How we learned to work with freelancers

In this article I will try to talk about the evolution of our work with freelancers. Many of the errors described below may seem naive, but still we made them and are ready to share the “rake” with others. At that time, we worked on the project in the mode of a hobby, so do not judge strictly. It should be noted that our project from the beginning to the present moment is created by the forces of remote employees.

The very beginning

2 months after the appearance of the idea, the base TZs were written, and we had to implement several large blocks: the desktop application, the website and the overall design. Accordingly, three projects were posted on freelance. Proposals were received for all projects, but prices varied from a few hundred dollars to several tens of thousands. We expected to spend no more than 1-2 thousand dollars for everything, so expensive offers did not even study.

As expected, it was easiest to find a designer. He turned out to be quite adequate and suggested that we act as a manager and find performers for writing the site and the application (client). The voiced price and terms were quite attractive, and we agreed with relief. How naive we were then, believing that someone for $ 1,200 would do everything for us. Fortunately, we agreed on postpay, that is, no advance payments were necessary.
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They will do everything without us

It was very naive to hope that someone from outside would be able to act as a worthy manager and provide working software without our intervention. But then we believed it and calmly waited for the results.
A month later, when we wanted to see the results, it turned out that almost nothing had been done. But we did not give up so easily and, taking the contacts of the programmers, began to work with them ourselves. It turned out that an experienced but very intractable specialist works on the site, and a sixteen-year-old guy with no experience on the client. Such “resumes” did not stop us, and we continued to quietly eat “breakfasts”. As a result, we lost another couple of months.

The terms "slightly" are postponed.

Terms were broken specifically. By the time we planned to have alpha, we had nothing, including developers. The only thing we had was an understanding that no one could act as managers except us. It was the first bump that cost us 3 months.

How we chose people

At that time, we did not do any interviews and tests. Started to work with almost everyone who agreed. Developers at Delphi even then were few. By the way, the environment for foolishness was also chosen not by us, but by the first programmer who implemented the appearance of the main form on Delphi.

Usually it happened like this: a performer comes in contact, says that he understood the TK and is ready to work. We send what we have and wait for the results. A week later, we ask the state of affairs and find out that the work is underway, but there is no possibility to show yet. We are waiting for another week, we write again.
An unbelievable thing usually happened here: developers burn computers, discs fly, they go to hospitals, phones are lost, a provider mows, etc. At first, I sincerely believed in it and even worried about them, especially when they told me stories about car accidents and jolts incompatible with coding. Only after 5-6 such “accidents” I realized that all this was a linden, and at least stopped being nervous and expect results after “leaving the hospital”.

Around this mode, we had the whole summer of 2009, when one careless freelancer was replaced by another. About 20-30 people worked with us! According to the law of large numbers, in 3-4 months we still somehow advanced: after six months, the application had an external shell and skillfully communicate with the server, providing some minimum task life cycle: placement, chat, confirmation. That is, the program was able to do something, but even the alpha could not be called it.
The story of how the first version came out of this raw material will be told separately, because we have already brought it to mind.

How to be prepaid

The issue of prepayment arises quite often when working with remote employees, because cases of fraud are not so rare. I agree to prepay if the amount is insignificant. In my opinion, the main purpose of prepayment is to show that the customer can pay, for which large sums are not needed. After prepayment, the cost can be divided into small tranches tied to the results of work. If they occur often enough, the risk of loss for both parties is minimal.
After that, mutual reputation is gained, and the time period grows with the amounts. Here, of course, help reviews, ratings, registration date and everything else that is available on the search services of remote employees.

Errors briefly:

- the hope that someone will do everything without your control
- lack of selection / testing of candidates
- no deadlines
- gullibility to various “accidents”

How do we recruit now

Price

The price should suit both sides right from the start. Normal work will not work if you are willing to pay 15 d / h, and the developer wants 20d / h. Even if you are bargaining, nothing good will grow anyway. One will assume that he is underpaid, and the other - that overpays. The optimal price is determined only by experience and comes with an understanding of what level of specialists you need.

Summary

We always require a resume at the selection stage, just to get a brief information about the person and not to waste time talking. At the same time, there are no special requirements for resume, we need simple reference information. You may have some criteria by experience, by time zone ... These criteria are easily checked at the stage of reviewing a resume.

Oral conversation

(Passed on Skype - no need to wear pants)

After reviewing the summary and price discussion, I turn to the oral conversation. The task of this stage is to check the adequacy and understand how pleasant it is for you to communicate with the person. Administrative issues related to the working schedule, method of payment are immediately discussed ...

Testing

If the conversation is successful, we proceed to the testing phase. At this stage, involved a technical specialist who gives the task to Google docs and asks her to solve it live. The tasks are quite simple, because it is clear that there is enough stress.
When I was looking for a manager, I made up some tasks similar to the real work and asked me to send solutions.
This is a super-mandatory stage, without it anywhere.

Test period

If the test was successful, you can proceed to the test period. At this stage, a few simple tasks are given to test performance in real conditions. According to the results of the test period, a decision is made on cooperation.

Odesk

Now we work only through Odesk and we are also looking for employees there. Work through the Odesk client is clearly discussed at the very beginning of the dialogue.
If anyone does not know, the Odesk client allows you to track the work of the employee. Every 10 minutes, he asks what you do and takes screenshots. If you are busy with personal affairs, you can refuse to make a screenshot, but then these 10 minutes will not be counted as workers.
This eliminates the main, in my opinion, problem of freelancing: the employee thinks that he works a lot and receives little, and the customer does the opposite. Odesk clearly shows the amount of work done. Plus, Odesk makes remittances to the contractor every week, which minimizes risks for employees.

Do not like it - do not start

Over time, I realized that if something in the employee does not like, you should not start working with him. Something like an inner sense when you feel that there is something, but you cannot articulate it clearly. Previously, I did not pay attention to it, and everything resulted in loss of time. Now, if I have any suspicions, I do not start cooperation. You communicate with employees quite a lot and you need to be sure that communication will be pleasant.

Full time only

Now the main employees work full time. In my opinion, this is a mandatory requirement for serious work. In this regard, it cannot be said that our employees are freelancers; rather, they are remote workers.

PS

With this post we continue a series of publications where we want to share the experience gained during the creation and work on the project WORKZILLA.RU. Previous articles:
- How to come up with an idea for your project
- How we chose hosting

We do not pretend to omniscience and universal genius, but we want to tell you about our mistakes and findings - they can be useful to someone.

Sample list of future non-technical articles:
- Run the first version
- Search for first users
- What difficulties have we encountered
- Remote team work

Sample list of future technical articles:
- Preparing for a mass advertising campaign with JMeter
- DR - how we solve the problem of force majeure.
- More about backups
- Service monitoring with Munin, Nagios, etc.
- The problem of choosing a reliable SMTP server