Gaia GPS
  • 7-Day Free Trial Gaia GPS Premium
  • Out and Back Podcast
    • Gaia GPS

      Everything You Need to Know About Satellite Communicators

      December 1, 2022

      Adventures

      How to Avoid Another Deadly Avalanche Season

      January 21, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      The Best Advice We Received in 2021

      December 26, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      Avalanche Safety with Snow Science Expert Bruce Tremper

      November 30, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      Planning a Thru-Hike Next Year? Here’s What You…

      October 21, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      A Definitive Guide to the Best Camp Coffee

      September 30, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      Owls and UFOs with Ultralight Expert Mike Clelland

      September 9, 2021

  • Offroad Podcast
    • Gaia GPS

      Cook Marco Hernandez’s Mouthwatering Camp Meals

      January 25, 2023

      Gaia GPS

      Monique Song: How a City Girl Became the…

      April 7, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      TrailRecon Explains How to Become an Overlander Overnight

      March 9, 2022

      Adventures

      How to Stay Married on a Long-Distance Adventure

      February 9, 2022

      Adventures

      How to Go From ‘Desk to Glory’ in…

      January 12, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      The Best Advice We Received in 2021

      December 26, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      Gaia GPS’s Best New Overlanding Maps and Features…

      December 23, 2021

  • Adventures
    • User Stories
  • Activities
    • Backcountry Skiing
    • Boating
    • Emergency Response
    • Fishing
    • Offroading
  • New Features
    • Gaia GPS

      Our Favorite New Maps and Features

      December 23, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      OpenSnow Weather Now Available at-a-Tap on the Map

      November 9, 2022

      Backcountry Skiing

      Find the Deepest, Lightest Powder with the Snow…

      November 8, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      New Edit Tools: Creating Your Own Routes Just…

      September 1, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Top 10 Ways to Use Waypoints

      August 30, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Meet Map Packs: A Totally New Way to…

      May 9, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Discover & Reserve Campsites Right From Gaia GPS

      February 22, 2022

  • New Maps
    • Backcountry Skiing

      New! Find Backcountry Skiing in Gaia Winter Map

      January 11, 2023

      Gaia GPS

      Our Favorite New Maps and Features

      December 23, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Spy Avalanche Terrain with Higher Res Slope Angle…

      December 14, 2022

      Backcountry Skiing

      Find the Deepest, Lightest Powder with the Snow…

      November 8, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Activate Snow Mode with Gaia Winter

      October 26, 2022

      Adventures

      Take a Trip to Baja California with Nat…

      September 13, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Gaia Overland: One Map to Rule Them All

      May 24, 2022

  • Home
Gaia GPS
  • 7-Day Free Trial Gaia GPS Premium
  • Out and Back Podcast
    • Gaia GPS

      Everything You Need to Know About Satellite Communicators

      December 1, 2022

      Adventures

      How to Avoid Another Deadly Avalanche Season

      January 21, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      The Best Advice We Received in 2021

      December 26, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      Avalanche Safety with Snow Science Expert Bruce Tremper

      November 30, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      Planning a Thru-Hike Next Year? Here’s What You…

      October 21, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      A Definitive Guide to the Best Camp Coffee

      September 30, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      Owls and UFOs with Ultralight Expert Mike Clelland

      September 9, 2021

  • Offroad Podcast
    • Gaia GPS

      Cook Marco Hernandez’s Mouthwatering Camp Meals

      January 25, 2023

      Gaia GPS

      Monique Song: How a City Girl Became the…

      April 7, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      TrailRecon Explains How to Become an Overlander Overnight

      March 9, 2022

      Adventures

      How to Stay Married on a Long-Distance Adventure

      February 9, 2022

      Adventures

      How to Go From ‘Desk to Glory’ in…

      January 12, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      The Best Advice We Received in 2021

      December 26, 2021

      Gaia GPS

      Gaia GPS’s Best New Overlanding Maps and Features…

      December 23, 2021

  • Adventures
    • User Stories
  • Activities
    • Backcountry Skiing
    • Boating
    • Emergency Response
    • Fishing
    • Offroading
  • New Features
    • Gaia GPS

      Our Favorite New Maps and Features

      December 23, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      OpenSnow Weather Now Available at-a-Tap on the Map

      November 9, 2022

      Backcountry Skiing

      Find the Deepest, Lightest Powder with the Snow…

      November 8, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      New Edit Tools: Creating Your Own Routes Just…

      September 1, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Top 10 Ways to Use Waypoints

      August 30, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Meet Map Packs: A Totally New Way to…

      May 9, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Discover & Reserve Campsites Right From Gaia GPS

      February 22, 2022

  • New Maps
    • Backcountry Skiing

      New! Find Backcountry Skiing in Gaia Winter Map

      January 11, 2023

      Gaia GPS

      Our Favorite New Maps and Features

      December 23, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Spy Avalanche Terrain with Higher Res Slope Angle…

      December 14, 2022

      Backcountry Skiing

      Find the Deepest, Lightest Powder with the Snow…

      November 8, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Activate Snow Mode with Gaia Winter

      October 26, 2022

      Adventures

      Take a Trip to Baja California with Nat…

      September 13, 2022

      Gaia GPS

      Gaia Overland: One Map to Rule Them All

      May 24, 2022

  • Home

How Freelancers are Like Terrorists

by Andrew Johnson September 20, 2011
by Andrew Johnson September 20, 2011

Freelancers are like terrorists – you don’t negotiate with them, because it just doesn’t work. The proper way to handle a freelancer is to ask them how much money they would be delighted with, and then you give it to them. And if you can’t give it to them, you don’t hire them.

