| I have a few startups brewing right now. For one I'm working with technical co-founders, and another I'm not. Trying to "rent a coder" for the latter has proven to be much more difficult both short term and long term than having partners who code. First, I had to come up with cash to pay someone. A painful thing to do when you're bootstrapping with no real income. Second, I had to spend copious amounts of time not only writing a technical spec for someone who didn't grok the app but also carefully crafting a contract that would assure that I kept the IP. Third, maintenance has been a bitch. Iterations take weeks instead of days, and I'm never a contractor's top priority. In contrast, my partners are (like me) working for equity, have a deep, intuitive grasp of the product and what it does, and are engaged enough to not only turn around changes quickly, but also suggest improvements themselves. Obviously, there are situations where renting a coder will be one's only option. My experience has been that it's an awkward, painful process. In the future, I would choose to cobble together a non-functional prototype (I'm a UX designer who writes display layer markup) to help me attract a technical co-founder or an investor rather than hire another contractor. |