[alain94040]

the best way to partner with a developer is to do just that - actually partner

That was my takeaway as well. The article gives good advice on how to pick the best person on elance, but I challenge the notion that you want to look for your critical partner on elance in the first place.

I guess it's a semantics discussion: I believe in finding co-founder (http://fairsoftware.net), others believe in outsourcing their development. Both approaches are valid, they both have tradeoffs.

Outsourcing is easier to get started: you pay cash, you get someone, anyone. With co-founders, the dating could take 3 months, which sounds very frustrating at first, except it pays off for life. [insert dating analogy here]