One of our recent clients decided to use off-shore development for building their software platform. They signed up for oDesk and it seemingly couldn’t have been easier. They posted their project and received lots of interest. They found a development company in the Ukraine that seemed like a good choice. They liked their portfolio and the hourly rate was 25% of what it would cost in the U.S. The firm practiced SCRUM which is a type of software development that doesn’t rely on specifications but instead relies on many rounds of iteration. The development phase seemed to have progressed well and on-time and the clients couldn’t be happier. The developers said that they thought that the application was just 1 week away from being ready for go-live. The clients were very excited! They could already see themselves becoming famous and rich entrepreneurs overnight.

Then, the clients began to do real testing and the leaks started to appear in the software. For the next 11 weeks, the developers continued to fix defects and inadvertently introduced new ones. The test server would be down for days because there were configuration or software issues and the developers couldn’t or wouldn’t fix them in a timely manner. They would either be sleeping, not answering their emails, taking the day off, or making excuses that the issue was on the server which was NOT their responsibility. With the project now way over budget in both time and money, the clients decided to bring me on to fix one of the bugs in the core application. What I found was very shocking and surprising!

Over the next several weeks, I uncovered issue after issue where the offshore developers did lazy and amateurish work. First, the developers all used the same username for code source control which meant that it was impossible to trace down who worked on what. There was a lack of logging and error handling making it impossible to diagnose issues on the server. The code was not architected well which made it expensive to maintain and full of copy and paste. Over time, developers were rolled on and off the project causing the quality of the code to continue to drop. Rather than identify and fix the root cause, the developers were lazy and implemented hacks. 

I worked with the client and the developers to tighten up the development process by performing code reviews, creating a code management process, helping diagnose issues, adding logging, and upgrading certain pieces of the codebase that were particularly poor. I diagnosed and resolved issues on the test server and prepared the site to go live. The clients were thrilled to see progress and were very upset that they had been deluded into thinking that they good getting a great deal and a robust application.

I think that the lesson is that the software, in this case oDesk, to manage the programmers is NOT enough. Experience and skill is required to make sure that the software is well-written and robust. You need to have a real architect on the project to ensure that you don’t get poorly written code back.

The clients also identified many other challenges due to the language barrier, the timezone difference (the Ukranians were 10 hours ahead), and the lack of availability as the developers were not readily available via cell phone. Now, the clients wish that they could just be rid of the development firm but is being held hostage because the developers are dragging their feet with the documentation. This story is not unique but just a prime example of what can happen with off-shoring and outsourcing development if you aren’t a skilled developer or architect yourself.

For Clients:

1. What if I don’t know exactly what I want? Too bad! These sites want a piece of the transaction so they control your freedom to work directly with the client to help define the project to meet your business goals!
2. Who is actually doing the development? Because you cannot work with the freelancers directly, you may THINK you are working with a qualified freelancer but they just hand the project and a programing book off to a high school student!
3. These prices are too good to be true! They are! The freelancers are forced into a competitive bidding process so early in the project that is so heavily weighted against them that they are forced to underbid poorly defined projects. In fact, these projects are typically a miserable experience for the freelancers and you are likely to get crap back!
4. Why can’t I find top-notch professionals? On these sites, the freelances are incented to do quick and dirty jobs to meet hard deadlines.  Scope can and should change as you learn more about the project.  It is nearly impossible to do Agile or intelligent development in this way!

For Freelancers:

1. What is up with these project descriptions!? Very few clients can spec the projects properly because they are NOT experts. That is why they are on the site in the first place!
2. What are you even bidding on!?  Freelancers are expected to Bid on projects that are so loosely defined that they are taking on enormous risk, stress, and risking their integrity by bidding on these projects.
3. Why can’t I just contact the client or freelancer and work with them!? These sites are so afraid that you will get around them and that they won’t make their ridiculous margins that they don’t let you contact the client directly and work with them on your own terms.
4. What is up with these expert guarantees!? Rent-a-Coder has projects that require the freelancer to put up 10% or more of the total project payment in case you are LATE. As if the poorly defined projects and bidding process weren’t risky and stressful  enough, they want to stick to the freelancer again!
5. Why are they so expensive!? Elance and Rent-a-Coder are bloated software that try to do way too much and charge way too much.  Because of their fear of losing their enormous margins, they get in the way of communication and progress.  They charge 10+%  of the revenue for adding little or no value other than a simple bulletin board with search capabilities (a prettier craigslist).
6. Are these projects even profitable?! – online bidding drives the prices down and pushes the prices so low that few qualified freelancers can actually afford to do them.

Conclusions:

1. Although there is a better solution on it’s way by early next year (subscribe here to be notified), we strongly recommend that we all just avoid these sites and let them die; they are spammy misrepresented garbage messing up the marketplace.
2. Like other for- profit  lead generation machines in the Auto, Real estate, Finance and many industries, these sites are parasites: they add no value to anything: they are noise and they clutter the market they pretend to serve.
3. When you choose to hire out work from freelancers (a very smart and recommended  thing to do), you should start by evaluating and choosing an expert vendor on the highest level first, then, in the process of hiring that project manager, seek advice before specking-out anything.  For instance: we offer a free consultation to anybody, anytime: for anybody planning any kind of marketing program of any kind, from the first logo to the website to the video to the market research, to viral advertising, technology, hosting, radio and TV Advertising, agency services: as do most qualified professionals.
4. Choose the most qualified, highest level vendor possible, and spec and project manage with them, so that the planning process includes the benefit of their advice as part of the contract: you should have the final word, but you should solicit their advice and input every step of the way to achieve the best result!
5. Always check credentials and references before buying anything from anybody anywhere, search for negative press on the Internet, ask for credible references, and recent proof of performance: this technology changes constantly, and only the best of the best can perform here consistently!

Why believe me?  I am Brian Bentow: (Google me!)

CTO for socialmediasystems.com LLC, and MoviePals.org  Entertainment LLC

If you want the answer to a question or a free consultation, call or email our business development  department: 805-827-2450 freeadvice@socialmediasystems.com