It was supposed to be a growth moment. I’d been doing everything myself for 2 years – coding, marketing, support, everything. I was exhausted. So I hired my first contractor to help with development.
Three months later, I nearly lost my business.
The Dream
I’ve got a promising SaaS. 200 paying customers, growing 15% month-over-month. But I was the bottleneck. I couldn’t code faster and serve customers better at the same time. So I hired “Alex” – a full-stack developer with amazing credentials and a portfolio that impressed me.
The Nightmare
Month 1: Everything seemed fine. Alex delivered what I asked for, though the code quality was… questionable. But I was too busy to review carefully.
Month 2: Red flags everywhere. Features that should take a week took a month. Bugs I could have fixed in hours took days. But I’d already paid $15,000 in advance. Sunk cost fallacy kicked in hard.
Month 3: The collapse. The codebase was spaghetti. Dependencies were broken. When I tried to roll back, I realized Alex had made changes I didn’t approve. My clean architecture was gone. My 200 customers started leaving.
What I Learned
1. Credentials lie. Portfolio != performance. Alex’s previous work was team efforts. Alone, they were average at best.
2. Paid hourly is dangerous. When someone is paid by the hour, they have zero incentive to be efficient. I was paying for time, not results.
3. I should have scoped smaller. Instead of handing over the entire codebase, I should have started with one small feature. Test before trusting.
4. Code reviews are non-negotiable. Every line of code should be reviewed. I didn’t have a process, and it cost me.
The Recovery
It took 4 months to recover. I had to rebuild the entire feature from scratch, apologize to customers, and rebuild trust. But I learned something invaluable.
Hiring isn’t about finding someone to do the work. It’s about finding someone you can trust with your business. And trust takes time to build.
My New Hiring Rules
1. Start with a paid trial (not free, not full-time)
2. Pay for results, not hours
3. Code reviews are mandatory, always
4. Small scopes first, expand slowly
5. If something feels off, trust your gut
Now I hire differently. And I’ve never had a disaster since.
