need to create a test first.
Give them a few exercises and see how fast they can do it & if they understand it properly.
Too many times freelancers/agencies over estimate their ability.

 

[dablegend]

@shephard Thanks! I have no technical background so no idea which exercises I should give them, how, from there to get them and how to verify the score

 

[shephard]

@dablegend You get an experienced software dev to do it for you

 

[jale66]

@dablegend Advice:

You can get an pre-MVP with boilerplates/templates for like couple of hundred bucks

Will save you ton of time on development costs because most of the usual stuff is already there.

There are a lot of them. I myself have one.

 

[dablegend]

@jale66 Thanks! can you elaborate, please? not familiar with that approach!

 

[jale66]

@dablegend Example: saasconstruct.com (it is my product)

There are others too, but I focus specifically on AWS.

 

[chyk007]

@dablegend I'm a no-code developer, I've built tons of MVP's for aspiring founders and startups. The reality is most of my past clients are working on different things now. Getting customers should be your number one priority and i think if you really wanted to bet $5k on your project maybe go half for development and half for customer aquisition. Never underestimate the challenges of find a working distribution channel for your product. Also if u are building a product arounds CMS's you should use tools like Bubble.io. You can ship quality features fast with a $30/hour bubble dev. Ive built MVP marketplaces for 1k total when I was starting out. Th right developer will help you prioritize and help find shortcuts to get to your first dollar.

 

[dablegend]

@chyk007 nice thanks! can you possibly connect me to some of bubble devs?

 

[ditzydollshana]

@dablegend Is there any site that connects freelancer (mvp builder) to those who need it.

I think its a great idea

 

[613jono]

@dablegend Upwork is pretty good IF you can find the right people and that's a big if. You should really think about who's gonna be the product manager to really integrate all the freelancer efforts. In my case I had front end and back end developers and also a social media team working for me. But I had to be the glue to make sure that everything stays on track and sync up their efforts. All of that takes time and energy.

So the moral of story is you can't just outsource everything. You have to remain as the product owner and own the product vision.

 

[dablegend]

@613jono Super happy to remain the project manager/owner here and be on top of things. On the contrary, I am looking to be as involved as possible and to outsource really things I just cannot do...

So how do you find the right people on Upwork, and do you make sure they are a good fit?

 

[613jono]

@dablegend Look out for agencies. There's a lot of people pretending to be independent freelancers when really they're an agency.

You have to do video interviews. There's just no way around it. For culture fit and communication skills. Like I found a lot of people who were great on paper, but their communication skills were really poor.

Lastly, make sure that if you are not equipped to judge their technical skills, there are engineer interviews as service offerings out there where they will screen your potential hire for development skills.

 

[dablegend]

@613jono nice. Do you know of these engineer interviews as service offerings?

 

[613jono]

@dablegend I don't have a list handy but just Google "technical interviews as a service". They're pretty affordable, especially if they're in India or some other country.

 

[grub]

@dablegend I developed an MVP for a marketplace that connect programming youtubers with tech companies and now the product is used by top youtubers like Fireship, JS mastery, web dev simplified and companies like Wix, Strapi, Eleven Labs, etc.

Let me know if you are interested in freelancing or mvp development.

 

[dablegend]

@grub interested in what?

 

[grub]

@dablegend If need some freelancing or mvp development

 

[ohlord]

@dablegend You can't. It's a gamble. But I will say you should find someone with more than 22 connections on LI. That to me sounds like either a fake account or someone with zero experience.

For your MVP, take a look at No Code. You can stand something up yourself in a couple months (or a lot less, if you're really ambitious) with Bubble and a template, as long as you keep the feature set lean. Then, when you have some traction or find product/market fit, you'll have enough resources to explore other options. Or look for one of Bubble's certified devs. At least you know they have the experience to build on the platform.

 

[dablegend]

@ohlord Interesting
Where can you find these certificated bubble devs?