My Tips For Finding the Right People to Build Your Next Great Idea
I have turned to every country and continent known for outsourcing talent. In Asia-China, Vietnam and India. In Latin America, Argentina and Colombia. Foreign outsourcing always seems like a great idea, right? Everyone says, “Oh, hire a bunch of smart people in another country for half the price!” But in reality, the challenges that working with offshore talent pose doesn’t make it quite that simple.
Throughout my career, several of my attempts to build an offshore development team ended up in failure. Despite having a similar level of education, when people come from different backgrounds there will inevitably be major cultural impediments. This may show up in terms of opposing work ethic or simply not understanding what conducting business in the #1 economy in the world entails. The language barrier is certainly one obstacle but the cultural challenges of working with foreigners is a completely different aspect that has to be considered.
The experience of building JoonBug from the ground up during my days as a nightlife impresario and before the days of EventBrite and social media provided valuable tools and lessons that have come in handy in all areas of my life.
It’s not that some of the best ideas don’t happen over a few drinks at 2am. Sometimes they do. But what’s unique is the experiences that happen in the places and with the people that associate with the 2am timeframe that produce the best ideas. Nightlife (a place shrouded in mystery) often propels some of the more interesting characters in entrepreneurship into not only stardom but great wealth. Though it’s not necessarily nightlife where that stardom and wealth happens; Sometimes nightlife is just the stepping stone. For me many of my greatest life and business lessons spawned from my experiences in nightlife.
Let’s go back to just around September 11, 2001; a time when many New Yorkers and Americans were not only recovering from a national tragedy, but where businesses and workers were also struggling. The tech bubble had burst and I was out of work after a failed tech startup I had founded went bust.
