Ask HN: The build vs buy debate... should we hire a programmer?

[jckund]

Hi all, I'm currently writing up a business plan and getting feedback from various contacts I've made that are entrepreneurs or VC's... the only issue is I'm not an experienced programmer. I've been trying to teach myself (via code academy and google python), but feel as if it will take me way too long to get to the level of building a site for this company. (I'm still learning to code regardless, just speaking in terms of building my site). So I started looking for a programmer... is it worth paying a freelancer to do the work? Has anyone tried doing this before? If not, what are my other alternatives?

[linh]

You should give us a little bit more detail on what this business is. Without knowing that how in the world can we tell you if it's worth it to pay a freelancer to do the work? For all we know, you can get it up going with a wordpress website.

Also, here is an alternative: Get a technical co-founder on board, but that's hard because everyone wants a technical co-founder.

[jckund]

I don't think it's wordpress compatible... it's basically a site that matches guests at business events/receptions so they know who may have common interests, etc. Companies could then access this data and use it for an all around event hosting tool

[Egregore]

It depends on the site you're wanting to build, if the site is the at the core of your business then probably you should build it yourself, if it's just a business card then probably outsource it.

[jckund]

The website is the core of my business.