I've been asking this question myself for the past few months. Is it better to hire people to design/develop your website or should you learn how to do it yourself. Let me tell you my experience: I usually write down ideas of unique and original websites that could have potential to earn some decent money. Problem is, i don't have money to hire programmers, nor do i have the necessary programming knowledge. So because i have no money, i decided to make money on the internet by creating websites with CMS' (Wordpress, Joomla ...) so i can afford hiring a programmer. Now i learned all about SEO and i tried getting ranked for a few websites. I got a few websites ranked for some semi-competitive keywords and i learned that i hate Google. I don't like being dependant from Google. One day my websites are ranked on page 1, the other day they're on page 20or worse. I simply hate this system. Anyway, enough of my rant. So now i'm back to my original question: Should i learn programming or hire programmers. Keep in mind that i want to do everything as fast as possible. I feel like it'll take years before i'm capable of developing a good website and i don't want to waste years learning. So what do you think?
Well, it used to be more profitable to learn programming yourself. These days people from India (I'm not racist, this is fact), have completely ruined online freelancing because they work for less then USA minimum wage, and do a bad job. I guess it all depends on how much your time is worth, but hiring a programming isn't as expensive as it used to be.
Keep in mind that i want to do everything as fast as possible. I feel like it'll take years before i'm capable of developing a good website and i don't want to waste years learning. This is not right. 6 months hard work and you'll be better than most of the other developers if you are smart enough. In other hand one person can't do everything and must learn to work with, hire and lead people. I was a programmer(with degree, regular job, etc) before starting with SEO and I do all my coding work myself. But I have the same dilemma with design and writing. I prefer to do everything myself to get the knowledge and plan a serious business. I need to learn English fluently (blogging helps), design, working with clients, marketing and so on. I want to start something big after some time.
Yes, that's exactly what i want to do, start something big. But i really don't know whether to learn it myself, or hire someone...I really need to think this through. I don't mind spending every minute of the day working, as long as i'm working on the right thing. Right know, i don't know what the right thing is. And i really doubt i can learn a programming language to a professional degree in 6 months
I have replied to others on how hard Joomla is to learn. You will be ahead of the pack if you learn it yourself. I am confident it will not take you six months to learn it. Here is a page where I explained to theplastickid that Joomla is about as hard to learn as the Microsoft program excel : LINK If you want to begin, here is the place : LINK They provide the demo online so you can log in and test out Joomla without having to learn how to install it. If you have a good webhost, you can use Fantastico to install Joomla on your account with a few clicks. Good luck on your site.
I think you being the only programmer at work I receive many inquiries into how people. For me, it's more important to hire someone who is willing to learn.
Then let me tell you a little "secret" - the net is turning mobile. That is people will hardly be using computers anymore to access the web in a few years - at least those with money wont be - Build a site around that idea. Think beyond "twitter".
according to me hiring is the best way to getting your development work done in a good way given that the offshore software development company must ensure you with the quality of work. sometimes you get unexpected good result from such development activity within ur time bound and with economical packages.
Id say teach yourself a little of everything. A little Photoshop, a little CSS/HTML, a little Illustrator, a little mySQL management, a little this a little that. That way you have way more options. NOT a lot. Pick up the basics of what you need to run a site, then focus on a few major things such as Design+SEO. Read some tutorials. Photoshop tutorials, CSS tutorials, its a quick and relatively easy way to learn some new stuff. If you dont want to hire, try to find a partner. You guys can work together, your partner does coding, you do design. Split the profits
Personally I think that it's better to do it by yourself: no spending money and you're sure what is done. But learn only if you like that job, if you plan to do more projects. Otherwise it's non-sense.