I have often said that if I land something big in Naija, what I would do is quite simple: go to my local uni and recruit computer science/engineering students to do the job. In the end, you land the job, they do the job, gain experience and get paid. Win-win situation. What could be better? If I stand to make say, N10million from a project that lasts 3 months and spend even N3million on compensating 10 students, don't I still have N7million for myself?

Unfortunately, when I discuss the above with people in Nigeria, they look at me with bewilderment. "Ol boy, if na me, I for do am all by myself" is the typical answer. Herein lies our problem. We want it all (just like with oil money) to ourselves yet we blame politicians for concentrating money in few hands.

we need to stop being the jack of all trades in Nigeria. we need to think division of labor. We need to think delegation. In essence, as has been rightly put, we need to learn outsourcing/partnering/collaboration. If only we can adopt this, we will see better sites, and many more sites cranked out over a period of time.

I am 34 and have been coding since 1999. 2 years ago, in attempt to alleviate my boredom from an accumulation of code over the years, I decided to start developing sites on the side. It was fun at first but now I am bored again - accumulation of code over projects. When I was in Nigeria about a month ago, I did some thinking. My options are:

1) Land a big job (employing others in the process) and live off maintenance fees
2) Develop an online store that, will ensure a steady stream of income with little or no effort on my part
3) Develop a few sites that attract a huge gathering and live off ad revenue.

The common theme with the above is, "with little or no effort". Man don tire. I no longer look forward to going to work. I am tired of always staying up-to-date on the latest language, only to find there are 3 more new ones I have to stay up-to-date on again. Don't get wrong, I am thankful to God for my job and what it has helped me accomplish. I am just not satisfied any more.

Good article my man!

my2cents:


The common theme with the above is, "with little or no effort". Man don tire. I no longer look forward to going to work. I am tired of always staying up-to-date on the latest language, only to find there are 3 more new ones I have to stay up-to-date on again. Don't get wrong, I am thankful to God for my job and what it has helped me accomplish. I am just not satisfied any more.

The entrepreneural spirit in you is crying out loud.

Make sure you feed it

can someone tell me sincerely the disadvantages of outsourcing, i know there should be some

LOL akin,

Lord willing, 2008 will be the year it is fed to the point where it begs me to stop

@my2cents,
who are the people you discussed your Idea with and they thought it wasn't right? Well even if that had happened, don't make the mistake of thinking every Nigerian thinks the same way.

I am sure if you had discussed that with me i would have given you the ride-on.

As a matter of fact, Outsourcing is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

When i started, i didn't even look at it as out sourcing. I was forced into it when i realised that with every new code i learn, there was always another one i must learn. I then noticed what the indians were doing. Unlike Nigerians a programmer concentrates on programming, a designer concentrates on designing. So that an Indian who is a programmer will always reject a graphic design job. That made it easier for them. But it dosen't work that way in Nigeria because our people regard you are an amature is the web job you just finished dosen't look beatiful with graphics and flash animations all over so much that it takes forever to load.

An example is rugged Man's website. I know it's supposed to be a multimedia site but loading time should be taken into consideration. However, you can not blame the designer. He had to do that else he'll lose the job to someone else who was ready to give it all the aesthetics. Whereas functionality not look should be paramount. This left me with another problem. which means apart from learning all the coding languages, i have to learn photoshop, Macromedia flash and maybe master CCS. I immediately knew it was time to stop trying to be everything.

However, in this little time i have made a lot of friends who are also designers and people also know me as a designer. So what I do is get the job and hand it over.
This way I can handle many jobs at the same time. At the end of the day everyone is happy. The secret is, try not to be selfish like @ my2cent has said. You need to maintain a good relationship with your coders. I am now thinking of registering my company properly and then going into this full time.

But remember, you must have a good knowledge of web design so that when you are talking to your clients and potential clients, you should appear to know what you are talking about. Also it helps you paint a proper picture of what the job should be to your clients.

@my2cents,
who are the people you discussed your Idea with and they thought it wasn't right? Well even if that had happened, don't make the mistake of thinking every Nigerian thinks the same way.

Some narrow-minded people, ranging from govt officials to the average joe on the street to university professors

I know better than to let them discourage me. For all I know, they were taking-style to tell me that they felt threatened by me being there and would probably do things better than they are doing presently. Oh well. In the end, I might not even settle for web dev. There are too many opportunities in Nigeria to settle on just one

tundewoods you suprise men ! told you to send me some stuff but you never did send too me oga no be sooo !

To the uninitiated outsourcing is the magic word that does automagical things.

Sooner all later you will realize that there is no magic wand out there to solve any problem.

If you outsource for the sake of it or because people are now talking about it you will certainly be sorry in no time.

Fundamental understanding of issues is important before talking about how best to go about solving a problem.

Unfortunately, in Nigeria many web designers do all there work on discussion forums looking for other developers to run down, in reality people like these don't last in the business.

Enjoy!

what we need to undastand is that one man cannot know everything, there4, even if you are on your own u'll still somebody' idea to do a complete job.

I can render and at the same time recieve assistance from anyone.

Anyway, i beleive in many heads coming to solve one prob. than a single head handling the whole thing, sometimes u get hooked and don't know what do. and i someone is there he/she could be of assistance, it might not neccesarily be working for u

HELLO GUYS. PLS I AM IN NEED OF WEB JOBS NOW. I DON'T MIND IF YOU CAN "OUTSOURCE" SOME TO ME. MY EMAIL IS olatunjiogunkomaya@yahoo.com. expecting!

@tundewoods,

When people do not share your point of view it doesn't mean they are narrow minded, it may infact mean that they know better than you do.

Outsourcing is not new, many big organizations have tried it in the past (spanning up to 6 years), some regretted doing so, other benefited from doing it.

