Outsourcing question.
 

I'm looking to outsource a project. I've never outsourced anything so I'm a relative noob at it. I posted my project on Elance and received several bids. Some were reasonable, some not so much. But the ones that have me baffled are the hourly rate bids.

How do I know they actually worked an hour on the project? Is there a check-in, check-out system in place? I don't think the project would take long so the hourly rate is the definite route...however, I'm not sure how I would track how many hours they actually worked on the project.

If anyone is an outsourcing master, thanks in advance.

what kind of project are you looking to get done? you are probably better off hiring someone known, recommended, etc...
those elance places are hit or miss, it's not uncommon to go through 10 or more services providers before finding the right one... be prepared to get jerked around for weeks...

I've had better luck on the forums - on most of the freelance sites, you are not allowed to contact the person directly and at best, you are going to exchange a few PMs

get on some of the large mainstream forums and look there (or why not here) and then get on Skype or ICQ with a number of guys and you'll get a better idea of who you are dealing with; many of the mainstream forums have iTrader system, which is a good start (not perfect, but it will help you weed out the weakest links right away)

hourly rate - stay away, unless you are looking for a VA that has to perform mixed bag of tasks; stick to per project payments and settle for milestone payments if you have to

unless you are looking for a programmer or designer, I've found out that girls do better job most of the time and tend to be more reliable - I hate to sound sexist, but it is what it is

good luck

It's a database application (web based) but the estimates I got from U.S. based companies were outrageous. I am familiar and have a working knowledge of PHP/MySQL/Javascript and have a fundamental knowledge of how long a project should take. I provide them an extremely detailed flow chart with all the logic defined.

U.S. Company 1: $10,000
U.S. Company 2: $12,000 + $3000 down
U.S. Company 3: $5000 but their portfolio was shit

Examples of bids I've received so far on Elance
Elance Bid 1: $2,500
Elance Bid 2: $1,000
Elance Bid 3: $500 and they had a great portfolio. I think the $500 was a placeholder bid
Elance Bid 4: $10 an hour and about 10 hours to complete.

Obviously the $10 an hour would work out a lot better but I'm gun shy about working with them because of the hourly wage thing.

I tried to hire people to do work for me here on GFY back in '05-'06 and got completely fucked! I'm pretty jaded on coming to the forums to post projects unless I know and trust the person since I was sent on a wild goose chase and lost a couple grand the last time I tried.

Thanks for the input, fellas. Woj, I've actually spoken to you about projects years and years ago and you know your shit.

goodluck to you :)

You get what you pay for still usually holds true.