Evan Carmichael breaks down three ways to find a developer: partner with a co-founder, hire locally, or outsource to freelancers. Outsourcing is cheapest for project work; local hiring works better for a dedicated team member; a co-founder partnership requires deep compatibility. The key question: are you building a tech company that needs a CTO, or just need a product built.
Chapters
How to find a developer? I got a great question from my YouTube visitors, love you guys, Robel, who wrote in to say, "Very inspirational video. I need some help. I've got an idea. I've done the research on it, but the problem I have is finding a developer who can execute my product." This is a great question, and for anybody who's in technology, hey, we need developers to make things happen. Your 3 options are: find a business partner who's a developer, hire a local developer, or get somebody to outsource it to. Okay, I'm going to go through the pros and cons of each and you can decide what's best for you. The cheapest way is to go and outsource it, right? You find somebody who's in a different country, has lower cost of living, the prices are lower. This is great when you have project-based work, when you don't need to see them face-to-face, where you can be really specific on what you need to have accomplished. And it's great. One of my favorite websites to use for it is oDesk. I've hired a lot of great people on oDesk for lots of different types of projects. Including Christina, who edits all these videos. Hey, Christina! So it can be a great tool for you. What I think you really need to decide is, are you going to be a technology company or not? Okay, if you're going to be a technology company, then you need somebody on your team. It's not just having somebody local face-to-face that you can meet with, but you need somebody who's investing their heart and soul into this business to make it better. A buddy of mine runs a web-based business, a technology-based company, and he's had some growth and success, but he's always been limited because he doesn't have a dedicated tech person on his team. He doesn't have a CTO, a Chief Technology Officer. You need somebody who is dedicated to your business, not just paid a salary, but is living and breathing your company just like you are, if you're going to be a technology company. So that's the big decision for you. Are you, are you just launching a product that you need some build on and maybe some support on that you can outsource or have somebody local that you can meet with face-to-face on? Or do you need somebody who is committed to this because you're really building a business around products and technology? That's a really important decision. Okay, if you're going to outsource, my recommendation is oDesk.com. Go check it out. You can post a job, you can interview people, you know, you put them through trial jobs and see which one you work best with. If you're gonna do a local hire, you know, you can put up the job posting, you can meet people face-to-face, you can do some group interviews. I like doing group interviews first and then going to individual interviews, and you can find the programmer you need. If you're looking for a business partner, it becomes trickier because you need somebody who believes in the same thing that you do, right? You have somebody who has the same values, who wants to build the same thing as you do. The best way to do it is you have to get out and start talking to people. You've got to talk to your current network, your friends, your family, people you know. Let them know what you're looking for, let them know the kind of projects you're working on. And then also go out and start hanging out at events. Go to meetups, go to industry events, places where programmers would likely be, and start telling them about what you're doing. And find somebody you can click with, right? A business partnership is like getting married, you know? You're spending probably more time with them during the week than you are with the person you marry. So, you know, you need to have somebody that you can really, really, really get along with, who, you know, it's not only good in the good times but good in the bad times as well. So you don't want to just rush into it. Start working on something small, see if you work together well, and expand from there. But your real decision is, do you need to build a technology company? Do you want somebody who's really going to be part of your team and help you build this thing out? Or can you just offshore this or delegate it out to somebody to help you build? You figure that out, you're closer to being on your path. And that's how you find the right developer. Believe. For those of you who are watching, if you like the video, thumbs up below. Let me know what you think. Ask me a question underneath. Leave a comment below. I'll make a video response. And if you want to see more videos like this, subscribe to my channel by clicking on my face. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.
