After burning $250,000 on a development agency, I decided to rebuild with a small offshore team.
It sounded simple.
Lower cost. Direct control. Faster execution.
What I didn't account for was this: I had never hired developers before. And I'm not a developer myself. That combination is dangerous.
Interviewing Without Knowing What to Look For
I lined up a lot of interviews. Front-end. Back-end. Different time zones. Different levels of experience.
I also had an "IT person" helping me. He seemed confident. He "knew" what he was doing.
He didn't.
We focused on:
- Technical jargon
- Smart-sounding answers
- CV quality
- Education background
- Years of experience
What we didn't focus on:
- Ownership
- Problem-solving under ambiguity
- Communication clarity
- Red flags in behavior
- Real-world debugging ability
Those matter more.
The First Hires
After a week of interviews, we hired one front-end and one back-end developer.
The FE looked promising. Solid. Communicative.
The BE? "Depends on the day." That's not what you want to say about your only back-end engineer.
His CV was impressive — mid-level experience, proper education, clean résumé, decent English. On paper, he was a safe bet. For a not-very-complex project, he looked perfect.
Except he wasn't.
You Can Hide in a Small Team
In a three-person company with no other back-end developer, you can hide. There's no peer reviewing you. No senior catching mistakes. No internal benchmark.
And if the founder isn't technical? You can hide even more.
That's exactly what happened.
The "Expensive" Candidate We Rejected
There was another candidate. More expensive. More confident. Technically sharper.
But my IT guy said he was overpriced. So we passed.
Here's something I learned the hard way:
Paying $1 for zero value is more expensive than paying $100 for $1,000 of value.
Cheap talent is not cheap if they don't produce. They are extremely expensive.
The Red Flags We Ignored
It took the back-end developer three weeks to set up his environment.
Three weeks.
He struggled to configure locally, identify API URLs, and navigate basic architecture. At first, I assumed complexity. Then I realized: this wasn't complexity. This was lack of competence.
What was worse? My IT advisor didn't see it as a red flag. Even when I asked directly — "Is this normal?" — the answer was always soft. Defensive. Vague.
I didn't yet trust my own instincts. I should have.
Firing for the First Time
Just before his three-month mark, I let him go. It was my first time firing someone.
I felt terrible. I questioned myself. I questioned the process. I questioned whether I had given him enough support.
But deep down, I knew: if it takes three weeks to set up your environment, you are not going to build a scalable system.
After the conversation, something surprising happened. It felt right. Relief replaced guilt. Clarity replaced doubt.
The Real Cost
We lost three months of salary, three months of opportunity, and three months of momentum.
The money hurt. The time hurt more.
In startups, momentum is everything.
What I Learned About Hiring Offshore
1. CVs Are Almost Useless
A clean résumé and solid education mean very little without execution proof. Ask: what have you built? What broke? What did you fix? What did you struggle with? Depth matters more than polish.
2. Communication Over Clever Answers
Watch for clear explanations, honest "I don't know" moments, logical reasoning, and structured thinking. Be careful with overly polished answers, buzzwords, and vague explanations. Smart-sounding is not the same as capable.
3. Environment Setup Is a Test
If someone struggles to set up locally, understand endpoints, or navigate code — that's not onboarding friction. That's signal.
4. Advisors Can Be Wrong
Just because someone works in IT doesn't mean they can evaluate talent. If you're the founder, you are responsible. Not your advisor. Not your recruiter. Not your contractor. You.
5. Instinct Is Data
When something feels off, investigate it. Don't silence it because someone more technical sounds confident. Patterns of confusion, delay, or inconsistency are not random. They're information.
The Pivot
After firing him, we had to start over. Another hiring cycle. Another set of interviews. More time lost.
But that's when I found someone unexpected — the least expensive candidate, the most junior, a sales background, an unfinished undergraduate degree.
He turned out to be the best hire I've made. That story deserves its own article.
Hiring offshore isn't the problem. Hiring without knowing what to look for is.
And in early-stage startups, the wrong hire doesn't just cost salary. It costs time. And time is the one thing you never get back.