Ask HN: Can you help me improve this Hybrid Development offering?

My name is Arpan, I run a mobile & web development studio based in India.

Earlier I have asked about "What are your views on India based development agencies?"

Based on feedback & sessions with other project owners, I have concluded following:

- Startups/ Individuals always prefer to work with someone local, but they come with a cost

- Working with outsourcing companies is cheap but posses a huge risk of product quality and other business risks

- Local developer means working face to face & have whiteboard conversations for product - that’s a huge plus

- Having someone local is huge plus, as they understand context of problems very quickly

- Scaling up & scaling down tech team is very difficult

- Working with Tech Interns posses huge risk as well

- Outsourcing teams can scale up & scale down quickly

- Given a proper direction and code reviews outsourcing teams can deliver much much faster

We are trying to reduce the cost of rapid development with below Hybrid model.

- 40 Hours of CTO or Project Manager (120 to 150 USD/ hour)

- 160 x 2 Hours of Frontend Developer / Mobile Developer / Backend Developer (20 to 40 USD /hour)

- 60 Hours of QA or Documentation for Sanity (20 to 40 USD / hour)

I am writing this to receive your thoughts on Hybrid Model we are experimenting this as our new offering.

  • I think Indian software shops have done best when they've been disciplined about process, possibly taking advantage of a lower cost of living by hiring more people. Hopefully you avoid enough bungling this way to pay for the extra help!

    The idea of recognizing management, dev, and QA work and baking that into your contract makes sense.