We have all been there: You have a product that needs serious work! Now!
The version that your cousin's roommate built is busting at the seams. You see a glorious future that awaits your customers, if only your software project could reach the next level.
You also know that your core competency is NOT writing code all day, or other things are taking your attention. Thus, it is time to hire.
You could go a few different ways to accomplish the same goal, but you know the perils of hiring the wrong person.
“If you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur”
My name is Adam Temple (LinkedIn) and I started Bixly. I have worked as a start-up co-founder and developer, then a manager and then created a Python consulting firm. After testing, hiring and training a ton of developers, here's my take on hiring developers.
One way to go is the neat freelance sites (Upwork, etc.) when you have a small budget and lots of time. But, you are looking for more reliability and quality.
Pro tip: If you hire cheap freelancers this way, hire multiple devs at a time and give them the same task. This greatly increases your chances of one developer crossing the finish line.
You've also looked at the huge software firms but felt like your soul died just a little. Maybe it's the corporate-speak website, or the incessant use of stock photos, or the fact you know your business would be .001% of their revenue or that they require your first born as a down payment.
You want another option!
Now you are looking at smaller firms, like Bixly. We put a lot of care into each of our clients because we take on less projects. Plus, you are attracted to the company that has personality and founder involvement.
Let's assume you are here for those reasons and move on to the nitty gritty.
In your software developer hiring adventures you have probably dealt with these issues :
- Your chosen developer becomes unavailable
- There is a lack of consultation around big architectural decisions
- You end up paying a lot of money without the expected results
- Time zone is a huge issue!
That's okay. It's how we learn. Let me explain how we mitigate those issues.
When you are ready, I jump on the phone and speak with your team. That's a really quick way to figure out if we can help you. We discuss your goals and I help figure out what our team can do for you with the most efficiency possible. I weigh your goals, ask important questions and suggest a path forward.
Sometimes we are too busy and can't handle any more work. Other times we have exactly the right developer for your project.
If you don't have a CTO, either myself of another CTO level adviser will be available throughout the project. It's our way of making sure your business goals are aligned tightly with your programming tasks. All too often tech goals completely miss the mark of the business target.
The main goal is to keep the software developing towards that thing which sets you apart from your competitors. We have seen many a client get lost trying to reproduce features which much larger competitors are doing well, so let's avoid that.
As for our developers, most of them have been working with us for over 4 years. There are 18 of us fulltime right now and only two are outside of California. Turnover is very low because we treat programmers with serious respect. Keeping developers happy is a big deal over here, and you want a happy developer.
Bonus: Our price is lower than many competitors because we are in Fresno California. That puts us 2.5 hours away from Silicon Valley but much further away in living expenses.
You might want to know what we have done at this point. We have worked for Lockheed Martin, Google, Sony, and a load of much smaller companies. Some highlights here. Projects include ecommerce, trading tools, administration tools, financial applications. That means we can do the big stuff and also work with smaller budgets and deliver all the same. The smallest projects we work on are about $20k.
Check out our A+ BBB rating too!
It should be helpful to know that some people we have worked with have done really well. In fact we helped work on Justin.tv which turned into Twitch and then sold for a cool BILLION dollars to Amazon.
I would like to think it was only because of our contribution that they were able to sell. I have no proof, but I will stick with that story.
If you want to see our Mobile development, checkout Overflow. That was Angular & Ionic. Here we working out the kinks on site. Felipe (a developer) is on the left, Nick, my business partner is in the center. I am on the right. I no longer have long hair though, sorry if that's a deal killer.
Let's put this all together! Bixly wants to help sweet projects have a sweet ride. You get our trained, vetted and well-managed developers along with consulting from myself or another CTO-level adviser to keep the project in line.
It's time to take your Python/Angular project to the next level with experienced Californian geeks.
