Question for Founders: When should you outsource?

In addition to outsourcing, especially if you are tight on cash, you can now build teams using volunteers. Do take a look https://skilledup.life

My own team includes over 80 volunteers. We've also created 3 jobs as a result of growth thanks to them.

When deciding to outsource, consider if the task is outside your core competencies, the cost-effectiveness compared to full-time hiring, the need for scalability and flexibility, and the urgency of the task. My positive outsourcing experiences were based on these factors, focusing on specialized tasks like graphic design and digital marketing. It's crucial to choose the right partners and manage these relationships for quality and alignment with your business goals.

1. When I started working on a new product, realized we don't have in-house expertise at that time[ React] -Expertise

2. But we were good at backend work. So decided to outsource FE to an outsourcing company - Expertise

3. Realised they can not just work on FE, as it is pretty dynamic product and requires BE support, hence we allowed them to work on their own BE - little bit of repetitive work.

4. Meanwhile in parallel, we also started developing BE, which had advanced features than the outsourcing company was working on - Control on the product

5. We only handled all integration work, as we didn't want to give the entire source code to them - Control on the product

Felt it was a good decision back then when we were 2-3 member team and things were moving faster because we outsourced a chunk initial development of the product. Hiring internally would have easily taken 2-3 months.

Hope this helps!

I outsourced from day one using freelancer platforms. That's the only way I could sustainably scale. Good luck!

Hiring full time is a risky move.

The easiest way is to Outsource (Or hire part-time on minimum number of hours). This will also help you to assess if a certain task is a priority/much-needed task or not.

If you have a full-time job and making a few thousands in revenue per month, you can simply start outsourcing. But note that managing tasks with freelancer can be challenging too but eventually you can create run books that helps you work async with your team.

I'm not taking about outsourcing now:

Once I feel that the work becomes repetitive and I can explain it in a video tutorial I'm outsourcing it. I'm lucky to have some good ppl in my network who I can trust and they do all my manual work for a relatively low fee. You need to find such ppl.

The only reason I wouldn't outsource if the task has high risks and mistakes can damage our brand or the product.

However, most of the times I start myself. Spend time learning the task, breaking it down in steps and then record the tutorial.

I like this article. How do you figure out if you have budget? That's what I'm struggling with -- when do we have the runway to outsource some tasks?

I would outsource as long as you can. Especially if you have not enough traction to pay someone, you should outsource it and keep the cost lower.
Also, you get on average better quality with a higher flexibility (workload e.g.)

I'd decide based on if I can do it decent and fast by myself or not. Also another point of consideration if it's interesting for me or not. Let's say I can and enjoy building things, but setting up AWS, Terraform etc it's completely another field, it's interesting to discover (if it's not a huge task though in that case I don't think it makes sense to spend so much time without good understanding what you are doing, it's better to hire a professional for that job).

The same for content management, I don't quite like doing this and I feel I'd better spend time on what I can do better and enjoy more

I hire people for logo designs, artwork, etc. I dream of hiring someone for marketing.

Freelancers can be a huge sink of time and money — it’s hard to find someone who can do the work well and is affordable. Once you find someone who can do something well make sure to treat them like gold.

For myself, I don't hire people. I only work with freelancers that can do specific tasks.

For every task I can afford someone, and that I don't want to learn/enjoy doing myself, I hire a freelancer.

Think; can someone do this better and cheaper than me? If the answer is yes, and you have budget, go for it.

When it's no core for you

I didn't hire someone. I always work with the freelancers. I think working with a qualified freelancers is best way to getting better results. By the way this is my opinion.