I'm not the GP, but I know many of the tricks to watch out for:
- Offshore partner delivers software, but you dont have any code. Successive rounds of updates become more expensive. You cant walk away because you have none of the code. (Business co-founder has no idea and goes to new partner with binaries expecting updates to be delivered, then gets told they need to start from scratch)
- Offshore partner delivers software and code, but not the code corresponding to the software. You try to switch partners, but realize you start from zero, because you dont have the code
- Offshore partner delivers software and correct code, but only for the app/UI. Only they retain code for the backend.
- Offshre partner delivers code for UI and backend, but not the right code, UI is secretly pointing to a different backend with different code
- Offshore partner delivers correct code all around, but only they have the build scripts, dependencies, and cloud images required to run it.
- Offshore partner delivers everything, but only they have the data required to start up the system. New partner spends as much time figuring things out and eventually wants to re-code the whole system.
For each of the above, business co-founder goes thru the rounds two or three times. Each time, they spend 20 or 30k and each time they walk away with binaries they cant do much with. Eventually they give up, or find a technical co-founder.
whoa. these are obvious in retrospect (they're the same ftbfs and saas tricks debian spends most of its time fighting) but i wouldn't have thought to expect them in this context. thank you
- Offshore partner delivers software, but you dont have any code. Successive rounds of updates become more expensive. You cant walk away because you have none of the code. (Business co-founder has no idea and goes to new partner with binaries expecting updates to be delivered, then gets told they need to start from scratch)
- Offshore partner delivers software and code, but not the code corresponding to the software. You try to switch partners, but realize you start from zero, because you dont have the code
- Offshore partner delivers software and correct code, but only for the app/UI. Only they retain code for the backend.
- Offshre partner delivers code for UI and backend, but not the right code, UI is secretly pointing to a different backend with different code
- Offshore partner delivers correct code all around, but only they have the build scripts, dependencies, and cloud images required to run it.
- Offshore partner delivers everything, but only they have the data required to start up the system. New partner spends as much time figuring things out and eventually wants to re-code the whole system.
For each of the above, business co-founder goes thru the rounds two or three times. Each time, they spend 20 or 30k and each time they walk away with binaries they cant do much with. Eventually they give up, or find a technical co-founder.