Hey! This is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric, and I make Apps. Now today, I want to talk about 'Competing With Low-Cost Developers.'
Okay, so today I want to answer a question that came in on episode 494
from Abdennasser Bentaleb, who says" What do you think about the third-world
freelancers that will take any project for a fraction of what you charge? Do you
see them as competition or what? Because, the way I deal with them, is by
delivering as fast as possible, and being able to talk three languages as fluently,
so I can communicate better with the clients, because I know most of them are
remote locations, and the interactions are slow, and their English is broken."
remote locations and the interactions are slow and their English is broken
Abdennasser, that's a really good question. That's a really good point.
Being able to deliver fast, and being able to communicate really well, will put
you above them all the time, because your clients will begin to trust you, and if
you deliver fast, you can build up that portfolio and those testimonials. Then
you're gonna start building a little bit of credibility, and they will pay more
for your service, because they know it will get done. If you've ever hired like,
a really low-cost freelancer, the biggest problem you have in your mind is, I hope
they can do this. He has no experience no portfolio behind them. They say they can
do it, we're gonna go with that. We've done a few tests with them, make sure
they can do it. But you have that doubt right, and that's something that you're
you don't never want your clients to have. You never want your clients to
doubt you. Right, Do I see these guys as competition? The
reality is that, no I don't. I just can't. You know, they're we're doing different
things. We're dealing with with larger clients, and you know, and we have to
assure them that things are gonna get done. And a lot of times these lower cost
freelancers, not to be disparaging, it's like their first job, their
first couple of jobs. And you know, there's you know there's only so much
they can do. If you go on Upwork, I might think of low-cost freelancers. I
think about Upwork. If you go on Upwork, and do a search for Android developer,
and I've never hired an Android developer for remote work, but I've searched.
Alright if you go on there and search Android developer, you're gonna get a
list of whatever, thousands of people, and it's gonna be, you're gonna see some
people at $50 an hours, some people at $25 an hour, most at $25 an hour, I find.
And then you can see some people at $5 an hour, and maybe you know $3 an hour.
It's going to be something ridiculously low. Now if you don't know what you're doing, and
you're just like, I just I need an Android developer, and any
Android developer is as good as the next, then you're going to go on there, and you're
going to just, you're going to go to the bottom of the list. Or maybe, if you're thinking
that guy is 350 that's ridiculous but, I'm gonna go with the guy who's that
four dollars an hour, right. And you know they might be the best developer in the
world, who knows? But, yep, your perception of them is always gonna be low.
Let's say if you hired somebody for four dollars an hour as an Android developer,
and then they started working for you, and they started giving you code, even if
they were the best developer in the world, you would doubt everything they
did, because you're thinking, well there's got to be a reason he's charging so
little for it. So, you don't want to get in that situation. This may sound cruel.
It may sound rude, and I hope I don't sound offensive, but I consider
the low cost freelancers as competition in the way that a plumber considers a
hardware store to be competition. If somebody wants to. If somebody thinks, I
just need an Android developer. I want to manage the whole project myself, and code,
quality is not a big deal. Or, you know they want to hire that person, and
try to do it themselves, and they can. But they'll probably end up the same way I
do when I try to do the plumbing myself, because it's just a mess, and just leaks
everywhere, right. So I don't think it is. There are people who charge
far less than than we do, obviously, and probably you guys do too. But they're
people who charge far more. And it's like, you can't think how can we go lower, so
we catch up with those guys. It's like how do we deliver value, so we can catch
up with the other guys? How do we distinguish ourselves from them? Do our
clients come with us with the assurance that these are gonna get done?
Abdennasser, when you say we get projects done fast and communicate well, I think
that's an excellent. I think branding yourself is really good too, making sure
that people know about you. The best thing you could have happen with your
client is, when they talk to you they go this guy gets it. He gets what I'm
talking about, right. And that's, that's what I love to hear when I talk
with new clients, right. You know it seems like we could really work with you Eric.
I love that. And that's a lot of it is just working on the soft skills
communication. Keep up with the development. You could still hire some of
those low cost freelancers, but you know a software development, is such a
tricky thing. You have to make sure that they have really good skills. And not
just skills, but like problem solving. Because it's not doing
the HelloWorld program, or I read a book and do it. It's that first problem that
comes up, hey for some reason we're getting this 404 error when we connect
to this service, or something like that, right. What's the problem solving thing?
And that comes from experience and experience adds price. So those are just
my thoughts on it. I would love to hear from the rest of you guys out there. What
do you? Do you think about low-cost freelancers in third-world countries as
competition? And if you do, what do you do, to distinguish yourself? How do you set
yourself apart from them, right? Because if everything was driven by price, then
we couldn't compete, but that's why we we build up experience, and portfolios, and
you know and in this legacy behind us so that we could do that. Not just as a
software company, but as just software employees. Your CV is your most, if
you're an employer your CV is your most valuable asset going forward. But you
should also be looking at the other branding opportunities around you. Hey,
what would you guys think. That is it for today. I'll talk to you guys again
tomorrow.