If you are in the tech space, chances are that you’ll probably be hiring a developer at some point. If you’ve ever tried doing this before, hiring a developer isn’t an easy task.
In my years of being an entrepreneur, I have worked with hundreds of different developers and development agencies. Through that process, I’ve learned a lot.
In this article, I share my exact plan for how I hire developers:
Crafting Your Vision
Before you can decide who the right type of developer is for your project, you need to understand your own long-term vision. What are you trying to create? How sustainable will it be? How far do you want to go with it? How much development will be required?
You need to narrow what type of compensation (equity, cash, barter, etc.) you will provide these developers and how often they will need to continue working on your project. Once you have a strong vision for these things, you’re ready to begin the process of picking a developer.
Two Types Of Developers
With developers, you really have two options. You can bring on a development agency or freelancer that is great for any project that doesn’t require constant development work over a long period of time.
If your project just needs to be built, maintained and can run on its own, hiring a development agency or a freelancer overseas is probably a great option. If your startup heavily relies on tech, you’re probably going to want to find someone local that can really manage the back-end and front-end aspects of your project.
Hiring For Option One
In development, you will quickly learn that the same project will get priced out a 100 different ways by each development firm. You don’t want to sacrifice quality, but at the same time you don’t want to overpay for the project.
Go out and share the scope of your project so you can get a variety of quotes. Once you get these quotes, figure out the average of all these prices. That’s typically what you want to pay. Depending on how much money you have to spend, you can hire people through platforms such as Elance.com, ODesk.com, Guru.com.
If you do have a considerable amount of cash to spend and want fluid communication with your development team, I highly recommend asking friends for references or Googling the top development firms in your area. Get quotes, figure out the average and move forward with who you think will get the job done the best.
Hiring For Option Two
If this is a project that is heavily reliant on development, you can’t find a one-time solution. Instead, you must find a development agency or developer that will be willing to work with you for a long period of time. This usually means that equity is a key factor now.
You want to find a developer or team that has the technical know-how to not only start your project, but to carry out it until it’s fully sustainable. At this point, quality becomes a huge issue. I tend to typically find the most specialized developer possible if I am giving them equity or equity and cash in exchange for their services.
Conclusion
Hiring a developer especially for the first time can be something very tricky and confusing. However, this guide hopefully helped you with some of the basics of hiring your own developers.
