Growth Hacker

Brilliant programmers are working 24/7 on the planet. If you have a real business you can pay a pittance to get yourself out of almost any technology backlog, jam-up, or snafu, without your existing tech team in the office. Of course this doesn’t work in all cases, but increasingly it’s becoming true for most programming work.

There are a few factors at play here which have lowered the bar to make it possible for you to get your project done for less money and time while still maintaining a high standard of quality.

1. Agile Software Development

This covers a bunch of practices which make software development a lot faster. Say goodbye to the 100 page product spec.

Do you realize that programmers are now able to write stories instead of actual code when programming in Ruby on Rails? If there’s a problem in the story they can change course immediately.

2. Open Source Goodness

So many applications can be installed with just a little knowledge. Take this blog for example. It runs on WordPress which requires a database. Now I’m not a programmer, but I installed WordPress, setup the database, and tweaked out the blog.

There are a lot more more open source applications which can be installed just as easily. If an open source solution exists for what you want to build, don’t reinvent the wheel and give the open source solution a shot. I’m launching a Digg style site for online marketing news which is based on an open source content management system. It will cost me $0 to see if I can gain traction.

3. Cost of Programming

A good programmer in San Francisco might make at least $10,000 a month.

A really good programmer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia makes $1,000 a month or less.

See the difference?

It’s not just India anymore. You can find good programmers in China, Thailand, Malaysia, etc.

There are no more excuses!