Are there any taxes in the USA for outsourcing software projects?

Here are some options: ___Free Options___ 1) Make apps without needing to spend a lot of time learning to code. Look into "MIT App Inventor" (http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/). It's a very _easy_ way to make pretty complex apps using drag and drop coding. You can find youtube tutorials that will show you how to make your first app within 5 minutes. I've used MIT App Inventor to make prototype apps for many of my ideas, saving me tens of thousands of dollars if I paid a dev to do it instead. Learn to do "real" coding yourself. The main investment will be your time. There are plenty of free resources for learning coding on the web. I'd suggest learning "React Native", it's a relatively new way to code apps, which allows you to make one app that will run on both Android and iOS. 2) Find a software engineer cofounder. Go to Meetups, conferences, local hackerspaces / makerspaces. Hang out on relevant online forums (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/ make sure to read their rules for posting before posting though). It won't be easy to find a tech cofounder, your idea will need to be amazing, and you yourself will need to be very passionate and capable in order to convince someone to partner up with you for sweat equity. ___Paid options___ 1) Use developers with less established reputations / portfolios (lower cost, higher risk) Be very wary of freelancers on sites like Upwork, Fiverr, etc. Here are some basic hiring rules: In your hiring script, make sure to ask for all applicants to give their account name for github/bitbucket and Trello. Don't hire agencies, only hire individuals. To get hired, ask them to do a simple task via Trello and submit the code via github/bitbucket. This task should only take them maybe 1 hour. Check the quality of what the applicants and if they deliver it in a timely manner. Keep the 1 or 2 people that do a good job. If you don't do this vetting these "low cost" developers may end up costing a lot in the longer run. 2) Use developers with more established reputations / portfolios (higher cost, lower risk) With this option your app will probably cost > $20k to develop, but it can be worth it if you have a single idea that you know you want to move forward with. I can introduce you to a very high quality developer in NY if you're at this stage. Let me know if you'd like any additional help more tailored to your specific app ideas, best, Lee

Create an ideal customer profile. Create some questions that will allow to you survey a potential tester to determine if they fit your profile. Design simple landing page with very clear value proposition that speaks to your ideal customer. Ask for a minimum of information up-front (email), but ask for more info after they commit by submitting the first piece of info. (KISSmetrics does a good job of this on their current website trial signup). Use the their answers to these profiling questions to put the applicants into buckets. Let in the most ideal bucket first, or split them into groups if they're big enough. Try and measure engagement the best you can. Measure qualitative and quantitative data. Schedule calls with your beta testers to find out more, especially with the ones who's user behavior seemed to indicate that they didn't get value from your product. Find out why. Make sure they are indeed your ideal customer. Pick up the phone and get to know your customers inside and out. Meet them in person if possible. Incorporate their feedback quickly and get more feedback. Rinse repeat.

Your skills would be most useful if you were starting your own startup and needed to make an early prototype to show to investors or potential cofounder developers. Your experience in debugging, testing, and agile, could help you get a job as a product manager, and the fact that you have a background in some sort of 'coding' will help too. It's very unlikely that it would help you get an actual dev job though, since you wouldn't be able to translate your programs into actual code that could be taken over/continued by other devs. Even if the programs you mentioned do allow you to export as code, it's unlikely that it would be exported in a way that's very usable by other devs.

It depends a lot of in the skill sets and experience of both people but in most cases the ux designer should be controlling the developer pretty heavily in order to make sure his ideas come through properly. The UX designer may just need to work on his approach so people don't feel bossed around and more like they are working together. In an ideal world, there would be a project manager who makes sure everything is communicated well and keeps the dynamic feeling great.

You should try to engage people using social networks, it is easier to spread than email. The conversion rate on emails are low but is still a valid tool for that. Send and email with a simple and objective message that will make people want to try. The best way to have feedback from users is to watch them use the app. You should put them on the hands of everybody that you can and without any instrucions and just watch, don´t even say that the app is yours. Try to do it a lot. If you want feedback from others, you can include the feedback form inside the app and suggest users to answer occasionally. I would also strongly recommend to use a tool as Flurry Analytics. Is the best way to get data from how is the use of the application. Pay attention to those data and be open to change your app a lot, you may need more features or cut some off to make it easier to use. If you need more help please contact me.