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I successfully launched multiple tech products by hiring freelancers, AMA about hiring the right freelancers.

If you are a technical or non-technical entrepreneur and willing to hire a freelancer to build your tech-based startup, and you need advice on how to make sure that everything goes the right way about hiring the right freelancer, what kind of agreement, how to follow up, or anything else you have in mind, feel free to ask me and I will respond based on my multi-year practical experience.

I am writing a definitive guide about how to successfully get a freelancing team to deliver a fully working MVP and avoid all the challenges that usually appear when working with freelancers vs agencies

If you want the guide once its ready, make sure to follow me on Twitter, DM me on twitter about any questions you have
https://twitter.com/Belal_M_Amin

  1. 2

    I'm on the other side. I am a Freelancer and always wonder how to put myself out there to find interesting projects.

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      A great resource for ideas is microsaasidea.com - a newsletter with validated product ideas by @upenv

      1. 1

        thanks for the link it's really helpful

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    Hi & thanks for this. I have been thinking about doing this but I have been busy focusing on building the capital up first through other means & getting experience with other iterations.

    How much work did you have to do yourself e.g write a Software Requirements Specification?

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      Very good question, actually it is one of the most consuming tasks that I have to make when I work with a freelancer. That is exactly why I am building this definitive guide which will include rich and detailed documents and templates to guide non-technical founders on the best ways to get something such as the SRS ready.

      It can take me up to a week full-time to make sure that something like the SRS is ready, however, it can also take just a couple of days depending on the system I am considering and how clear the solution is.

      In addition, it is very useful sometimes to have a template, since some functional and non-functional requirements can be quite similar in most systems.

      The thing is that, in the case you are writing an SRS for an MVP to be developed by a freelancer, you have to be very very clear about some parts, but not that clear about other parts of the system.

      However, the main issue is that, if something is unclear, and the freelancer didn't get it right, disputes start to appear, and if not handled properly, you might end up closing the contract in the middle of the way which can lead to losing time at best, and money/code-base at worst.

      It is very useful to have a friend reading your SRS and tell you what they understand, and even better to hire a specialist who can take just an hour or two, to read your SRS and guide you on what is not clear and what is missing out.

      But always, try to find a good template, similar to the one that I will make available soon once my guide is fully documented. you can follow me here https://twitter.com/Belal_M_Amin to get notified once it's ready.

      Please feel free to DM me any-time and ask me and I will try to help as much as I can.

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    Hey! How did you market the products? I am building https://rolade.io/ (currently at $350 MRR and I am looking for marketing opportunities.

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      Hi, I really like your product idea. marketing can differ from one product to another, but as I see, you have a marketplace, which is the hardest thing you can do.

      what is the goal of the marketing you want to perform? is it for the supply side or the demand side?

      If I were you, I would put some effort into content marketing strategies where I build awareness on the demand side about the benefits and the capabilities of the no-code platform, examples of products built with it, and how fast can it get u up and running.

      I believe that would attract enough non-technical founders to consider no code, hence, hire a nocode from your platform.

      please let me know if you need more context or have any questions. I believe your idea is very interesting and has real potential. I would love to help if I can

  4. 2

    Bookmarked for future needs and followed on twitter. Thanks!

    1. 1

      you are always welcome, don't hesitate to reach out and ask anything. I am working on an ultimate guide regarding this topic, when it is published, I will let you know.

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    I'm also providing freelancing services and also building SaaS from scratch, Based on Laravel and Aws. Thanks for sharing your experience.

  6. 1
    1. What are the most interesting / profitable / fun products you've built?
    2. How many have you built in total?
    3. How long does it take you to launch on average?
    4. What kind of profitability expectations do you have in mind when building them?
    5. Do you use specific platforms, like Codeable for WordPress?
    1. 1

      1- is called Aladdin, a mobile-based two-sided marketplace that connects small shops to customers. we received over 8 million EGP worth of customer requests within three months on a zero budget and over 5000 users.

      2- 3 for myself, and around 3 or 4 for customers - I owned a software development company

      3- on average, two months, but this can vary widely based on the team, complexity, and goal

      4- sometimes really big, sometimes nothing at all.

      5- I used Wordpress and Webflow for landing pages, the rest I did from scratch.

  7. 1

    Cool article, I liked it.

  8. 1

    Hiring freelance writers expensive? Will it be a good idea to hire a freelance writer to create affiliate blogs?

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      My company did that and the price we paid was ranging from $.07-.10 per word, meaning that a pillar landing page is about $300, sub pillar $200 and blog posts at $50-70.

      They were also native English speakers. But IMO, you should consider using AI tools, just make sure to use a few prompts ahead of writing to set the tone and writing style and you can create huge amounts of content almost free of charge.

    2. 2

      I don't have experience hiring freelance writers. However, I do run a content website, elfehres.com where we regularly publish, and I can tell from my experience managing that product that the content industry is expensive, especially if you are looking to hire someone who is really good at what they do.

      If I were you, I would think like this, I would set a budget, let's say 100 USD, and test how much progress/traffic will it bring to my affiliate blog, based on that, I will try to predict if the benefits are bigger than the cost, in that case, I would hire someone, otherwise, it doesn't make sense.

      I would also argue that if your affiliate blog is in English, hiring a freelance writer can get a bit cheaper especially for an affiliate blog assuming that you are targeting general things and not very technical topics. The drop in pricing is due to the extensive amount of free tools that now help writers write better.

      For the same reason, I would say that writing in English now has never become easier, and you can easily generate more content on your own in less time using tools like openAI chatGPT, notions AI assistant, copy.ai or Writesonic,...etc.

      However, if you are going to hire a freelance writer, you need to have an idea of how will you evaluate the content, usually, it is done by deciding a specific number of words, but nowadays, where more words can be easily generated using AI tools, yet not very original, than makes your content less original and probably less rankable, so the challenge, in my opinion, is in defining the metric.

      I have a question, are you a writer or a content creator yourself?

      if you have more questions please don't hesitate to ask me, or DM me on Twitter https://twitter.com/Belal_M_Amin

  9. 1

    would you ever consider paying for something like this 👉 https://www.invocationx.com

    basically unlimited design & development for a fixed monthly rate. 😅

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      The service offering sounds too generous to be real. I would be rather skeptical and would probably be afraid to try. Mainly, I am concerned about delays and timelines.
      For example, you say unlimited requests, but I didn't quickly understand how long would I need to wait between each request until the previous one is actually completed, how long does this cycle take. what if it is too slow for example?

      I think if there is more information about what happens in detail, I would trust the offering more.

      I hope that my feedback was helpful

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        that was very helpful. 😄

        thanks man 🍻, I will update the landing page with more details.

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          you are welcome, feel free to DM me if u have questions in the future, good luck

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    Are you hiring any freelancers right now? I'm a developer and UI designer, and I've sort of been looking for work.

    Would it be cool if I reached out and maybe we get on a call or something?

    1. 1

      Hi Jojo, Unfortunately I am not hiring at the moment. I hope you will find an excellent opportunity soon bro.

      1. 2

        Alright thats okay, no problem man

  11. 0

    Hi, I really like your product idea. marketing can differ from one product to another, but as I see, you have a marketplace, which is the hardest thing you can do.

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