Chronicling the Development of a Google AdWords Management Application – Trying to Finish

Yes, after all these months, we are still trying to finish the Google AdWords management application. Some time in late November, I decided that it was just going to take me too long to finish and stabilize the program myself. So I decided it was time to seek some help. The vehicle for finding that help is http://elance.com.

Elance.com, if you don’t know, is an online resource for finding developers, writers, and other skilled individuals for hire on a project-by-project basis. We don’t really need a full-time programmer right now, and don’t want to deal with an I.T. staffing firm, so finding an off-site resource on our own is the best option.

Using elance, is pretty easy. You just create an account and then describe what you are looking for. You can also upload documents for prospects to get more detail about the project. I think that’s a critical part of the process – making sure you have created documentation that thoroughly details what you are trying to accomplish. I spent a few weeks working on a Word document that contained specs for the project. My specs are probably not up to par with what a real developer expects, so I also created a static HTML mockup of the site. This allows potential hires to get a better idea of how the application should work, beyond trying to interpret my specs.

We have been contacted by a number of developers since posting on elance. Bids are all over the place. One of the bids is so low that we don’t believe the bidder understands what we are doing. But there are a couple of bids that are very much in the ballpark of what we were looking to spend, and those developer seem to have a good understanding of what we need. So we are very confident that we will be able to hire a quality developer within our budget (which ain’t much).

We also posted on http://craigslist.com, but did not receive much of a response to that. We did get contacted by one local developer who was between gigs. That would have been perfect, but he really didn’t have the skillset we needed.

If this project goes well, I have a feeling we will be using elance for more projects in the near future, to get things done quicker and free us from having to do them ourselves.

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