Accountability is key with external help
2025-03-12
To expand on last day's newsletter a bit: Ultimately, hiring freelancers will cost you a lot more than if you spent the time recruiting someone for a full-time position. We're talking easily 3-4x of the costs. This includes hidden costs.
This assumes no near- or offshoring, but these two concepts are irrelevant for early-stage startups.
If you do decide to go for external help instead of hiring someone full-time, you should make sure that you have a clear idea of what they need to get done. There is nothing worse than hiring 3-4 freelancers to pad your team, giving them anywhere between 100€ to 150€ per hour, only for them to do "stuff here or there" for the next 6 months.
I've seen startups do this, and they've all slowly withered away over time as the money ran out.
Accountability is key.
Here's how I would onboard external help:
- Clearly write down what needs to be done - whether it's a feature, a subsection of your MVP, or anything else, as long as it has a clear end point.
- Ask yourself if you really need a freelancer, or if hiring someone full-time will be better.
- Find a freelancer (ideally through your network) that you can trust. They should give you a fixed-price offer, not an estimate.
There's a hidden cost to hiring freelancers as well: Any institutional knowledge gained during the project is lost once the freelancer leaves. Documentation will ideally catch some of it, but it's not fool-proof. This is why hiring external help vs. hiring full-time needs to be carefully considered.
Yours,
Søren
P.S. Need clear tech strategy guidance for your startup?
Get on-demand guidance for hiring and infrastructure.
Avoid costly freelancer pitfalls with expert advice. Secure your retainer today.