I’d like to hear more detail about negotiations of pricing, things to think of when handling rights transfers, and the nitty gritty.

Webmaster forums could be a good place to start looking for coders – just make sure you don’t end up paying a lot of money up front to a cowboy who’ll either fail to complete the work, or provide you with work of a poor quality.

Smiley – I agree with you completely. If this was my first community, I certainly wouldn’t have had the budget to invest in a professional design and coding as I have done this time around.

Bape – Well, I had no choice as I cannot code! As long as you do your due diligence and don’t hand your money over without undertaking any research, you should be able to find a coder that is right for your needs and your budget.

Ramana – It’s not always overly expensive to invest in a professional design or coding, particularly if your requirements are pretty basic. It’s all about getting the balance right between what you can afford and how different you want to be.

Fringe – Using coders that you have worked with in the past is always the preferred option as you already have a relationship with them and know the quality of their work and their reliability. Unfortunately for me, I had never previously engaged the services of an EE coder.

Zane – As far as staffing goes, a brand new community rarely needs more than one person. I’ll be running the community myself until it reaches the point when I need assistance.

Vintage – Thanks for the suggestion!

Scarface – Google is your friend! Alternatively, check out SitePoint and Amazon for books – there are plenty out there.

George – Yup, I can’t wait for the launch either! Unfortunately I am ridiculously busy right now and current delays are solely down to me not having the time to give the coder final feedback. Hopefully it’ll launch sometime in June.

Ed – That’s terrible; did you undertake any due diligence before hiring the coder? I hope you didn’t lose any money.

Cody – Thanks for your good wishes. All is going great so far; I seem to have found a fantastic, professional coder.

Zohai – As you can tell from these comments alone, it is very important to do your research before engaging the services of any outside company or service.

Nicole – Well CMSs are ultimately designed so that you won’t ordinarily have to deal with any coding at all. You should choose a CMS based on functionality over anything else.

Reena – Glad you enjoyed the article.

Emailing past clients of the coder is genius. I wish i thought of that before i gave the go ahead.

Thanks for that great tip.

Cody