We work with about 6-8 people depending on the week, who helps us code, design, and write stuff. We pay them anywhere from $25-150/hour, and the common thread in how those rates came about is we just gave them whatever they asked for. And if it was too low, we even gave them more.

You may think that this is going to lead to high costs, and you should be negotiating down the rates. You may think – I should negotiate everything. But this is just wrong, because you may shave a few dollars off the cost in the short term, but you are doomed in the long. Here are the many likely failure cases you will hit:

  1. You hire bad people – People who work for whatever you are willing to pay aren’t in demand, and therefore probably suck.

    Any good programmer will tell you there are a vast array of cushy, high-paying jobs that they can have. In this terrible economy, it’s not the software developers that suffer (it’s insurance salesmen, parking lot attendants, toll-takers, and other irrelevant jobs that suffer if I were to guess).

    It’s easy to suffer a delusion of grandeur here and think that you have such a killer project that you can get rockstars for less than they want or need, but who are you kidding? Unless you have as much caché as Kevin Rose or something (just to name a random famous guy), then your money is the only thing talking.

  2. You lose good people – Congratulations, you have just hired the architect of Facebook’s photo sharing site for your Flickr-killer. Somehow, it just happened – maybe you had a connection, or he saw some spark in your company, or maybe he just needed some rent money because of strange circumstance.

    Welcome to two months later – your start-up is thriving on the back of a rockstar engineer, and it’s looking like Series A is just around the corner. And hey, what do you know – things are looking up for your programmer too – he got his mojo back, sent a resume to Google now that the he’s forgotten the annoyances of Facebook – and your 60/hour (he wanted 100), with a max of 30 hours per week, is both not stacking up very fast and a little embarrassing.

    One day, he comes to you and lets you know he’ll be going to Google soon, and he just didn’t want you to be surprised. At this point, you have your $2.2M in funding, and you offer to match his salary, plus stock (plus even more when he shoots you down). Maybe he would have left anyways, but it would have helped if you hadn’t over-negotiated in the first place… if you were as interested in his needs as you want him to be in yours.

  3. You get billed anyways – Even if you negotiate down the project cost or hourly rate, let’s face it – you are liable to get billed whatever the freelancer cares to bill you. Your minor changes, which he would have accommodated with gusto at the rate he asked for, now become major changes in the spec. Outside of scope. Extra hours needed. Savings down the drain. Who is really to say whether certain behaviors are features or bugs? Well, I guess you, as the project lead should say, and he’ll be willing to listen for just a few more bucks.

  4. The work sucks – Let’s say you even manage to hire a good person, but maybe you are the lowest paying gig of 2-3 he has. Do you think your deadlines, requirements, bugs, or user needs are going to rate? Think again. You’ll get your code, eventually… maybe.

So that gets me back to how I hire freelancers. We just give them whatever they want, sometimes more. The caveat is you have to pair this strategy with both a knowledge of what you are getting, and a willingness to fire people who are doing a good job, but not a good enough job. Not everyone we have ever tried to work with did not work out – some were not fast enough, some not good enough, some didn’t care enough. And each one of those people cost us a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to find out.

In the end, it’s not about getting a good rate, it’s about getting a good value. And you do not get a good value from underpaid, unhappy programmers working on other people’s dreams.

So, if you’re a founder, find someone who you have enough money to excite. And if you are a freelancer, we’re hiring.

businessmusings
0
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Andrew Johnson

Andrew founded Gaia GPS. He writes code and manages the business.

previous post
How We Protected Our Trademark
next post
Facebook – Culture of Coercion

You may also like

How to Plan a Backcountry Ski Tour with...

January 26, 2023

Cook Marco Hernandez’s Mouthwatering Camp Meals

January 25, 2023

New! Find Backcountry Skiing in Gaia Winter Map

January 11, 2023

How to Get Started Overlanding

January 9, 2023

Our Favorite New Maps and Features

December 23, 2022

2022 Mapped: Gaia GPS Year in Review

December 22, 2022

Spy Avalanche Terrain with Higher Res Slope Angle...

December 14, 2022

How to Use Maps to Help Avoid Avalanches

December 14, 2022

How to Find a Christmas Tree Using Gaia...

December 1, 2022

Everything You Need to Know About Satellite Communicators

December 1, 2022

Keep in touch

Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube

Popular Posts

  • 1

    How to Read Topographic Maps

    July 1, 2021
  • 2

    How to Download an Entire State Map with Gaia Topo

    August 19, 2021
  • 3

    How to Save Phone Battery Life in the Backcountry

    March 25, 2021
  • 4

    Using Gaia GPS to Find Free Camping in National Forests

    March 9, 2022
  • 5

    Unlock Adventure with Gaia GPS on Outside+

    September 30, 2021

Categories

  • Adventures
  • Android
  • App Comparisons
  • App Updates
  • Backcountry Skiing
  • Boating
  • Company News
  • Emergency Response
  • Featured
  • Fishing
  • Gaia GPS
  • Gaia GPS Offroad Podcast
  • GaiaCloud
  • Hikes
  • How-To
  • Hunting
  • iOS
  • New Features
  • New Maps
  • Newsletter
  • Offroading
  • Out and Back Podcast
  • User Profiles
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • RSS

@2022 - All Right Reserved. Gaia GPS


Back To Top