This post is a continuation of The Indie Infrastructure, a series for those thinking about “going indie” or still getting their bearings once casting off from salaried shores.

• The Indie Infrastructure #1: Game Engines
• The Indie Infrastructure #2: e-commerce
  

Say you are a lone wolf and you want your company to grow, what do you have to keep in mind?

Do you want to hire salaried employees, hourly employees or contractors?  Full-time salaried employees provide stability and are probably best if you expect to mentor them at all.  Contractors provide flexibility — you only pay them when you need them, but they are often more expensive and they may not be there for you when you need them.

If you are thinking about hiring full-time employees, keep these things in mind:

Overhead: The cost of an employee can be from 10-100% greater than their salary.  In my experience, if you aren’t offering health care or other benefits, it’s around 25%.  You will have to pay Social Security and unemployment, you will have payroll expenses, you need insurance (workers comp and such) and you are likely to have more office-related expenses.  Health care can make the cost of having employees go through the roof.

Management: Even the best employees will increase management time.  You will also likely spend more time working to keep your employees motivated and happy.  My development time typically goes down by 25% when I am managing full-time employees rather than contractors.

Professionalism: You will probably want to maintain some semblance of professionalism once you have employees – you will find that once you are spending YOUR MONEY to pay other people, you become very aware of how productive they are.  You will have to decide how much you want your workplace to look like the one you left to go indie.  How many sick days do your employees have?  How strict will you be about counting them?  What is the process for delegating work and what do you do when your employee over or underperforms?  How much of a personal relationship do you want to have with these people?

The two questions you  have to ask yourself:

1. Can I afford employees?
2. Do I need employees to accomplish my goals as a business?

If you answer ‘yes’ to both of these, you owe it to yourself to getting your ducks in a row with regards to payroll, contracts, and HR standards.

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