When Using a Freelancing Site like ODesk, Make Sure to Hire for as Small of Tasks as Possible
….Fast forward to the end of July. They hadn’t even hit the first milestone. My project scope was insanely detailed, they even said they didn’t have many questions as it was all laid out in the spec document. The problem was, the development of even some of the basic functions was beyond their skill set, or at least that’s what it appeared to be, when they were 1 month behind schedule on a first milestone.
The above quote is from Lindsey Harper’s blog Ramblings of a Web Startup in Progress, which I found today when it was mentioned in Read/Write Web’s article, Using a Virtual Personal Assistant for Your Startup.
I’ve already subscribed to her RSS feed and added it to my favorites list because even after only three articles, I think that she is writing about some really great topics that the larger blogs aren’t diving deep enough into to sustain their readers’ interest. One of her other articles is about how to use Mechanical Turk to solicit feedback regarding your startup ideas. You should read these articles if you’re trying to get your own ideas into action mode. I’ll think that they’ll inspire you to think outside of the box on how to cheaply get your gears into motion.
As for ODesk, I’ve forced myself to use it consistently throughout 2010, so I’ve developed a few best practices (but not many).
I love ODesk’s worker quality control features (screenshots of their work!), but in all, I think that it’s a tough service to navigate for a typical hiring manager. Most of the inadequacies of the site are directly related to the complete lack of outsourcing education most of us web workers/entrepreneurs possess, though.
If I had to give one really good suggestion to better hire freelancers (ODesk or otherwise), it would be to use the Mechanical Turk model and break down your assignment in the smallest task possible.
Truth be told, complicated projects need teams of workers to succeed and freelancing sites are more suited for hiring individuals. But…if you can find a great hire who completes a small task well, then you can give him a slightly larger task, and then another, etc. If you’re really lucky, that person will begin to understand your wants and needs and would then make a great manager for a larger project, maybe even helping you hire additional team members and break down all your tasks.
I’d also like to say that when you do find a great freelancer, don’t lose him. Give him bonuses and small raises and above all else, keep the work coming (even if only five hours a week). In the long term, it’s much better to pay $50/week to staff an A+ programmer (i.e. quick, smart and communicative) than to spend dozens of hours of your time to find new freelancers for each little task.
My advice comes from a lot of fails on ODesk (and a lot of wasted time), but no matter what, don’t give up trying to outsource repetitive tasks. If you’re going to launch a company and make it sustainable, eventually, you’re going to have to relinquish responsibility for doing everything in the organization. It’s better to learn this lesson now on a small scale than to learn it the hard way later on.