My point remains that outsourcing is not a magic wand that will make life easier or tasks simpler.

Learn to address issues and stop attacking personalities.

I am surprised that some web developers sit down and wait for others to get projects and outsource to them. Something is surely wrong with this position, my opinion.

if i understood you what u saying now in essence is that those developers can go to hell and wait for all you care,  instead of them waiting, they should go and source for jobs right ?

smartsoft:

if i understood you what u saying now in essence is that those developers can go to hell and wait for all you care, instead of them waiting, they should go and source for jobs right ?

I don't know anything about going to hell. Waiting for other web developers to push jobs is something that is wrong and unworkable.

Why would someone be even waiting for a client to ask or pay for a project when you have the skills to initiate a project?

Do you think that google, yahoo, youtube were projects that clients asked other developers to setup? Most of the successful web projects out there were started by programmers with a passion to web enable a process.

Humility is key, honesty is important, we like to talk big all the time even when little things around us matter the most.

It is common to see web developers brag about not doing a project for less than N100K and in 1 year such a person may not have up to 2 web projects.

We should learn to be real and practical.

tundewoods:


Must you always use the word "Web enable a Process"

Yes, that is what web projects are all about, web enabling regular offline tasks or processes.

Out sourceing is a beauty especialy if the budget for the project is high enough to cover all the expenses. In Nigeria however, most web-design contracts 90% or more, might fall short of #50,000.00 so what use will outsourcing be when you have to work with a meager budget?

While outsourcing saves time and effort, and encourages specialisation, you should not forget that most big budget jobs are not just projects where you chop-clean mouth-waka go. You will need to maintain the sites/software and where nescessary, redesign to accomodate new bussiness expansion or paradigm as the client wishes. So what happens when your original designers are no longer available to overhaul the project and new hand you bring in find the codes of the previous guys a little to cryptic to work with? Will you have to start afresh?

There are two sides to everything.

i'm beefing you tunde !

and remember to that outsourcing job to you can be so stupid at times, cos men when your co-fellow developer outsource to you, for instance maybe he/she collected a job for 50k, the male developer especially will want to give you p-nut !

A friend of ours here wanted to outsource a design, knowing fully well he charge wella wella ! and now telling me to design each template with diff layout N3,000 for each upto 5 template, What of if you give it to a co-developer and he ask for 80% of the money you collected, is that a big deal ? since in the name of "I AM TOO BUSY"

tundewoods:

[font=trebuchet ms][color=#000099]
So many of you folks are simply scared of the word Outsourcing simply because you haven't the slightest understanding of what it entails to outsource a job or maybe you haven't gotten that life changing web contract.

Life changing contract? This is where the problem lies, people are busy chasing the life changing contracts when others are establishing very solid foundations that will stand the test of time.

Any big web project aka life changing contract cannot be relied upon because any slight change in management or IT contact is enough to make you kiss the project good bye.

Successful companies all over the world don't depend on life changing contracts, they play around with supply and demand, service delivery and after sales service.

A lot of people are actually looking for money where it is hardest to get and the few wise ones are looking for money where many don't even care to look for it.

Reality is important, dreams are good but if you dream all day you won't have the time to implement any of them.

Start today, establish credibility and integrity in all you do, be honest about your services and remain professional no matter what.

If you can do a project, do it well, if you cannot do the project be honest about it.

Sometimes, you earn the respect and trust of a client by admitting what you don't know.

Outsourcing from a business perspective is a very
smart thing to do.

However, if you are a perfectionist or you believe in
"if you want it done well, do it yourself" idea, then
outsourcing won't appeal to you.

I've executed so many projects for many of my
clients without having to do lift a finger.

DARN! I even created a youtube clone and I've never
installed a script in my life.

That is the power of outsourcing.

Great post.

Bottom line is you outsource services that you cannot handle in house as long as they make economic sense to do so.

hahah thank God Mr. tunde talked to me lol anyway i wasn't beefing actually but because u never responded to the request. i will come and check on you,

tunde ati smart,

what does this "be eni, be eko" back and forth have to do with this well-written and interest-generating thread?

If una do am again, ma sho wa ni pepper o. u go fear fear o

tundewoods:

Simply as Akin alabi has stated in his post that "Outsourcing from a business perspective is a very smart thing to do".

I wonder why Afam has decided to take the job of John the Baptist to keep screaming in the wilderness about his reality oriented sermon and cry for earing respect and trust of clients by admitting what you can't so but can outsource.

I have keenly observed that people of your mindset can't afford to outsource,too bad but folks like the rest of us can.I wonder how that seems to offend you.

1. Outsourcing makes sense in some cases and don't make sense in others. - Fact

2. I never stated that outsourcing is a bad thing. - Fact

If the 2 statements above are facts I wonder what is eating tundewoods.

Now, tundewoods, are you a contractor, web developer or web designer?

You talk big all the time but I am yet to see a personal or a business website that relates to web development.

I have seen people like you that brag and talk big but in reality remain inconsequential from year to year.

Again, I never stated that outsourcing is bad. I still maintain that it does not work in all situations. At least you should base your silly remarks on facts and not what your think is reality.

Only an idiot would outsource what he/she can do as long as it makes economic sense to do so.

Leave Afam alone and carry your cross.

did you just say SILLY? thats really absurd men, can't belive you just saying that, What is there to outsource ? it really boils down to your mindset my guy, if you like to outsource better and if you don't like don't nobody is forcing you to do it, a friend of ours here, who is a developer outsource all their design work, soon he wants to outsource .NET JOBS to me. so what a heck ? not asif he doesn't know much of it but he gat no time okay, so stick your to yourself, you really make me mad AFAM no hard feelings abeg