My question back to you is: what do you think it was about your solicitation process that failed to generate any good bids?

2. Companies who care about all you described, but they are fighting with companies from point 1. Unfortunately if they will bid double the price for example, even if they are trustful, even if they code well, even all requirements are OK, customer will choose company from point 1. Of course this is in 90% of case, not 100%.
The problem is that companies from point 2 after 10-20 bids on freelancers site will try to lower the bid, go lower, go lower and finally will lose probably quality.
This is happening in most cases.
I can say that we are a case study for this … We bided a price for a project recently, then we talked with customer and we find that our timeline is double (2 months instead 1) and price is almost double. Customer of course choose company 1 but I convinced to keep me as consultant. After 3 month the job is not done, they still code messy, they still are on half of the project etc. Now client want to switch to us, but we cannot continue from company 1 work and he spent time and money.

So my final statement, only companies are responsible for this situation or customers as well, to get a cheap job. How can I know from a bid on an Elance site if that customer want or not quality when I bid?

Thank you for your time.
Valics Lehel

You said: “Now client want to switch to us, but we cannot continue from company 1 work and he spent time and money.”

My question is this: If they want to switch to your company, why can’t you “continue from company 1 work.” Assuming that the client is someone you really want to work with, it may be worth your effort to continue on from the existing code-base and simply refactor where necessary and as time allows.

Developers who are willing and able to take on existing projects with messy code and can preserve what the client’s initial investment are a valuable find.

I especially associated with the statement, “these firms acted like vendors instead of strategic advisors”.

When I first meet with a prospect I always try to offer a new way of looking at the problem and suggest other possible solutions before I even submit the proposal. The proposal is where all the details of the project should be known and shown. It’s crazy to hear that these other firms, bidding on a six figure job, would be so lax.

When you say, “We interviewed a bunch of web development firms”, did you submit an RFP? Do you think this would have helped the development companies have a clearer picture of your needs?

The solicitation process we used was fine, and the web developers that made it to the final cut are all good firms. The bullet point issues raised are an amalgam of what we experienced from the various firms, such that each bullet does not apply to each firm.

Put another way, any of the firms could have done the work at a price that fell within our six-figure budget. However, none of them instilled us with the confidence and sense of leadership/trust that we needed to see to invest in a relationship with them. The bullets listed in the blog are some of the reasons why. Without that intangible ingredient, we figured we would rather do the work of subcontracting talent on our own.

For me the key takeaway for web developers is: How can you do what you need to do to establish trust and credibility with your prospects, so that they view you as a potential partner and strategic relationship in the work — not just another vendor?

And to the other points about price: We’re more than willing to pay for good work. Having said that, we know that there is not a straight line relationship between price and quality. Some web developers are excellent but suffer from “pricing low self-esteem.” Those are the people any smart enterpreneur wants to find and keep happy. (Although if you fall into that category, you probably want to find a way to raise your “self-esteem” so that you price in line with comparable firms).

I spend much more time buying then selling, since I am essentially a clearinghouse for technology services, and sub-contract jobs for a group of clients on an ongoing basis. So, while I am working to improve my new-business skills, I spend most of the time identifying vendors and placing jobs. For me, taking all of the management in-house is not an option, since we outsource so much work.

It seems that if you are convinced that none of the vendors were up to your standards, perhaps your buying process is in question.

To me, your report of your buying experience makes you sound like a fairly difficult client, in some ways.

A six-figure client is great, but what’s better is a client who doesn’t expect a single vendor to be everything they have ever wanted, and doesn’t think they know better then every single vendor who bid on the job is even better.

If you have the skills to manage the project, why woudn’t you do that in the first place? To me, a client who thinks they could do it better themselves is probably not going to be fun. Also, it’s inconsistent with your stated desire to find a firm who would act as a strategic advisor, since you clearly think that don’t require those skills in the first place.

That said, it’s always possible you were just dealing with a bad batch of candidates. Sample error.

Just my 2c.
Good luck!

First, great reply! You are right that we are difficult clients, and probably aren’t much fun until people deliver (although we are respectful, professional, and collegial). After all, we are investing our own money, along with angels’ money, and building an enterprise that we want to be worth millions. So I believe that we have every right to be difficult; this is business and our reputation is on the line.

That said, please understand that we are not looking for someone who can do it all, and we certainly did not come to the table with the attitude that we could do it better than the vendors we selected to interview. We were well aware of their talents, and were open and honest about what we thought they could bring to the table that we couldn’t.

It was the intangibles that were missing: professionalism in the quality of the proposal and approach to dialogue; thought leadership in being able to switch perspectives between technology, business requirements, and strategy; and the overall ability to inspire our confidence and desire to have a long term relationship with any of the vendors we interviewed (not to mention confidence that the vendors would be around long term to support us).

The sample of web developers we chose was fine, and representative. I’ve interviewed and hired (and fired) dozens of IT professionals over the past decade. My expectations are very high. And at the same time I notice that something is often missing from the too many IT professionals: ability to think about a complete business solution (vs. technical solution); a certain leadership ability; and in many cases (sad but true) basic professionalism.

Maybe I’m being too tough. Maybe some of you want to believe what one consultant calls “beautiful lies” about your industry and own company rather than the “ugly truth.” The research on customer satisfaction in most IT professions supports my experience.

Sorry to be confrontational and maybe even defensive…Hopefully someone is reading this and taking it as constructive (if tough) advice that can improve the level of service out there in the industry, rather than anything else.

Traveling through Monday; have a good weekend!

That having been said, if your went into your solicitation process hoping to find a company to service you and you failed to find anyone that met your requirements, then one of two things had to have happened:

1) no adequate candidates exist anywhere
2) they exist, but your process failed to attract them

Occam’s Razor suggests that 2 is more likely; so why did your process fail to attract the sort of candidates you wanted? I realize wasn’t the focus of the article, but I think it’s an equally important question.