作者：SCOTT BRADLEY

如果你的目标是依靠出售应用来维持生计，那么手机应用业务外包或许是你最佳的选择。通过外包服务，你可以提升工作效率。

这篇博文概述了我使用外包的原因，并指导你如何使用这种服务。

外包能够让你：

1、发展业务，同时不冒极大的风险

2、花更多时间来做你喜欢或擅长的事情

3、花较少的时间来做自己不喜欢或不擅长的事情

4、在缺乏时间或技能的情况下仍然可以开展重要的活动（游戏邦注：比如营销）

5、提升管理技能

6、利用当前团队中缺乏的技能

作为独立开发者，你很可能独自工作，或加入某个时间和资源都很有限的小团队。既要顾及全职工作，又要照顾小孩和完成其他的家务，同时还要努力开创事业并令其成长。你的事业面临的风险是巨大的。尽管有许多独立开发者获得了可观的收入，但失败者的数量更多。

如果你善加利用外包，你就可以将更多的时间和精力放在业务的战略层面上，同时让你雇佣的自由职业者负责执行愿景。扩展业务也变得更为简单，因为你只需专注成长自身的某个技能即可。

使用外包的原因

在过去的10年间，我已经外包了将近20到30个项目，包括SEO、内容宣传活动、wordpress网站制作、C++网页应用开发和各种其他工作。

1周前，我开始制作自己的首款手机游戏《Monster Splash》。我年轻的时候玩过大量的游戏，但我还从未制作过游戏。现在，我有个繁忙的全职工作，还有个小孩。如果时间允许的话，我还会去冲浪、参加社交活动做运动。生活确实很不错，但是在日常生活中学习游戏开发的时间并不多。

为了让《Monster Splash》获得成功，我觉得最佳办法是雇佣一名游戏开发者和一名游戏艺术师。将开发外包后，我可以将全部的精力投入到游戏的营销上。

我的贷款很多，所以资金非常紧张。幸运的是，我在应用商店中发布过些许应用，它们虽然简单但每月能够给我带来500美元的收入。尽管这笔钱不足以用来维持生计，但数个月后积攒的钱对开发新项目来说已经足够了。

针对这个项目，我准备了3份文件：

游戏计划书

这份文件包含了目标、游戏玩法元素、非功能性要求、指导和资源列表。这是开发者制作游戏的主要参考文件。这份文件的编撰花了我6个小时。

游戏设计元素

这份文件包含了摘要、灵感来源、屏幕尺寸规格和游戏内外的图像元素。这是设计师的主要参考文件。这份文件的编撰花了4个小时。

营销清单

这份文件分为4个主要阶段：预告前期、预告、发布日和发布后。这份文件主要供我自己使用，某些方面我会交由我的个人助理完成。

外包的内容

外包的内容取决于你在哪些方面需要他人的帮助。你选择如何花费自己的时间是个庞大的机会成本。利用其他人的时间可以让你专注于那些真正要紧的事情。

在决定外包的内容时，首先要做的是写下你或者你的团队现在的日常工作。而且，还要将你认为应该做但没有足够的时间、技能或耐心来做的事情罗列出来。写出列表后，把这些内容按以下组别分类：

