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How To Get Good Service Providers / Vendors / Business Partners

So, the general consensus is always to hire out for whatever you are not an expert in (and even then sometimes). Most notably, “I have a technology based idea and need someone to build it because I don’t have the technological expertise.”

My question is how do you find good people for this?

I know of O-Desk, Elance, Freelancer etc, but time and again I find 2 issues.

  1. People I hire across all pay scales provide aren’t all that great. The results are “meh” at best.
  2. I feel that there is nothing stopping them from simply taking the idea and doing it themselves.

I’m doing something wrong, I’m not sure what.

Couple of ideas:

  1. I need to engage someone to help me iron out ways that I can get taken advantage of.
  2. Find someone local who I can sit and review with regularly.

Answer 703

How do you choose people on those web services? You cannot look at their rate because many, many bad programmers are hidden in $40/h area.

So how do you differentiate? Ask for the concrete project that they like. Review them and see if they are up to your standard.

Then do have camera-engaged interview. See how they talk and what feeling do you get. If they are full of sh*t or numb, they are probably like that in the project.

Ask them about the deadlines. If they are confident about the deadline in the large project, avoid them. No one can be confident about the deadline in the large project.

With such narrowed group of people, start with the best and review the work in 1 week. If it’s bad, move to another.

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