Wow. Now.
Archive for the ‘Outsourcing’ Category.
Bluebarb is a set of iGoogle widgets that a friend and I coded up. These widgets simplify ordering Amazon products and keep users up to date on hot new items.
You can see an example widget here, and the complete list here. Try them out!
We developed these and let it alone to see what would happen. Let’s assess this business and make a business plan for the future.
Continue reading ‘Online Business Assessment: The Bluebarb Project’ »
You’ve been developing a website for some time and you’re getting close to launch date. You’ve decided to contract out to somebody to write the user’s manual. But now that the task of specifying what you want is coming up, you’re starting to have doubts.
You think "By the time I spec it out, I’ll have put in almost the same work as writing it myself." Or: "They may not even do a good enough job, and I’ll have to send it back and ask for a rewrite. That’s more trouble than doing it myself."
You know what?
You’re probably right.
You know what else?
Continue reading ‘Do It Anyway’ »
In the past, when I thought about building a web application, I had a huge resistance to the idea of outsourcing 100% of the development work. The first fear that pops into my mind: What if I pay for all this work and the application is not a success?
Thinking about that, I started to develop a new question: Why do I worry so much about the payoff when my investment is money, but I worry a lot less about the payoff when the investment is my time and energy?
What have you done for your business in the most recent hour that you put into it? In the last eight hours of work? In the last 40 hours?
Let’s get more specific. Look at the last 10 hours you’ve put into your business. If somebody else had done that for you, how much would you pay them for the results they produced? Is it worth $1,000 to you? $500? $100?
Divide that number by 10 and you have your hourly rate.
How well are you performing at that rate?