1、你想要做或擅长做的事情。这类事情你今后可能需要自行完成。

2、你不想做或不擅长做的事情。这是你不应当做的事情，因为如果你不感兴趣或不具备应有的技能，那么就不会得到较好的结果。

3、你没有时间来做或需要耗费大量时间的事情。如果这件事情很重要，但你没有时间来做，那么自行完成可能需要冒极大的风险。

后面两类事情可能就是你需要考虑外包的事情。

寻找自由职业者

现在，你拥有了感觉可以且应当外包的事情列表。在发布项目和雇佣人员之前，你需要做些准备工作。所以，我建议先看看是否能找到那些你感觉具备你所需技能的人。

自由职业网站很多，我使用过的有效网站包括：

www.freelancer.com；www.odesk.com；www.elance.com。

我还使用http://bestjobs.ph/来寻找个人助理，但这只是个招聘网站，并没有寻找自由职业合作者的功能。

相对招聘网站来说，使用自由职业网站的优势有：

名誉

每个自由职业者都有个概述，显示他们完成的每个项目的评分和反馈。浏览那些类似项目的反馈。尽量避免雇佣那些没有反馈的人，绝对不要雇佣有不良反馈的人。

第三方保护服务

如果你选择做固定价格项目，那么你需要同自由职业者商定价格。在他们开始工作前，你将金钱支付给第三方。这相当于为自由职业者提供保护，因为他们确定你会为该项目支付酬劳。而这种方式同样也保护了你，因为他们只有在完成项目或项目各重要阶段后才能拿到钱。

外包工作的方式

这便是你可以锻炼管理技能的部分。当你让他人为你工作时，需要让他们精确地知道下一步的目标，你要向他们提供完成工作所需的所有东西。如果你不花时间和精力来与他们交流，告诉他们需要做什么以及如何实现最终目标，那么你的项目很可能会失败。

保密协议（即NDA）

我购买的《How to Make iPhone Apps With No Programming Experience》中含有NDA。网络上有许多免费的模板，搜索下就可以找到。

Google文档

我很频繁使用Google文档，它是个极具协作性的环境，我可以随时同自由职业者分享更新过的文件。

Skype

多数自由职业者会选择通过Skype聊天软件来交流。

版本控制和漏洞跟踪

我很依赖版本控制和任务跟踪工具。各工作人员间需要共享源代码。当你雇佣的开发者多于1人时，上述做法是很有必要的。我目前使用的是Repository Hosting，Codesion也值得推荐。

成功的外包条件

根据我的个人经验，外包工作获得成功的关键有以下几点：

1、准备充分

在你开始雇佣自由职业者之前，你需要做些准备工作。这往往意味着，你需要向他们提供开发和设计工作的说明文件，一般任务需要分步指导他们制作出你所需要的东西。如果你给予他们的指导和文件不够清楚，那么项目失败的话就全是你自己的过错。

2、细心选择

雇佣的自由职业者应当有足够完成工作的技能，有足够的时间来完成工作，而且掌握你能够流利说明的语言。缺少任何上述条件都可能导致项目的失败。理想情况是能够找到那些项目反馈成绩几近满分的人，而且他之前做过的项目与你的项目类似。

3、交流

假设你已经向他们提供了清楚的指导，而且你找到了合适的合作者，那么现在你要做的就是监管他们的工作进程。为他们设定在特定时间内需要达到的里程碑，同时保持能够时刻与他们探讨项目。你在这个阶段的工作是扫清影响他们工作的所有障碍，为他们的成果提供反馈和指导意见。尽管没必要进行事无巨细地监督他们工作，但是你需要同他们交流，确保他们朝正确的方向进展。

4、培养关系和提供反馈

对于所有与你合作的人，你都应该在他们做得很棒的时候表扬，当他们的工作存在不足之处时提供建设性的反馈意见。即便他们有时让你失望，也不可做出粗暴的冒犯行为。

5、给他们一个恰当的评论

你给予自由职业者恰当的评论，他们也会将你视为合适的雇主。良好的声誉会让你将来更容易地找到技艺精湛的合作者。

注意事项

我在外包工作上有过多次失败，所以不要认为事情会完全一帆风顺。我经历过的事件有：

1、开发者没有足够的时间或合乎工作的技能

在某个固定价格项目上，开发者刚开始做得很好，但是却连第一个里程碑都没有实现。项目就这样一拖再拖。我的雇佣金被锁定在第三方系统中，所以我无法重新发布项目来与其他人合作。最终我成功取回了雇佣金，但已经浪费了6个月的时间。

教训：谨慎地选择合作的自由职业者，先定个较小的里程碑，这样便可以测试出他们是否具有你所需的技能。

2、在没有使用自由职业网站的情况下，我预先支付了350美元

我从bestjobs.ph网站上找到这个合作者，帮助我完成SEO工作。他们的承诺听起来很光鲜，但付款之后便杳无音信。

教训：不要犯我这种错误。不要预先付款，尤其在与陌生人或你不信任的人合作时。先使用自由职业网站，直到你与他们建立起良好关系并信任他们之后，才可以考虑预先付款。

我希望本文能够让你对外包有所了解。就个人而言，我觉得外包很有趣，是值得考虑的做法。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年12月13日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Outsource Your Mobile App Business

SCOTT BRADLEY

If your goal is to make a living from selling apps then outsourcing aspects of your mobile app business could be the single best decision you make. Through outsourcing you can execute more effectively than is possible on your own.

