Edgy Developments

While developing TriggerFood, I’ve been doing a decent job with software development and system administration, but have had a harder time getting up to speed with web design. I’ve heard that when developing web applications, one must recognize one’s strengths and weaknesses, and seek professionals for those rough spots. Plus, I only have so much time, so it helps to offload some of the work. So a few weeks ago I signed up on elance.com, and used the service to procure the services of a talented web designer. It was a great experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone seeking to outsource portions of their projects.

I think the key to having a good experience with hiring a freelancer is coming up with a very well specified task, so that it’s clear on both ends what’s supposed to be done. Clear task descriptions are also likely to attract more (and perhaps better) bids, since a vague description is a good indicator that the person outsourcing the job doesn’t know what they want.

As a first time user of Elance, I also really appreciated the escrow, milestones and private message board features. These all go a long way toward making a first time user feel safe using the system.

See the snazzy result at www.triggerfood.com.