
The importance of having your own inhouse technical team - keiretsu

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cwilbur
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.

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keiretsu
erm. referring to web startups here.

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

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staunch
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.

Facebook a non-technology company becoming one.

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keiretsu
i think most of the business fogeys don't understand the importance of having
your own in house technical team. these fogeys actually think outsourcing
development to offshore teams is the best way to go.

Right. Technology is the lifeblood of most successful web startups. So when
was it good to outsource your lifeblood to a bunch of unknowns miles away?

