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About eight months ago, I hired a programmer. This programmer, who I can’t name, worked on a software which I had assigned him to.  It was a software which would process my entire sales process, so I know that this kind of project would take time.

We both agreed on the requirements of the project, like how often to report to me, service fees etc. The programmer estimated the project to take 2 1/2 months, based on my requirements.

I didn’t find this programmer through any freelance sites like elance.com or the like, I found him through a friend, so my initial impression of this programmer is that if I trusted my friend, I trusted this programmer.

I was wrong.

A month went by and I didn’t see any progress.

Another couple of months went by, and still, I didn’t see any progress with the software.

What was even worse was that I didn’t receive any reports from the programmer.

We both had conversations via Skype and he told me that that the project is going to take longer than he had thought.

He kept giving my excuses of why the delivery of the software kept delaying.

It was understandable to me, but not seeing any progress or work done feels like I had wasted my time and money.

So another few months went on until I finally had enough and told him what he should’ve heard months ago. I told him I need to see something or I would need to call this project off, and his services.

With that intention, I was informed that the software was accessible but not yet completed. To me, it was only a quarter of the way, and this was after six months.

I felt insulted because he only gave me a little piece of the pie to keep me happy. You can imagine how furious and angry I was.

So, ten months had gone right now and my final decision is to let this programmer go from my team.

Yes, I’ve made my own bad and silly mistakes.

What did I learn from this experience?

• Trust is important. In this scenario there was none. What I should’ve asked for is proof of whether the person I’m hiring is competent enough to handle this project, i.e. -portfolio and projects this person has done in the past.

• Hire the right people in your team. It may not be your time or budget to hire someone, but hiring the right people in your team is important. A self-managed person would save you so much time and hassle.

• When hiring a programmer, pay for what they have actually created, in my case I paid on a monthly basis, which was a bad idea.

• I made the mistake of hiring someone directly, not through a freelance site. Freelance sites have a system which works so that both parties will get what they agreed upon. An escrow system is common in this situation. Places to outsource work: elance.com, scriptlance.com, rentacoder.com, guru.com. Personally, I’ve only tried scriptlance.com for graphics and have had good experiences.

• You pay for what you get. I paid a fairly decent amount every month to hire this programmer, but compared to a programmer who is more skilled, it was cheap.

• Communication is important. In my case, I had little or poor communication with the programmer.

All-in-all, I have lost trust in this programmer and will not hire this person anymore, but what hasn’t changed is outsourcing my business. I have learned from this lesson and, hopefully, will not make the same mistakes again.

What are your thoughts on this situation?

What are you experiences with outsourcing? Have you had any bad experiences? Let me know by posting your comments/feedback below. As awalsy, I’d love to hear from you…