the problem with outsourcing your code, is that you are one of the dozen other projects the person is working on.
I went through 3 companies(2 companies, 1 freelancer), each promising to be done in 30 days, and each only getting about 10-20% finished after 6 months.
And this was for a project, where they weren't getting paid until they finished(well, one weaseled out a small deposit out of me), so they had every incentive to work quickly.
Better to pick up the stuff yourself. It's really not that hard...and when you learn the stuff, you'll be done much quicker, since you'll be able to work 100% on your project.
Which tells me that you where dealing with amateurs. Good developers don't take fixed bid contracts, they don't need to. Sounds like to me you got some guys who gave it a shot sunk 10% and saw that it was bigger than they could estimate given there level of expertise and abandoned the project. They may have not notified you that they abandoned it but the most likely did. You see a fixed bid contract basically says to a developer, I want all of the upside with none of the risk, and I want to limit your upside. Most good developers avoid such an argument due to the scope creep nature of software development. It instantly shackles them into a bad arraignment. The only other profession that does this is real estate, sales and lawyers and they get a % cut of the sale or settlement. The only way I would sign such a contract, as a professional, would be the same arrangement % of profit. You where assuredly dealing with amateurs.
I went through 3 companies(2 companies, 1 freelancer), each promising to be done in 30 days, and each only getting about 10-20% finished after 6 months.
And this was for a project, where they weren't getting paid until they finished(well, one weaseled out a small deposit out of me), so they had every incentive to work quickly.
Better to pick up the stuff yourself. It's really not that hard...and when you learn the stuff, you'll be done much quicker, since you'll be able to work 100% on your project.