AP 0431: How Do I Hire a Software Developer?

AskPat 431 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 431 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. We have a great question today from Wayne, but before I get to Wayne's question, I do want to thank today's sponsor which is Lynda.com, the online learning platform with over 3000 on-demand video courses to help you strengthen your business, technology and creative skills.

And the cool thing about it is you can actually get a 10-day free trial, complete access to all their on-demand videos by just going to Lynda.com/AskPat, again that's Lynda.com/AskPat. Linda.com is for problem solvers, for the curious, for people who want to make things happen. Whether you have a 9 to 5 or you are an entrepreneur or both, you can excel with the tutorials over at Lynda.com/AskPat.

Alright, here's today's question from Wayne.

Wayne: Hey Pat, this is Wayne Campbell. I have a quick question. I have a great idea, maybe, for some video software that I'd like to have worked on but know nothing about software. How do I go about finding and hiring a great software developer? Just really need some help with that, appreciate it. Thanks bud, bye.

Pat: Hey Wayne, what's up? Thank you so much for this question, and I'm glad you're asking this question because I dived into software two times actually in the past way too fast. I hired just the people that cost the least and were the first to say they wanted to work with me, and both of those experiences were terrible. Ended up not having any success with those applications at all and lost 10,000 dollars plus. So I'm really glad you're seeking out help for this because it's really important. You know, you have this idea, and you are looking for the best developers.

Now there's a number of different places you can go to find developers to help you. The first place I would start is with your existing network. Is there anybody you know who's a developer or anybody who you have worked with who knows developers or who has worked with other developers in the past? You can get direct and honest feedback from them on who might potentially be a good fit for the developer for your project. And so I would start with your network. If you don't have a large one, then I would go into sites that show you who works on certain things like this, who has credentials, who has a portfolio, who has worked with other people, who has left feedback to these people.

And there were two sites in the past that I would recommend which is Elance.com and Odesk.com, however if you go to both of those URLs now, they both redirect to a new company that they both formed together and that is Upwork.com. Again, that's Upwork.com. And if you go to Upwork.com, essentially all you have to do is leave a description of what it is you're looking to do and who it is you're looking to work with, and different developers from around the world will pretty much compete to win your job based off of their bid or, you know, how much they would be charging you for this project. And also their portfolio and resume and credentials and that sort of thing.

So the biggest thing is to don't do the same mistake that I did, which was one, hire the first developer that says they're going to work with you. Because I know you're anxious. I know you have this great idea and I hope you've validated this idea or at least put it through some tests, talked about it with people to see what their thoughts are. And a lot of us have these amazing software ideas, and we, you know . . . Like if you are like me, you spend a lot of money working on them because you just want to rush into it, and then you find out that you rushed into it and did not do some things that you should have done in the past. And a few simple conversations with just people, anybody, about this idea will help you extract, sort of, any gaps or holes in it and things like that.

Also, I would recommend that if you're going to be working with the developer as well that you flesh out this idea as much as possible. You put as much detail into the description, not the description you post up because you want to save some of that information for when you actually have conversations with these developers, but for yourself when you actually do hire a developer. Then you can hand off these wireframes, if you will, and I would actually draw out exactly what you want it to look like, at least sketch it or find a designer to help you do that, so that there are no delays due to lost in translation. Because when I worked with the developer, another mistake I made was I just told them via email or Skype what I wanted, and it was up to them to kind of take that information and turn it into something. And more often than not, it did not look like how I had imagined.

Now whatever it is that you imagine or whatever it is your designer imagines, make sure they put it down on paper or files or sketches or something so that the developer cannot help but know exactly what it is that you're talking about. You don't want any room for translation. You want to be very, very thorough and detailed with what it is you want when you work with these developers. So even as you're searching for developers, even before you find one, you should a) have these conversations with people to flesh out your idea, have them help poke holes in it and all those sorts of things, and then b) turn it into a wireframed something that you can then hand off to the developer that you end up hiring.

Now when you are prospecting these developers, you know, they're going to come to you on Upwork.com if you don't have any in your network. You can also go to Craigslist and things like that, too, but whatever the case may be, you want to have conversations with these people before hand. You want to see what communication is like before you start working with them, and you also just want to make sure that they have a great history, that they have a good portfolio, that they have other clients that you could potentially reach out to and just see and ask, “Hey, how was it working with so and so? Do you recommend them for other jobs?” And those simple conversations will help save you a ton of money, a ton of time, and a ton of sweat and headache because it can definitely be a headache for sure.

Now in terms of communication, the last thing I want to talk about, Skype is good in terms of communicating with these developers. Especially initial communication over Skype, you want to hear their voice, they want to hear your voice, and you can just kind of get a vibe immediately of whether or not this person is somebody you'd like to work with. But long term, when you hire somebody, and you want to work with them, the number one tool I recommend in terms of communication is not email and it is not Skype. It is a tool called Slack. If you go to AskPat.com/Slack, you'll see that it's pretty much like a chatroom messaging system, and my team and I use this internally for everything, and it has cut out email so much. I told Michael Hyatt about this tool, and he's used it and is using it in his team as well, and I know a number of other people who use it, too. It really makes the history of the chats very easy to search through, and you can divide these chats into certain channels so that you can just keep things organized, and you can have a number of people on your team have access to only certain channels. And you can direct message people and create little groups and all those sorts of things. Again, check it out AskPat.com/Slack.

So Wayne, I hope that answers your question and gets your gears running. And again, talk to people about our idea, and also just make sure that you talk to the developers before you hire them as well, and I wish you all the best. Thank you so much, and if you haven't already, listen to Episode 46 of the Smart Passive Income podcast. So if you go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/session46, that's a conversation with Dane Maxwell, and it goes into how to potentially hire developers. Not on a one-off basis like this, but you could also potentially hire developers to work with you and partner with them, and you might even be able to get them to help pay for the development. And if they come on as a partner, or you can also pre-sell your idea as well, which Dane talks about to get funds to then be able to hire a developer that can work on this idea for you. So go ahead and check that out, SmartPassiveIncome.com/session46.

Wayne, thank you so much, I appreciate your question. We're going to send you and AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for anybody else out there who has a question, if you have a question head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page, super simple thanks to the widget from Speakpipe.com.

I also want to thank a secondary sponsor today, and that is Braintree. If you're working on a mobile app, and maybe Wayne, this is you, you're working on a mobile app and you're searching for a payment solution. You have e-commerce or other forms of payments in there that you're collecting inside your app. Check out Braintree because with one simple integration, you can offer your customers every way to pay. This is the tool that Uber uses, Living Social, Hotel Tonight, Airbnb . . . They use this for mobile payment solutions. And to learn more and get your first 50K in transaction fees free, go to BraintreePayments.com/pat. Again that's BraintreePayments.com/pat.

Alright, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it, and here's a quote to finish this episode by Tim Ferriss. He says, “Think big and don't listen to the people who tell you it can't be done. Life's too short to think small.”

Absolutely. Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat, bye.