Semi-techy founder faced with HUGE tech undertaking. Not sure how to proceed... help?
Hey, everyone. I know this might be a weird question for this group because many of you are super techy. Myself, I'm mildly tech-savvy. Enough that I've built a few businesses over the last decade but I've always been the tech guy because it's never been all too complicated. Mostly content-related stuff.
But now, one of my biggest projects is really taking off and I feel like, to give my customers what they need and want (from exit interviews and other data) I'll need to hire someone who's way better at development than I am. A real pro.
But I hold on to this fear that I'll lose control of the project. I've always been able to make the changes I needed to on my site(s) and I'd be giving some of that up.
I worry that'll cost me too much money and introduce too much risk in the long-run.
But then I worry that my fear is holding me back from building the best product for my customers and growing the business.
Have you ever faced anything like this? HELP!
Hi Preston,
That's a great problem. When a project outgrows your capabilities, that's a success.
As a practical matter, do you have the ability to interview and hire this person? Direct this person?
If so, maybe try and keep up. There's nothing better than when the "pro" says "you're not as bad at this as you used to be."
Congrats,
I appreciate the vote of confidence and the added thoughts. Very good thinking here. Thanks @ChrisR!
It reverse the risk is in the short term and the gain is in the long term.
Also the certain 100% risks of not doing what's needed is the bigger risk.
You describe the problems of over control and/or perfectionist.
You can still get a lot of control if you want/need for example working the code in github/gitlab, will help you learn a lot if you want to be better at IT rather than the business
Your emotions are very natural overall.
It just yet another new thing you get to suck at for a little while
Just do it and you'd laugh about it in just a short while
@hatkyinc thank you for the vote of confidence! You're probably right. It's odd: I've never feared hiring before, but this feels different...
Kids leaving the nest syndrome?
Hmm. No, I don't think so. It's more about staying lean and ensuring I can stay lean in the future.
So it's about having that extra expense ongoing?
Also there are different ways to work, start with something minor that you can contract like a design or research or a single function..
Hey Preston. I haven't been in the exact same situation as I'm a developer but I can say that going from working on 100% of my projects as a freelancer to building out a team of developers to take over tasks/projects is similar. As a freelancer, you handle everything as well as know that work is getting done exactly the way you want.
When you hire someone and then begin to delegate tasks you do have a fear of giving up control and the risk of working with someone that isn't a good fit. But there's also the understanding that you can't handle everything as quickly as a team would because there's only so many hours in the day. For me, I wouldn't be where I am without help from my team members, plus when working with others I value the perspective they add. As they say two heads are better than one.
There's a risk in keeping control of everything also especially if you have an emergency at some point before delivery. Working with others allows you to mitigate some of that risk as the other team members can help take on work when you aren't available.
Best of luck.
Hey @oceanring. Thank you so much for your input. I'm not sure what's got me so worried here. I have hired people in the company already and I agree with you. But I think everyone I've hired, I did the job first so if they up-and-left, I know I could pick up the slack if needed.
With a developer, that's not the case. I'm worried if they decided to cut ties or if something went wrong, or whatever, I'd be stuck with a broken product that I can't personally fix.
I think it's less about control and more about being able to fix things if they break?.... thanks for letting me think out loud here. Any other thoughts?
To mitigate you can work on rollback plans for example
Yes, true. Starting as MVP as possible will appease some of these concerns.
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Yes, that's the plan if I do move ahead. Or contracting an agency. It's not the fear of hiring that's the issue... it's fear of turning the product over to a level I can't personally or singularly maintain. Thanks!