How to get a team?

[John Klyne]

I am looking to hire a team of developers...

NO I am not using this thread to hire anyone...

I've never hired a team of devs before, that is 100% true.


I want to start a new company, that will replace my current tasks that earn me a living and hopefully put me in that small percentage of people earning more than they could spend in a day (I wish?). This company is all online based and shall act as a automatic online financial services based corporation.

Problem 1....I have no development skills.
Problem 2....I do not know what kind of people I need to hire. When it comes to creating the site I need created.

Opportunity 1...I want someone to guide me in making sure this site is created to it's upmost capability.



PROBLEM 3....I know many of the members in x10hosting are under the age of 18. If so Opportunity 1 does not include you.




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Anyone know or have any ideas as to how I should approach this?
Any help is greatly appreciated. Might possibly give you access to the development site I have up that lets people within projects communicate with the others in the same projects.

Thank you for your time.
Not sure how to make this thread seam serious...but if you are serious about helping or wanting to have a hand in this please private message me through this forum, I will then give you personal contact information.

Thank you once again.
From John Klyne.

 

[vv.bbcc19]

I think I have this book
I dont know if you are in a mood to read books but it can help.

 

[John Klyne]

I'll buy it....I read : )

...and if it's not useful it's just one more book I can add to my library.

Thanks for the suggestion...was hoping to get more information than a mere link eheh.

 

[MusicBoy]

Try posting an ad for it on classifieds such as craigslist. There are always web developers looking for their next big job. Why not yours?

As for a guiding hand to help you get started, there is this website that gives free advice/mentoring. I don't know if they do internet business help, but it's worth a shot if this is really what you want to do, you know? Anyways the website is score.org

Hope this helped and good luck!

 

[leafypiggy]

I'd try using a more relevant website such as http://oDesk.com/ . They're a very good freelancer website, and the people who use the website are very talented individuals. Plus, you can see exactly who you're looking at, as well as seeing their credentials and how they score on different tests in different areas. As such, you could require applicants to have a high score in say, a PHP5 Test, or a Ruby on Rails test.

 

[essellar]

So the problem breaks down to this: you need a technical lead, but you don't know what one of those looks like. Tough problem, yes, but not insoluble.

The first half of the equation is to have your own house in order. (I'm making this general, not offering specific advice to you, John.) That is, if your role in all of this is to be "the business guy" in a new venture, then you need to be able to demonstrate more than just a strong desire to capitalize on a vague idea (an altogether too common trait among wannabe web entrepreneurs), you need to be able to convince people that you're willing to put as much effort into the success of the venture as you expect from them. If your core people feel like hourly-rate employees (even if that's the actual business relationship), then you might as well just put a spec on rent-a-coder.com and wait for the inevitable $25 bid from Tajikistan or Belarus -- you'll get just about the same result with a lot less out-of-pocket. If, on the other hand, they feel like you're out there hustling with the marketing, branding, copy writing and funding and are willing to share the success, then the chances of finding and keeping the right key people go way up.

(By way of example, the people working on the Macintosh project at Apple in the early '80s were making less than I was at the same time as a corporal in the Canadian military. They knew they were working on Something Big, though, and that their input had meaning. From all accounts, Steve Jobs was an absolute tyrant during that period -- but if people were being screamed at at two o'clock in the morning, it was because Jobs was there at two o'clock in the morning testing and reviewing, so they were willing to sweat blood to make Macintosh happen. Now, not every project is a Macintosh, or even a start-up directed towards a billion-dollar Google buy-out or a huge IPO with enormous employee stock options, but if people see you as part of the overall team rather than just a taskmaster with a whip, some unreasonable expectations and a biscuit for them once a week, you'll get their attention, their loyalty and their best work.)

That still leaves you the problem of finding "the tech guy", and if you don't have easy access to the various Silicon Valley dating services, the thing to do is to look for your own personal Yenta -- a matchmaker. You don't necessarily need somebody who can do the tech lead's job (although that would help) but you do need somebody who can sort the diamonds from the fresh barnyard organic fertilizer. Someone who knows what all of those abbreviations on a résumé mean, and who can ask the sorts of questions that can tell you whether or not the applicant knows what they mean. (They don't always, you know.) Someone who can look at the applicant's code samples (and you should never hire a coder who can't provide them) and tell whether or not they know what they're doing (or at least look trainable, if it's for something lower down the scale than your lead -- the hopeless are easy to spot if you know what you're looking for). Someone who can understand your project well enough to tell whether the applicant is capable of architecting a solution. Remember, the guy (or gal) this guy (or gal) is going to help you hire will be the person you're going to rely on most for choosing the rest of your team, so this first hire is key.

Even if the business relationship you envision isn't exactly a partnership, you should think of the working relationship with your tech lead as a partnership -- you'll have to work a lot on trust until things become concrete enough for you to understand them. (You'll probably be able to spot really big stupid mistakes early on -- common sense still applies -- but don't be surprised if some of the early doings seem to be black magic bull-puckey that aren't showing any results you can see other than numbers on the wrong side of your ledger.) That means that your opinion of the applicant is every bit as important as the Yenta's -- you need to be able to trust your tech lead as a person and as a manager of people as well as having some reassurance as to his/her technical abilities.

There are a number of people around this neighborhood who have the technical chops to be that Yenta for you, even if they may not be right for the lead spot (either because they have other things going on, or because they lack the people skills). They're not hard to spot if you go digging in the more technical areas of the forum -- not that you want to spam them with PMs, but you can check any PMs you receive against their entries (and, of course, the replies to those entries) and reputation here.

 

[John Klyne]

That has been the most informative post someone has ever given me eseller.

Thank you for your time in putting that together, it was a great deal of help and I will refer back to it occasionally.

leafypiggy- Thank you for the link to that site, I have been to it and used it in the past it will be of great use again (not sure why in the world I didn't think of that as a hiring site again I don't know).

MusicBoy- Thanks for the idea of using craiglist- it's simple to use and to be honest, I have always gotten responses to ads I have put there it's worth it to try when I have exact specifics as to what skilled workers I need. Thank you for the suggestion.

As for score.org, I have looked into them and other non-profit organizations that help new-startups and such, for starting a business and running it as it should be run, I have no problems with the business side, (which is what I beleive these non-profits/score) organizations do.

I haven't really looked to see if they can provide or have someone that has the technical know-how for what I need, I may look into it deeper for this situation.

Thank you all for the replies and time you put into your posts, you have been of help.

From John Klyne.