Launch of referral apps and strategies to hire excellent devs
Aug was pretty successful month. We raised our first round and also got two apps launched. Today was the day back from the Labor Day vacation in north Tahoe with the INSEAD crowd and Srikanth and I were thinking about how to add more users from the local area in the app. We will discuss all strategies after tomorrow's Apple keynote unveiling of the iPhone 7. God how much I wish that iphone 7 is something exciting and not the same old phone with more speed and better screen.
Today we also spoke with Clement, a real firebase expert. For months, we are looking for devs. First we looked into upwork individual freelancers. Most of them were pretty non serious people with very little to no skills. We chose a German guy then who ripped us off charging a lot of hours for very little development. After that we found Ian, a local guy, through LinkedIn. He was not expansive. Also very curious and committed. Now when we needed to expand the team again, we went to upwork once more but this time looked for teams instead, thinking teams would be more serious. While it was true that teams were serious, they still had full time devs with little knowledge of firebase. One of the reason for poor skills is that firebase is relatively new and not many devs know it. Another reason is more fundamental - most of the team devs are not rock stars. We learned hard way the simple fact that rocks tars don't put themselves on upwork. Work come to them. So the new strategy was to look into stack overflow, find devs answering tough questions, and contact them individually for advice and consulting. It took us to the google firebase expert panel. Firebase expert told us to join these slack and Google group communities. Now my strategy to sit as hawk on the slack communities related to tech I want to hire into and find people and contact them for work. I am pretty pumped that this way we can really target the exact candidates we want.
Today we also spoke with Clement, a real firebase expert. For months, we are looking for devs. First we looked into upwork individual freelancers. Most of them were pretty non serious people with very little to no skills. We chose a German guy then who ripped us off charging a lot of hours for very little development. After that we found Ian, a local guy, through LinkedIn. He was not expansive. Also very curious and committed. Now when we needed to expand the team again, we went to upwork once more but this time looked for teams instead, thinking teams would be more serious. While it was true that teams were serious, they still had full time devs with little knowledge of firebase. One of the reason for poor skills is that firebase is relatively new and not many devs know it. Another reason is more fundamental - most of the team devs are not rock stars. We learned hard way the simple fact that rocks tars don't put themselves on upwork. Work come to them. So the new strategy was to look into stack overflow, find devs answering tough questions, and contact them individually for advice and consulting. It took us to the google firebase expert panel. Firebase expert told us to join these slack and Google group communities. Now my strategy to sit as hawk on the slack communities related to tech I want to hire into and find people and contact them for work. I am pretty pumped that this way we can really target the exact candidates we want.
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