I Lit $250k On Fire

So I lit $270K on fire following one of the most common pieces of business advice out there. I was early on building a tech product, but we weren't a development company, so I did what any good CEO would do. I outsourced the development. After about 3 or 4 months, a quarter of a million dollars, we ended up with failed promises, terrible product, and a lot of hiding the ball. What's the lesson? Basically, never outsource any job without these 7 rules of outsourcing. Never outsource the lead. Outsource the team, but the leader has to be your direct report. Otherwise, they have no skin in the game and won't take accountability when things go wrong. 2, be diabolical on readouts. Daily Scrum, daily ship list, a weekly loom, receipts or it didn't happen. 3, evaluate the cost. Offshore, onshore, it doesn't really matter. Do the math before you sign the statement of work. 4, interrogate their clients first. Before you sign with an agency, talk to a handful of their actual clients and ask the uncomfortable questions. What did they ship on time and on budget? How were they managed? And how much did they actually spend spend versus the quote. Use milestone-based contracts only, never a lump sum. You need an exit at every checkpoint so the second your benchmarks are unmet, you can walk away. 6, grade them every week. Score them 1 to 10 and make their fulfillment dependent on hitting at least an 8. And do not let the agency grade themselves. Put someone inside your company on grading. 7, don't hire an agency unless you plan on micromanaging them. They need hyper-specific briefs, constant oversight. They're juggling a ton of projects, not just yours. And if you wanna see how we do this now, I actually am hosting a masterclass on how to run a business so this never happens to you. Comment boardroom and I'll send you the link.