Hiring Freelancer Designers or Developers to build your business

July 30, 2008

After working with other designers, coders and developers over the past years I thought I’d put together an article about this. The way that I wanted to setup Pure Web Analytics was a business that works with its client base ongoing over the life of their web based business systems. Freelancing projects to different coders can be dangerous to businesses building their reputation online because you are only as good as your last designer or coder.

For some business owners this works but I’ve seen my share of projects where a coder or designer left a project and the person who paid for it had no clue of the work that was actually done and what was left remaining. When the next coder showed up it had to be re-coding from scratch and the cycle repeats itself over and over again.

Pros of Hiring

I don’t want to learn HTML, CSS, PHP or ASP and I don’t have to!

One of the biggest pros of hiring a freelance programmer or designer is that they do all the coding or designing and you just sit back and pay them. It can be simple and stress free to hire coders to work on your projects, update your website or perform any number of other tasks that you need help with.

Finding a skilled professional with a skill set that is hard to find locally

When it comes to hiring for a specific project where the skillet required is outside what anyone locally can provide for you, hiring a freelancer can work to your benefit.

It’s cheaper hiring a freelancer

When you are hiring a freelancer you don’t need to worry about paying those benefits, other overhead costs or anything associated to keeping an employee other then the cost of having them working on the project.

Cons of Hiring

Who owns what code or design work?

This is an issue that gets sticky depending on how you attack this issue. Naturally as companies develop proprietary web software with their freelance developers this becomes something that the business depends on and this is one way in which problems can arise.

How talented is my freelancer?

Some freelancers come off as gurus and after you read their resume, look at some of their samples you are ready to make the effort to purchase their services. Once you before involved in the project you realize that they don’t know what they are talking about and that they cannot help you. Money is lost, expectations are lost and you are lost as to who to hire next?

Where did my freelancer go?

Sometimes freelancers just disappear off the face of the planet never to be seen or heard from again. When some freelancers feel a project is complete to their standards and not the standards of the customer paying for their services they simply stop responding. They stop sending emails. They stop working for you on your projects. Your only real course of action is to either sue them or higher another freelance professional to finish the project.

Where does my freelancer live?

Choosing a freelancer means selecting who you want to work with based on their location. Some people don’t mind hiring a freelance coder or designer from India but others mind the fact that when they begin their business day your coder is going to sleep unless you like staying up at night.

Whether you choose to work with a freelancer or not these are a few points to keep in mind when you are considering how to hire for your project. Not all web professionals are created equal and sometimes spending a little more you are able to achieve the things that you need to run a successful business online or adding a web channel to your current business.

Other options instead of outsourcing your projects to a freelancer

Do It Yourself

This is a favourite of many entrepreneurs and small business owners out there but unless you are a web developer you may be better off spending the money to have someone build your website over trying to learn everything yourself

Staff your company internally

If your company is large enough to support a full time or part time web designer or developer then this might be your best bet. This way they are an official employee of your company and running off with the secret source code becomes much harder.

Find a development firm to manage your projects and complete them.

Finding a solution provider, design agency or company that specifically can help you build your business’ web site is another great option. That is actually what Pure Web Analytics is designed for and the niche we meet we don’t choose to work with a lot of companies because we want to provide excellent support and development to our clients, they in turn pay for it but they get value from knowing that we only work with a certain amount of clients. Being structured this way allows us to remain competitive and selective about the people we hire and the projects that we take on.

That being said i think that there are many excellent freelance web designers, developers and usability experts out there and maybe in the near future Pure Web Analytics will showcase some of the hottest talent from around the web for your viewing pleasure!

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Posted by Lucas | Filed Under General, Web Development 

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