The aim of this post is to give an overview of why I outsource and an introduction of how you can do it yourself.

Outsourcing allows you to:

Grow your business to the next level without significant risk

Spend more time doing things you like or are good at

Spend less time doing things you don’t like or suck at

Still do important activities even when you lack the time or skills (marketing anyone!)

Improve your management skills

Get access to skills currently not in your team

As an indie developer you most likely work alone or in a small team with very limited time and resources. It is not uncommon to hold down a full time job, look after small children and meet other significant commitments while also trying to start and grow your business. The risks to your business are huge. For every developer who is making a tidy income there are many more who fail to achieve the success they were looking for.

Once you get the hang of outsourcing and make some good contacts you will be able to focus your time and energy on the strategic aspects of your business while your freelancers execute on your vision. Scaling your business is easier as you don’t need to clone yourself to grow.

Why Do I Outsource

Over the last 10 years I have outsourced around 20-30 projects. Including SEO, content copywriting, wordpress websites, c# web app development and a variety of other work.

Just over a week ago I started my first mobile game – Monster Splash. I used to play games a lot when I was younger but I have never made a game in my life. Now I have a busy full time job and a toddler. I surf, socialise and exercise whenever possible. It’s a great life but it doesn’t leave much time in the day to learn game development.

My wife is a graphic/web designer so the original plan was to have her do the art but that quickly fell apart. She stays at home looking after our toddler and also has no experience playing or designing games.

To make Monster Splash successful I decided to best approach would be to hire a game developer and a game artist. By outsourcing the development my focus can be 100% on marketing (including writing these posts!).

Did I mention that we have a big fat mortgage (woohoo!), so money is also very tight. Luckily I have a few apps in the app store which are simple but they earn me $500 / month. This doesn’t provide me with enough to live on but after a few months it is enough to invest back into new projects.

For this project I prepared 3 documents (with Google Docs):

Game Specification

This contains the objectives, gameplay elements, non functional requirements, guidance and a list of resources. This is the main reference for the developer. This took me about 6 hours to prepare.

Game Design Elements

This contains a summary, inspiration, screen dimensions, in game graphical elements, out of game graphical elements. This is the main reference for the designer. This took me about 4 hours to prepare.

Marketing Checklist

This contains 4 major stages: pre announcement, announcement, launch day & post launch. This is what I am focused on and where possible I will allocate tasks to my personal assistant.

I will be blogging about the development, marketing and finances of Monster Splash as it progresses if you are interested in finding out more.

What Should You Outsource

As you can see from the things I have outsourced it really depends on what it is you need help with. How you choose to spend your own time has an enormous opportunity cost. Being able to leverage other peoples time allows you to focus on the things that really matter.

To determine what you could or should outsource start by writing down the activities that you and you team are currently doing each day. Also list activities that think you should be doing but don’t have the time, skills or patience to do. Take this list and start to categorise them into the following groups:

Things you want to do or are good at. These are probably the things that you should try to keep doing yourself.

Things you don’t want to do or aren’t good at. You shouldn’t really do these because if you aren’t interested or don’t have the skills then you will do a bad job.

Things you don’t have time to do or are time consuming. If it’s important but you don’t have the time to do it properly then you are taking a huge risk.

The second two groups in this will help you identify activities that would be good candidates for outsourcing.

Where to Find Freelancers

Now you have a list of things that feel could/should be outsourced. You will need to do some preparation before posting a project and hiring someone so I suggest having a look first to see if there are people there you feel have the skills you need.

