Outsource website development recommendations

Thanks for the feedback.

I did post a project on upwork. Most proposals are from Eastern blocks + Russsia and India. I exclude the ones from India because the contact people are usually just sales. It is too difficult to talk to the technical people directly, so it is difficult to evaluate them. Some agencies from the Eastern blocks + Russia seem pretty good. Indeed, some agencies from the Eastern blocks are indeed as expensive as the US ones.

After talking to a few agencies, I have learned that I do need to write down all spec and requirements, just like you said, overprepare. The page list and description with a complete design in Figma are not good enough for them to give me a good estimate of cost and time, because the estimate is based exactly on the list that is given, which is not detailed enough. So I know there will be things that will be missed. So I am still working to write down all the detailed spec & requirements. It does take some time:-)

I understand that I need to do my due diligence in evaluating the agencies. Thanks for the suggestion. Recommendation from IH may also be a good start point to find a suitable agency:-)

I am looking for a freelancer or an agency that I can work with on a long-term basis . This project will be rework from an existing site and need data immigration. It not as straightforward as a brand new project. There will be another similar project after this based on the same code base. Then there will be new features.

By chance, I have found an agency in a southeastern Asian country (not India or likes). They are also working on their own PayPal-like startup project for its country, connecting different financial institutions. They propose that they will assign 3 developers (2 senior and 1 junior) to my project. It will be a monthly set fee with a max cost for the project based on the time estimation. I will be working closely with them. I basically will be a business subject matter expert with them working as my small IT team. I think I like this model and its cost structure better. And they are very flexible in working with me to get the project done. I will be putting 2 weeks of buffer on top of their estimate, just to be safe.

I found a freelancer from Turkey on upwork who worked part time on a MVP for a stand-alone feature that I will be adding to my product later on. He is pretty competent and fast with good communication and his pricing is very reasonable. He left his previous job to do freelancing. But he said that most clients didn't care about the quality and just wanted the job done ASAP. It was too bad that I was not ready to hire him for my project at the time. And now he has a full-time job. Luckily, he is still available to help me part-time on that feature when my project is ready for integration.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Not really. It seems that you are a salesperson based on your name, email address, and lack of participation on this site. At least, I can find your company and employee profiles on LinkedIn. But I did not have good experience talking to sales from IT agencies from India. Unless you have some IH or some companies who can vouch for you, I would pass for now.

I think the non-Western European coders can do as good a job as the Western European and Anglo coders.