Comments on: What it Means to Outsource the Development of Your Product http://freshout.us/notebook/outsourcing-product-development/ Web application design and development agency! Mon, 01 Apr 2013 22:27:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: MideastYouth http://freshout.us/notebook/outsourcing-product-development/comment-page-1/#comment-293 MideastYouth Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:19:00 +0000 http://freshout.us/?p=2150#comment-293 I really need to hand it to Navid here. Everything noted above is spot on. The idea means nothing if the execution doesn't compliment it. Micro-managing with the pretense or false assumption that the client knows everything has the potential of killing the project before it even begins. The client's job is to provide a concept or the problem to be solved and trust the product team to come up with various ways in which this can be solved, and then picking the best approach that sticks. Yes, handing over a project to a team is very risky. But if you spent enough time getting to know the team and their quality work, you can relax. Outsourcing (to the right team) doesn't mean the client loses control. It means being open to bigger, stronger and more ambitious opportunities that they wouldn't have come up with on their own. In a nutshell: You're doing yourself a favor. Those who made a habit out of wanting to be part of every UI or development decision end up being a hindrance, not to mention it's demotivational for the rest of the team. Feedback is one thing but the long docs and detailed slideshows is a gunshot to 'innovation.' Innovation comes with big risks. Innovative products come from people who let go of the traditional and embraced the new and unique. The fact will always remain that on most occasions the product team will know better than you purely because of the amount of experience they have gained in the field working with other startups and learning a lot of lessons along the way while gaining top-notch skills that can be used to your advantage. Being a client of Freshout now for about 2 years, I consider it a place where mere ideas come alive in the form of beautiful, amazingly functional products and apps. This isn't a testimonial. It's an experience that we are grateful for. I really can't imagine where we would've been if we hadn't made that initial contact a few years ago. It was clear that this was a team that is extremely capable, extremely innovative, and most importantly understanding of exactly what you're trying to achieve by taking what could've been a failed idea to something 10 times fresher and more unique. We've matured because of it, and became much more trusting of their valuable contributions and inputs. To conclude, the most important thing is that product design and development is not an "expense," it's an investment. The quality of our latest projects (CrowdVoice, Mideast Tunes, and Ahwaa) were so good that it invited more people to donate to our projects, which allowed us to invest directly into improvements of current work or newer projects. Again, while this may read like a testimonial, it's just noted here to evidence that if more clients did this we do feel that the web would be a better place. For us, Freshout makes that possible every day. We don't think there's any team out there with the passion and skills that these guys have. I'm super confident in just giving them an idea and having them go at it, knowing that the end result will be nothing short of amazing. They're irreplaceable and we treasure them. If you can't say that about your dev team, it's time to make a serious investment and look elsewhere (unless you don't care enough about your idea or startup.) I really need to hand it to Navid here. Everything noted above is spot on. The idea means nothing if the execution doesn’t compliment it. Micro-managing with the pretense or false assumption that the client knows everything has the potential of killing the project before it even begins. The client’s job is to provide a concept or the problem to be solved and trust the product team to come up with various ways in which this can be solved, and then picking the best approach that sticks. Yes, handing over a project to a team is very risky. But if you spent enough time getting to know the team and their quality work, you can relax. Outsourcing (to the right team) doesn’t mean the client loses control. It means being open to bigger, stronger and more ambitious opportunities that they wouldn’t have come up with on their own. In a nutshell: You’re doing yourself a favor.

Those who made a habit out of wanting to be part of every UI or development decision end up being a hindrance, not to mention it’s demotivational for the rest of the team. Feedback is one thing but the long docs and detailed slideshows is a gunshot to ‘innovation.’ Innovation comes with big risks. Innovative products come from people who let go of the traditional and embraced the new and unique. The fact will always remain that on most occasions the product team will know better than you purely because of the amount of experience they have gained in the field working with other startups and learning a lot of lessons along the way while gaining top-notch skills that can be used to your advantage.

Being a client of Freshout now for about 2 years, I consider it a place where mere ideas come alive in the form of beautiful, amazingly functional products and apps. This isn’t a testimonial. It’s an experience that we are grateful for. I really can’t imagine where we would’ve been if we hadn’t made that initial contact a few years ago. It was clear that this was a team that is extremely capable, extremely innovative, and most importantly understanding of exactly what you’re trying to achieve by taking what could’ve been a failed idea to something 10 times fresher and more unique. We’ve matured because of it, and became much more trusting of their valuable contributions and inputs.

To conclude, the most important thing is that product design and development is not an “expense,” it’s an investment. The quality of our latest projects (CrowdVoice, Mideast Tunes, and Ahwaa) were so good that it invited more people to donate to our projects, which allowed us to invest directly into improvements of current work or newer projects.

Again, while this may read like a testimonial, it’s just noted here to evidence that if more clients did this we do feel that the web would be a better place. For us, Freshout makes that possible every day. We don’t think there’s any team out there with the passion and skills that these guys have. I’m super confident in just giving them an idea and having them go at it, knowing that the end result will be nothing short of amazing. They’re irreplaceable and we treasure them. If you can’t say that about your dev team, it’s time to make a serious investment and look elsewhere (unless you don’t care enough about your idea or startup.)

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