I couldn’t stop laughing when I read this post:

 ”I have had some minor success using Odesk.com. I’ve hired one guy hourly there, that was a mistake. He told me he was having Internet problems and couldn’t upload his work, so I gave him a little leeway and then I missed the deadline for disputing his hours and got stuck with the bill. He is supposedly still supposed to be finishing for me so he can get new work for me, but it has been 2 months.”

I think I should get used to it, but I can’t. It’s always a shock to  find people who really believe that the right way to work on Internet project is to “find programmer, find designer and let them to the dirty work”.

Sorry guys - it almost always fails. Single programmer can do  only really small projects (if he is good - that’s another story). If you have two (or more) - you instantly jump into problems with project management. That’s one of the main problems with ODesk and hiring “freelancers” - you always end-up being 2nd on their priority list (daily job is usually first) and you always have comunication & project management problems. Plus they are almost always crap. And in case of problems - they can disappear in the middle of the project! Oh yeah!

Solution? There are two. First is simple - build your in-house team (if you can  afford it). It will be expensive but you will get a lot more control (if you can handle it of course). Second - if you want to go off-site - hire a team, or even better, a company specialized in projects which you want to build. There’s plenty of offshore companies out there, small specialized software houses, working with their clients on-line, and doing really good job. Why not use one of them.

ODesk, eLance, Guru… if you really believe its possible to build “clone of ebay” for $50 in two weeks - go ahead, try it. But if you are in business and your software project is really critical - then you better invest good money and don’t expect $10/h developers to be great. World is one market now, there’s millions of other people who want to do their projects, but only few good developers. And those developers will work with those who pay most - simple as that.

Pay more than usual. Include bonus for successful project delivery. Get team of programmers (who worked together in the past) or specialized development company. Learn more about software project management, quality assurance etc. And I guarantee you will start having better results, and getting better software..!