The core of your business should be in-house. If the technology sits at the core of your business -- as it does for most web companies -- then outsourcing it is foolish. If your business is actually something else, like plumbing, and the tech just supports it, then you may as well outsource it; it's a decision for a cost-benefit analysis.
And yes. You heard me right. I've talked to a number of so called internet biz dev "pros" and they actually advocate outsourcing site development to offshore places and concentrate on marketing. I was like, WTF? Now i know why the successful web startups all originate from hackers. These internet biz dev "pros" just don't get it
The most uncomfortable thing is that my non-techie co-founder actually agrees with this thought. Maybe it's time for me to find another cofounder.
You can really tell the diff between an outsourced site and a non-outsourced site. An outsourced site will most likely be .aspx (India's fav), have a rigid design/structure. Eg. http://scriptovia.com
An in-house version usually has its own unique design/identity Eg. scribd.com
Most programmers don't know how to develop software very well. You shouldn't be surprised "biz guys" are totally ignorant. Most non-programmers think you can have marketing and design people come up with "specs" and then hand it off to have it "programmed". That almost never works and yet it's by far the most common method. People who think this is a good practice should be no where near the helm of a technology company.
Some web companies are not technology companies though. I think the "biz guy" approach works for those -- occasionally. Digg was a cheap project on elance. The success for that site was more about a TechTV/Kevin Rose community. MySpace is similar.
Right, but stupid business types don't distinguish between "web startup" and "non-web startup." You might be able to make headway by talking about core competencies and business expertise.
Outsourcing programming tasks is a very reasonable thing to do when the core of your business is something else and the programming is just supporting that. If your business's core expertise and value proposition is that you have highly skilled plumbers on call 24/7, then insisting on developing the website and billing software in-house is a waste of effort. But when the core of your business is the software, outsourcing it is foolish. If your business's core expertise and value proposition is that you have a location and scheduling algorithm that will guarantee you get an affiliated plumber at your house within 30 minutes of your request, then the software to support that should be developed in-house.
This is something that good business guys will understand.
