Delegate everything which is less than your time's worth?
I do a full-time remote job (senior front-end dev) but also interested in creating a side project (Saas). I already have the app mockups and have expertise for FE side of things but for the BE side, I can learn laravel actually relatively easier (from technical perspective) but I was wondering if it would be a good approach?
Now after my day-time job I don't really have much energy to actively learn and implement the same on the BE side. Besides, I also have to give some time to family.
I've seen quite a few videos on time-management, and one repetitive concept they convey that we should calculate dollar value of our time's worth (per/ hr). If you can outsource anything from your tasks that costs less than that value, you would be better-off.
Now let's say I earn $2k /month. It makes my time's worth around $4/hr (excluding sleeping time + but including spare time). I can find a (junior-mid level) BE dev in my country for $500/month to do BE tasks, costing me $3/hr (assuming 160 working hrs/month), but I'm not sure if they would be efficiently able to do the work.
So I'm at loss here whether I should delegate BE tasks at this point; or should I try increasing my time's worth /hr before going that route and hire a better developer?
I know doing everything on your own is not a good approach, especially if it costs you your family time.
Hey Faisal — I really resonate with what you shared. I’ve been in a similar position where I was working full-time, building a side project, and juggling family too. It’s a lot — and honestly, that decision between learning more vs. delegating can be a tough one, especially when you're wired to be hands-on.
Your point about valuing your time is spot-on. What I’ve found is that it’s not just about the hourly rate — it’s also about mental energy. Sometimes even if you technically have the time, the switching cost between work, learning BE, and showing up for family can be massive.
In my case, what helped was slowly offloading parts of the stack to someone I trusted — not necessarily the most senior dev, but someone smart, consistent, and reliable who could grow into the role. The key was structure: good briefs, async check-ins, and tight feedback loops. It let me focus on the parts I enjoyed (and was good at) without stalling the project.
Funny enough, I ended up building something around that experience — helping founders and solopreneurs find reliable support so they don’t burn out doing everything themselves. (Happy to share more if you ever go that route)
But even if not, I’d say: if delegating lets you protect your creative and family time without killing quality — it’s worth exploring, even in small steps.
Rooting for your SaaS idea — sounds like you’re close to building something real 🙌