In consumer software, we’ve found that it’s critical the User Interface (UI) aligns with your core demographic’s expectations. And to build a UI that does that successfully, we’ve also found you need to have a solid cultural reference and operation from a set of assumptions that align with your population. There are strong implications for function, color, space and language that are extremely important. That points to using US based technical development staff - either employees or consultants. We tried using offshore resources for UI based development in the past, and frankly it was a disaster. It’s not that the offshore team didn’t deliver a high quality product, it’s just that the UI didn’t resonate from a US user standpoint. So, you bite the bullet and use onshore, despite the dramatic cost difference (4-5x). You can however, use offshore for backend functionality successfully. In VC terms that means we’ve been “capital efficient”, but from where I sit, it just means we can our software done. I was told once that for a software company to outsource its soul is wrong. To some extent I agree, but I think you have to do what it takes to get it done, otherwise the soul withers and carries no value. I would also suggest that as coding begins to hit commodity status, it’s possible to get what you need and want if you know your business and technology well. However you feel, for us right now it’s all about the appropriate application of capital at the most minute level.

Originally published on WordPress on January 07, 2007. Migrated to this blog on May 29, 2025.