There are many freelancing websites but the ones that I use myself and had success with are: www.freelancer.com; www.odesk.com; www.elance.com.

I also used http://bestjobs.ph/ to find my personal assistant but this is just a job posting site with no freelancing features.

Some of the benefits of using the freelancing websites rather than just posting on a job board are:

Reputation

Each freelancer has a profile and gets a rating and feedback for each project they complete. Where possible you should try to hire someone who has a high rating and has very good feedback. Read through their feedback for projects which are similar to yours. Try to avoid using people with no feedback and definitely don’t hire people with bad feedback.

Protection Through Escrow For Fixed Price Projects

If you chose to do a fixed price project then you agree on a price with the freelancer. Before they start work you will have to put the money into an escrow. This protects the freelancer as they know there is money for the project. It also protects you as they won’t get the money until they complete the project (or milestones within the project).

How to Outsource Work

This is where you can hone your management skills. When you have people working for you they need to know exactly what to do next and have everything they need to be able to do the job. If you can’t spend the time and effort to be able to communicate what needs to be done and how they need to do it then there is a good chance that your project will fail.

Non Disclosure Agreements or NDA

I purchased the “How to Make iPhone Apps With No Programming Experience” which contains an NDA. There are many free ones on the internet so just do a search.

Google Docs

I make extensive use of Google Docs its a great collaborative environment where I can share it with freelancers and update it through the project.

Skype

Most freelancers will communicate through skype chat. Video chatting is very rare.

Version Control and Bug Tracking

I couldn’t live without using version control and task tracking. Emailing source code around sucks. When you have more than one developer you need it. I currently use Repository Hosting but can also recommend Codesion.

How to Succeed Outsourcing

In my experience the keys to successfully outsourcing work are:

Be Prepared

Prior to hiring anyone you need to put your boy scout hat on and do some hard work. This usually means providing them with a spec. for development/design work or step by step instructions of what you need them to do for more general tasks. If the instructions you give them are unclear then you only have yourself to blame when the project fails.

Choose Carefully

This person needs to have the skills for the job, time to do it and be an excellent communicator in a language you are fluent with. If they lack any of these then there is a good chance it will go pear shaped. Ideally select people who have a near perfect feedback score in projects similar to yours.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Assuming you have given them clear instructions and you have chosen the right person then you now need to monitor their progress. Set milestones for them to reach by a specific time and always be available to discuss the project. Your job during this phase is to remove anything that is blocking them and to provide feedback and guidance of their progress. There is no need to micro manage but you need to keep checking in with them to make sure they are on the right track.

Nurture the Relationship & Provide Feedback

As with all people who you work with you should give them praise for doing things well and give them constructive feedback when they aren’t. Avoid insults or rude behaviour even if you feel they have let you down.

Give them a Great Review

Where possible you should rate the freelancer and it possible give them good feedback. They will also rate you as an employer. Your reputation as an excellent employer will make it easier to find quality, skilled workers for future projects.

Things to Watch Out For

I’ve been burnt a few times outsourcing work so don’t leave here feeling like it’s all roses. Some of the things that I have experienced are:

The Developer Didn’t Have the Time or Skills

On a fixed price project the developer made a good start on it but never completed the first milestone. This project dragged and dragged. While this was happening my money was stuck in escrow so I couldn’t just repost the project and get someone else to do it. I got it back eventually but it was probably 6 months later

Lesson Learnt: Be more careful about who I chose and set an small early milestone so they can demonstrate they have the skills

I Paid $350 Upfront Without Using a Freelancing Website (ie. Paypal)

What was I thinking!!! This was someone I found through the bestjobs.ph website for doing SEO work. They sounded great, I paid the money and then never heard from them again.

Lesson Learnt: Don’t be douche. Avoid paying upfront, especially for people you don’t know & trust. Use the freelancing websites until you have a relationship and trust them.

I hope this gives you some insight into outsourcing. Personally I find outsourcing enjoyable and rewarding. Please share your experiences below, would you trust your critical projects to freelancers? (Source: freefallapps.com)