Is it Best to Hire a Team or Partner with an Agency

Is it Best to Hire a Team or Partner with an Agency

Sean: The first one is from Vicente and from Facebook. I have a question. I just started a design agency and I have an upcoming project. It’s a design and development project which will be a few months of engagement. Is it best to hire my dev team or partner with a dev agency? And Jeff, what do you think? I want to know what you think about this?

Jeff: Well, Sean, I would always advise most of the companies that I consult with that they should always stick with their core competency and eventually outsource those that probably are on the side or do not fall under their core competence or something that is core to their business. Because different departments, especially this is a design, I would always argue with – not just with Zagana, but with the previous companies that I work with, creatives especially. It needs a different type of culture. And I think this is where a lot of companies fail because they try to integrate, you know, the right-brainers and the left-brainers in one culture, there is a saying that goes – “one size does not fit all,” so to speak. So I would say it depends if this is their core business, then you should hire and develop that team to be the best out there. But if it’s not and it’s just going to be a one-off, it’s best to eventually probably outsource to another company, or group, or agency that is highly specialized in that one, especially if it’s just a project. Because it really takes a long time to eventually develop a team and the learning curve, you just cannot rush it. And it might eventually cost them to lose that client or at least provide, you know, not a half-baked project to them just because you’re trying to subpar.

Sean: Yeah, I agree 100%. I mean, just like with what Jeff mentioned earlier, that if you have a culture that’s very creative hiring dev people might not, you know, it will disrupt the culture – 100%. And if you’re not comfortable with your culture being disrupted in a more, you know, developers are usually more rigid, more straightforward. More structured.

Sean: So that’s going to create a little bit of tension in the culture. Usually, that’s good. But if you’re if you don’t want to manage that tension yet, then maybe outsourcing would be a good option for you. It’s not to say that it doesn’t work because I have SEO-Hacker, both the web design and the web dev team under one roof, we were all in one office and they worked really well together.