Heh, good luck. As a tech cofounder, I attempted to do just this and I have extensive development and management experience. It was a nightmare, EVERY SINGLE offshoring company tried to play us as a group that didn't know their stuff, and when put to the iron they couldn't produce anything that would stand up--technically--against a mild sneeze.
If I hadn't been there, my other founders would have gotten up to their eyeballs in offshore dev debt and would have a giant hairball that even the most experienced tech people would be unable or unwilling to make additional progress against once the offshore team stops delivering.
So, good luck trying to lead an offshore team that's only interested in absorbing as much money from you as possible before moving onto the next sucker. If you don't think a tech cofounder is worth their ask, then you deserve to get exactly what you pay for.
Sorry you've had those experiences, but mine have been consistently profitable and pleasant. I think a big part of that was that I asked around before I selected an offshore partner, instead of just choosing the cheapest or the first.
I'm not the GP, but I know many of the tricks to watch out for:
- Offshore partner delivers software, but you dont have any code. Successive rounds of updates become more expensive. You cant walk away because you have none of the code. (Business co-founder has no idea and goes to new partner with binaries expecting updates to be delivered, then gets told they need to start from scratch)
- Offshore partner delivers software and code, but not the code corresponding to the software. You try to switch partners, but realize you start from zero, because you dont have the code
- Offshore partner delivers software and correct code, but only for the app/UI. Only they retain code for the backend.
- Offshre partner delivers code for UI and backend, but not the right code, UI is secretly pointing to a different backend with different code
- Offshore partner delivers correct code all around, but only they have the build scripts, dependencies, and cloud images required to run it.
- Offshore partner delivers everything, but only they have the data required to start up the system. New partner spends as much time figuring things out and eventually wants to re-code the whole system.
For each of the above, business co-founder goes thru the rounds two or three times. Each time, they spend 20 or 30k and each time they walk away with binaries they cant do much with. Eventually they give up, or find a technical co-founder.
whoa. these are obvious in retrospect (they're the same ftbfs and saas tricks debian spends most of its time fighting) but i wouldn't have thought to expect them in this context. thank you
If I hadn't been there, my other founders would have gotten up to their eyeballs in offshore dev debt and would have a giant hairball that even the most experienced tech people would be unable or unwilling to make additional progress against once the offshore team stops delivering.
So, good luck trying to lead an offshore team that's only interested in absorbing as much money from you as possible before moving onto the next sucker. If you don't think a tech cofounder is worth their ask, then you deserve to get exactly what you pay for.