My First Experience With Outsourcing
www.buythereef.com Buy The Reef website design
Background: I had a website build that a client hired me to do. I was on a tight deadline and the programmer I had lined up hiked up the price on me and really screwed me over. So that brings us to the day I thought I was going to lose my mind because I had a website design finished, cash in hand, an approaching deadline, and no programmer. I contacted no less than 10 boutiques in the States for quotes. I was met with nothing but obstacle after obstacle. The biggest one being a lot of the programmers were asking for more than I even charged my client. It seemed that everyone wanted their piece of the pie and most just wanted the whole pie.
I decided to go to elance.com a freelance website for posting jobs and receiving bids. I posted up my job description and a general idea of my budget and received an overwhelming amount of proposals. Some were easy to weed out as their proposals were either too basic, horribly worded, or too expensive. I found one company that seemed to know exactly what I needed and the price was right, but they were located in Egypt.
I was very nervous and decided to try and raise the contact listed on skype to see how we would communicate. Surprisingly, he spoke perfect English and knew more about the programming I was asking for than I did. I talked with him for about an hour and decided he was the right fit.
I awarded him the project and everything over the next month went so smoothly at times it astounded me at times.
We are now done with the site and the programmer was able to stay exactly to my design from the .psd.
I am glad to report that if you follow your common sense and prepare, outsourcing isn’t something for even a small business owner to shy away from. I was able to keep on my deadline, stay within budget, and create the best work I’ve done thus far. Check it out for yourself.
