How to hire on online freelancing platforms and keep your sanity
16 Mar 2023 - Frans Vanhaelewijck
Let’s hire a developer
If your landing page, prototype, or MVP gets some traction and you need a real app, consider hiring a developer online. There are many platforms to hire freelance developers and this post is not a comparison to help you decide which is best. Rather, we’ll explain some tips & tricks you might use on any platform.
One of the popular platforms is called Upwork. It is a marketplace with a long history that I’ve used for more than 10 years.
Hiring tips for developer marketplaces
Always handle all communication respectfully and treat people like you would like to be treated. Unfortunately, most projects and bidders are of low quality, so you need a process to be sure you get quality coders to submit a bid for your project.
Regardless of the platform you use, be prepared to spend some time learning how it works as there is a lot of bid spamming going on.
Things to watch out for when outsourcing on Upwork or any other platform:
Prepare yourself well
Prepare your work well, and make the deliverables clear. The more time you spend detailing the task, the steps, and the expected result, the higher your chances of success. Good preparation should contain
- a list of all use cases and their detailed steps
- a list of screens to be developed
- if not all, at least sample designs of the most important screens
- a database scheme and in case you don’t have the analysis skills to set up a database scheme, describe all entities (like customer, vehicle, device, delivery location…) and the attributes of each of these entities. Describe how these entities relate (e.g. a customer can have multiple delivery locations, a delivery location can only be linked to one customer…)
- an exhaustive list of all features (think about reports, regular batch jobs, automated backups, archiving, user roles, and data protection).
The budget
Don’t go cheap and put forward a realistic budget. Setting project budgets too low is one of the reasons so much bid spamming is going on. Bidders put in low prices hoping for a positive signal from the project owner. Only then, they read the project description in detail and if it is not fully specified, will put in a price for the minimal set of features required to deliver the project. They charge you later for all the extras you forgot but that you do need.
Also, be ready to try out a small-scale project you can afford to lose.
I am human
Hide the following sentence somewhere in your project description: “Please include ‘I am human’ in your answer”. You’ll be amazed how few Upwork bidders do it. When you get replies (you should get 10-15 replies or more for a decent project description) immediately discard any bid that does not respect this requirement.
When the bidder doesn’t even fully read the project description, how can the bid be serious? I do understand why people do bid spamming. It’s like carpet bombing, they will hit a target from time to time. But I prefer bidders that read the project description.
Measure reaction speed and assess the level of English
For all remaining bids that qualify (typically only 2 or 3) ask some trivial questions about the bid and measure how responsive the bidders are. The more responsive, the better. Also evaluate their English, if you can’t communicate well during the bidding, it will certainly not work during the actual project.
Agency? No thanks
Never work with agencies. The agency’s owner typically answers all the bids and once you award the project, you get a junior assigned to your project. Always work with solo entrepreneurs.
Talk to me
You should try to get the bidder on a video call. It will give you so much more information than just communicating over email or Slack.
Although this is not strictly necessary. I worked for 4 years with a developer whom I never spoke to. But only do that once you get some experience. The advantage of not forcing people to do a video call is that you don’t scare off the introverted individual who hates to be on video calls.
Pay correctly and pay fast
Part of your project description should include a set of milestones, each with a clear objective and a set of deliverables. Link each of these milestones to a percentage of your budget. When a milestone is reached and accepted (most platforms explicitly support milestone acceptance and linked budgets), pay the coder immediately.
If you have requested extra features that were not in the initial scope, add a bonus payment to compensate for the additional work. The inverse is also true: if the milestone scope is reduced for any reason, renegotiate the linked budget with your coder.
If the first milestone fails for any reason, consider stopping the project prematurely. If things go wrong during the honeymoon phase, there is not much hope for the marriage.