[ss_justin]

Before I got into my startup, I was a software consultant. I got quite a bit of business from people who had first tried outsourcing their work and had abysmal results. I wasn't the only one I knew making a living off those failed projects, either.

When I got into the startup scene, I started asking other companies and investors what their experiences were like with offshoring. Very, very few of the stories were good. The critical issues were always poor communication, limited agility, and mediocre code quality.

If incubator founders and interviewers are hearing the same stories I am, they're probably leery that your current success is sustainable. You may have nailed communication with your team, but until you've attempted to iterate your product a few times, neither you or the folks at the incubator know if you'll have the agility to move forward.

Having a technical co-founder guarantees two things, even if you offshore your work. First, you'll have someone who can properly write specifications around not only what you need today, but what you might need tomorrow. You'll also have someone there to make short-term hacks, fixes, and cleanups that might be difficult to coordinate with an offshore team.